HeyGen vs Creatify: avatar API, ad tools and pricing
HeyGen's API centers on avatars, voice and translation, paid with pay-as-you-go credits. Creatify's centers on video ads, sold as monthly API plans.
HeyGen and Creatify both make AI avatar videos by API, but they are built around different jobs. HeyGen's developer docs center on avatars, voice and translation: digital twins, photo avatars, lip-sync dubbing and a live avatar. Creatify's API docs center on marketing ads: product URL to video ad, ad cloning and ready-made personas. They also sell the API differently: HeyGen as pay-as-you-go credits in US dollars, Creatify as monthly API plans.
Everything below comes from each vendor's own pages, read on 2026-09-28 and linked in each caption. Neither is ranked; check the linked pages before you buy.
How do HeyGen and Creatify compare?
| Topic | HeyGen | Creatify |
|---|---|---|
| What the API is built for | Avatars, voice cloning, lip-sync translation and agentic video workflows | Marketing videos: product URLs to video ads, AI avatar videos and more |
| How the API is sold | Pay-as-you-go API credits in USD, open to any user and separate from HeyGen subscriptions | An API subscription: API Starter $99 a month for 500 credits, API Pro $299 a month for 2,000, Enterprise by contact |
| Avatar video price unit | Per minute by avatar engine and type, charged by actual seconds generated: $0.60 to $7.20 per minute | AI Avatar 5 credits per 30 seconds; Aurora 1 credit per second, or 0.5 with aurora_v1_fast |
| Stock presenters | Browse avatar looks and pass the look id as avatar_id | 1500+ personas, passed as creator |
| Custom avatar | Digital twin from 15 to 600 seconds of footage; via API only for Enterprise API users. Photo avatar from one image, $1.32 per call | Custom avatar from a lipsync training MP4, reviewed before use; not charged in credits |
| Your own audio | audio_url instead of script on POST /v3/videos, up to 30 minutes per request | audio instead of text on AI Avatar; Aurora takes a photo plus up to 5 minutes of mp3 or wav |
| Beyond avatar video | Video translation with lip sync across 30+ languages; LiveAvatar, a separate API for real-time conversational avatars | Ad Clone from a reference ad, IAB banner images, playable HTML ads |
Which one should I pick?
- Pick HeyGen if you need a digital twin of a real person (through the API on Enterprise), translation and dubbing of existing footage, long videos from your own audio, or the LiveAvatar real-time API, and you want to pay per use without a subscription.
- Pick Creatify if your input is a product page or a reference ad, your output is video or banner ads, and a fixed monthly credit plan suits your volume.
- Both fit if you only need a stock presenter reading a script: compare the per-minute price on HeyGen's API pricing with the credit cost on Creatify's billing at your volume.
How do the two bill a 30-second avatar video?
HeyGen charges by actual seconds generated against a per-minute price that depends on the engine and avatar type, so 30 seconds costs half the listed minute price. Creatify's AI Avatar bills in 30-second increments at 5 credits each, and Aurora bills per second, with partial seconds rounded up. What a credit costs depends on the Creatify plan; Creatify API and HeyGen API pricing have the details.
What if I need product shots with a presenter, billed per second?
Sume's Avatar 1.0 talking video takes a ready avatar, a script of an estimated 4–60 seconds, and an optional product_image, a public HTTPS product or reference image, at 720p, the documented resolution. The plus tier costs $0.245 per second without a product image and $0.258 per second with one, plus a 5.5% agent fee by default. The avatar speaks English only in current code. See Generate avatar video and, for ad scripts, AI UGC ad video API.
Sources
- HeyGen developer docs index (read 2026-09-28)
- HeyGen API pricing explained (read 2026-09-28)
- HeyGen Audio to Video (read 2026-09-28)
- HeyGen Video to Avatar (read 2026-09-28)
- Creatify API introduction (read 2026-09-28)
- Creatify API docs index (read 2026-09-28)
- Creatify API billing (read 2026-09-28)
- Creatify: create an AI Avatar task (read 2026-09-28)
- Creatify: create an Aurora task (read 2026-09-28)
- Creatify Custom Avatar API (read 2026-09-28)
- Generate avatar video
- Sume API pricing
Related posts
More in Sume Avatar 1.0
- HeyGen vs Synthesia: API, pricing, avatars and limits
HeyGen and Synthesia both make scripted avatar videos and sell a live avatar. They differ in API billing, video length, and how custom avatars are made.
- How do AI avatars work? Face, voice, and video, step by step
An AI avatar video is assembled from parts: a face, a voice to match it, and motion that makes the face say your script. How each step works on Sume.
- How long can HeyGen videos be? Limits by plan and API
HeyGen videos can run 1 minute on Free, 30 on Creator and Pro, 60 on Business, with no max on Enterprise; an API avatar request caps at 30 minutes.
- AI avatar prompts: how to describe a talking presenter
An AI avatar prompt for video describes one person: age, look, hair, clothing, and expression. What to write, what Sume adds, and what it can't set.
Written by Sume