Synthesia

Pros and cons

What Synthesia does

Synthesia makes AI avatar videos for corporate training. The workflow is the same as other avatar video tools — type a script, pick an avatar, render the video — but everything around that core workflow is built for L&D teams rather than marketers or content creators.

You get 230+ stock avatars, structured templates for training formats, a brand kit for consistent visual style, and SCORM export that lets you push completed videos directly into an LMS like Cornerstone, Docebo, or SAP SuccessFactors. That last feature is the one most L&D teams care about most, and it is why Synthesia commands a higher price than HeyGen at comparable tiers.

Synthesia raised $200M in January 2026 at a $2.1B valuation, which reflects both the size of the enterprise training market and the platform's position in it. The money has gone into expanding avatar quality, language support, and team collaboration features.

The free plan gives three 1-minute videos per month — enough to show stakeholders what Synthesia produces before committing to a paid tier. Starter at $29/month is the entry point for regular production, with a monthly video minute allowance that covers a typical L&D team's output. Creator at $89/month adds personal avatar creation and expanded collaboration. Enterprise pricing is custom and includes SSO, dedicated account management, and higher storage limits.

Avatar library and personal avatar creation

Synthesia's 230+ avatar library covers a wide range of ages, skin tones, and presentation styles. For corporate training this matters: a global company needs avatars that look like the people in their workforce, not just one demographic. The library is larger and more diverse than HeyGen's stock offering.

Personal avatar creation — making an AI version of a specific person, typically an executive or subject-matter expert — is available on the Creator plan and above. The process requires recording a consent video followed by a longer scripted recording session. Setup takes longer than HeyGen's instant avatar process, which works from 2 minutes of footage. Synthesia's approach is more rigorous, which results in higher-quality personal avatars but a slower onboarding.

For training teams where the avatar will be used in hundreds of videos over multiple years, the additional setup time is worth it. For someone who wants a quick personal avatar for social media content, HeyGen's faster process is more practical.

Synthesia also offers AI-generated avatars — photorealistic avatar faces that are not based on any real person. These are useful when a brand wants a consistent presenter character without assigning a real employee to the role, or when legal or privacy considerations make using a personal avatar complicated. The AI-generated options have improved significantly through 2025 and are now close in quality to personal avatar outputs.

Enterprise features: SCORM, brand kit, templates

SCORM export is the clearest reason an L&D team chooses Synthesia over HeyGen. SCORM is the standard file format for e-learning content that plays inside an LMS. Without SCORM export, training videos have to be hosted externally and linked from the LMS, which creates tracking problems — you cannot see whether a learner actually watched the video, completed it, or passed a knowledge check. With SCORM, all of that tracking happens natively inside your LMS.

The brand kit lets teams define approved fonts, colours, logo placement, and background templates. Once configured, every video produced by any team member stays within the brand guidelines without requiring manual review. For organisations producing training content across multiple departments, this removes a significant quality-control burden.

Team management lets multiple users work in the same Synthesia workspace, share avatar libraries, and manage who can publish content. This is standard enterprise software functionality, but it is more developed in Synthesia than in HeyGen at the same price points.

Synthesia vs HeyGen

The choice between Synthesia and HeyGen comes down to use case, not price. Synthesia is for structured corporate training with LMS integration. HeyGen is for marketing, social media, and content creation where SCORM export is irrelevant.

If your primary output is employee training videos that go into an LMS — compliance training, onboarding modules, product knowledge courses — Synthesia is the right choice. Nothing in HeyGen replaces SCORM export for that workflow.

If you are a marketer making LinkedIn videos, product demos, or customer-facing explainers, HeyGen's Creator plan at $24/month is more appropriate than Synthesia's Starter at $29/month. HeyGen's instant avatar cloning is faster, and the video translation feature is better suited to marketing content that needs to reach multiple markets quickly.

Language coverage: Synthesia supports 140+ languages vs HeyGen's 40+. If you are producing multilingual training content for a global workforce, Synthesia's language depth is a real advantage.

On avatar variety: Synthesia's 230+ stock avatars cover a broader range of demographics than HeyGen's library, which matters for large global organisations where representation in training materials is a deliberate policy consideration. If every avatar in your compliance training looks the same, someone in your L&D leadership will notice. Synthesia makes it easier to match avatar choice to the audience of each training module.

Who should not use Synthesia

Individual content creators on a budget should look elsewhere. The Starter plan at $29/month produces only 10 minutes of video per month, and the Creator plan at $89/month is steep for someone who just wants to make LinkedIn content without being on camera. HeyGen's Creator plan at $24/month gives more practical output for individual creators.

Synthesia is not a video editing tool. If your training content needs screen recordings, product walkthroughs, animated sequences, or footage from real environments, Synthesia handles only the avatar-on-screen talking portions. You would need to combine Synthesia output with a conventional video editor like Camtasia or Adobe Premiere for anything more complex.

And if your L&D team does not use an LMS — if training is delivered through shared folders, intranet links, or email — the SCORM export feature you are partly paying for is unused. In that case, HeyGen is a cheaper starting point with similar avatar quality.

Synthesia also does not handle audio-only content. If your L&D programme includes podcast-style audio briefings, mobile-optimised audio modules, or voiceover narration for screen-recorded software demonstrations, ElevenLabs is better suited for the audio component. The two tools address different formats: Synthesia for avatar video, ElevenLabs for voice narration.