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Arcads vs Synthesia

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors. Synthesia publishes a starting price ($18); Arcads does not. Only Synthesia has a free tier. Both ship a public API.

ArcadsGenerates UGC-style video ads from a script using a library of 1,000+ licensed AI actorsSynthesiaEnterprise avatar video platform for training content

Side by side

FactArcadsSynthesia
CategoryAd Creative GenerationAI Avatars & Talking Heads
Pricing modelPaidFreemium
Starts at—$18 month
Public APIYesYes
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, API
CompanyFRESHR SASSynthesia Ltd
Launched—2017
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Arcads

For paid-social teams that need forty variants of the same hook, Arcads is built for exactly that: a large licensed actor roster, script-to-video in one pass and localisation baked in. The catch is total pricing opacity — nothing on the public site tells you what a video costs until you have an account, and the API needs a sales call.

Pros

  • Over a thousand AI actors plus custom avatar creation
  • Captions, translation and background handling included in the render
  • Workflow canvas designed around team-based variant testing
  • Vendor identity is disclosed plainly: FRESHR SAS, registered in Rouen, France

Cons

  • No published pricing anywhere on the public site
  • API is locked to a customised plan arranged by phone
  • Terms restrict service to professional clients, so consumers are excluded

Synthesia

The safe institutional choice for training video at scale — SCORM export and review workflows are what you are paying for, not the avatars themselves.

Pros

  • SCORM export and review workflows fit corporate training pipelines properly
  • A free Basic tier now exists, so the output can be tested before committing
  • Annual billing cuts the Starter seat from $29 to $18
  • Multi-language voiceover and dubbing are built in rather than bolted on

Cons

  • Paid credits are allocated per year, so a busy month can exhaust the budget
  • Avatar expressiveness trails HeyGen at comparable prices
  • Starter's roughly 120 minutes a year is thin for real course production
  • Unlimited minutes and the useful admin controls sit behind quote-only Enterprise

Which one fits

Choose Arcads if you need

  • Performance marketers testing many creative variants of one script
  • Brands localising the same ad into several languages
  • Agencies that need actor likenesses cleared for commercial ad use

Choose Synthesia if you need

  • Learning and development teams producing course video in many languages
  • Internal communications needing brand kits and an approval step
  • Organisations that have to export finished video into an LMS via SCORM

More comparisons

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