Hedra Pricing in 2026: What Each Plan Really Buys You

I burned through a month of Hedra credits in nine days. Not because I was careless — because I did not understand that Character-3 bills by the second, and a "quick test" of a 40-second talking clip costs the same as a finished one. That is the thing nobody tells you about Hedra pricing: the plan names look like the usual SaaS ladder, but what you are actually buying is a bucket of seconds.

So here is the breakdown I wish I had had — what each tier costs, how many minutes of video it really buys, and where the plan stops making sense.

What Hedra actually charges in 2026

The number that governs everything: Character-3 costs 6 credits per second of generated video. Not per render, not per prompt — per second of output. Multiply the second, divide the credits, and every plan above resolves into a runtime.

The part that catches people out

Three things, and I have been bitten by all three.

Credits do not roll over. They reset each cycle. If you have a slow month, that money is simply gone. This pushes you toward the smallest plan that covers your typical week rather than your best one.

Failed and rejected takes still cost. A generation that comes back with the mouth out of sync is billed the same as one you keep. In practice my usable-take ratio on Character-3 sits around 60–70%, so the honest way to read the table above is to knock a third off every runtime in that last column. Creator's 15 minutes is really about 10 minutes of footage you would show anyone.

Resolution multiplies. The per-second figure is the 720p baseline. Push to higher resolution and the same clip costs meaningfully more, which is why I storyboard and pick takes at 720p and only re-render the keeper at full quality. That one habit roughly doubled what a month of credits gets me.

Which plan is actually right

Free (300 credits) exists to answer one question: does Character-3 hold your face convincingly? Fifty seconds is enough to find that out and nothing else. Do not plan around it.

Basic at $15 is the awkward tier. Four minutes a month is roughly eight short clips, and once you subtract failed takes it is five. If you are posting weekly you will run dry in week three. I would skip it and go straight to Creator.

Creator at $30 is the one I would recommend to most people reading this, and the unlimited voice cloning is a bigger deal than the credit bump. Cloning is what makes a series of clips feel like one presenter instead of a stock voice, and on the lower tiers you are rationing exactly the thing that makes the output usable.

Professional at $75 makes sense when you are producing for clients or running an ad account where 40 minutes of avatar footage a month is a real requirement. If you are not billing someone for the output, you are unlikely to hit that ceiling.

How it compares

Hedra is not competing with the general text-to-video models — it is an avatar and lip-sync tool, and the right comparison set is HeyGen and Synthesia, not Kling or Veo.

On price per minute of finished avatar video, Hedra's Creator tier is the cheapest of that group by a clear margin. Where it loses is polish at the corporate end — if you need a presenter in a suit in front of a boardroom, the stock avatars elsewhere are better. If you need a character with actual expression, Hedra wins. I go deeper on that trade-off in the HeyGen vs Synthesia comparison, and there is a full breakdown of HeyGen pricing if that is the one you are weighing it against.

Getting more out of the credits you have

The single biggest saving is not switching plans, it is cutting the number of seconds you generate. Write the script to the length you actually need before you open the tool — a 20-second clip that says the thing beats a 45-second one that wanders, and it costs less than half. My notes on how long an AI video should be go into where the cut-offs land per platform.

Second: lock the reference image before you start generating. Most of my wasted credits have come from re-rolling because the character drifted between clips, which is a problem you solve upstream, not in the generator. The guide to consistent AI video characters covers the setup I use.

Third: do the lip-sync pass separately when you can. Generating motion and audio in one shot is convenient and expensive; if you already have a clip you like, a dedicated lip-sync pass is usually the cheaper route to the same result.

Is it worth it?

If you need a character that emotes — a presenter with eyebrows that move, a narrator who looks like they mean it — Hedra at $30 is the best value in that category right now, and the voice cloning is what seals it. If you need generic talking-head footage at volume, the per-minute maths on the avatar incumbents catches up fast, and if you need cinematic b-roll you are in the wrong tool entirely.

What I would not do is buy Professional on the assumption you will grow into it. Credits expire, and the tier you should be on is the one that matches the month you actually had, not the one you are planning.

Frequently asked questions

Does Hedra have a free plan? Yes — 300 credits a month, about 50 seconds of Character-3 video. It is enough to evaluate quality, not to produce with.

How many credits does a Hedra video cost? Character-3 bills 6 credits per second of generated video at the 720p baseline, so a 30-second clip is roughly 180 credits. Higher resolutions cost more.

Do Hedra credits roll over? No. Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle, so pick the plan that fits your normal month rather than your busiest one.

Is Hedra cheaper than HeyGen? At the entry tier, yes — $15 against $29, and Creator at $30 buys more finished minutes than HeyGen's comparable plan. HeyGen is stronger on stock corporate avatars.

Does the Creator plan really include unlimited voice cloning? Yes, and it is the main reason to choose it over Basic. Consistent voice across a series matters more to the finished result than a few extra minutes of runtime.

Looking for something else? Browse all 102 AI video guides in one list.

I test these tools every week and post what the credits actually buy — the real numbers, including the failed takes nobody screenshots. If you want that instead of another feature list, come and join us: the AI Video Generator community on Skool. It is where I share the prompts, the settings and the monthly cost breakdowns before they end up here.