Synthesia vs HeyGen vs D-ID vs Runway
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
Synthesia
AI avatar video and live avatar roleplays for corporate training
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HeyGen
Script-to-video with AI avatars, digital twins and lip-synced translat...
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D-ID
Talking-head video from a single still image
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Runway
AI video generation and editing, from Gen-4.5 to an agent that runs ca...
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| RECATOOLS Score | 8.3 / 10 | 8 / 10 | 7.4 / 10 | 7.6 / 10 |
| Capability | ||||
| Value for money | ||||
| Ease of use | ||||
| ASEAN readiness | ||||
| API quality | ||||
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium | Paid | Freemium |
| Free tier | Basic (free): 10 minutes of video or dubbing, 500 credits and 3 survey responses a month, 9 avatars, watermarked | Free plan: 3 videos a month up to 1 minute each, Avatar IV access, 1 custom video avatar, 30+ languages | 14-day trial with 3 minutes of use and a full-screen watermark | 125 one-time credits that do not expire, 5GB storage and a selection of models to test |
| Paid from | $29/month Starter, or $18/month billed yearly | $29/month (Creator, 600 credits), or $24/month billed annually | $4.70/month (Lite, billed annually at $56); 14-day free trial | $12/month (Standard, billed yearly; $15 monthly) for 625 credits |
| Has API | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free to use | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Users | 60,000+ companies | 31M+ registered users (100k+ paying business customers) | 500k+ users | ~4M registered users (≈1.2M monthly active, 2025-2026) |
| Founded | 2017 | 2020 | 2017 | 2018 |
| Maker | Victor Riparbelli, Steffen Tjerrild, Matthias Niessner, Lourdes Agapito | Joshua Xu, Wayne Liang | Gil Perry, Sella Blondheim, Eliran Kuta | Cristobal Valenzuela, Alejandro Matamala, Anastasis Germanidis |
| Verdict | Synthesia is the established choice for training and internal-communications video at scale: script in, avatar video out, translated and exported to an LMS as SCORM on Enterprise. The newer Sessions product, live avatar... |
HeyGen is the established choice for avatar-presented training, sales and marketing video: Avatar V digital twins from a short recording, lip-synced translation in 175-plus languages, SCORM and LMS output on Business, an... |
D-ID is a leading AI avatar and talking-head video platform that animates a still photo or generates a presenter to deliver scripted speech, with multilingual TTS and a developer API. The March 2026 V4 Expressive Visual... |
Runway pairs strong in-house video models, Gen-4.5 for generation and Aleph 2.0 for editing, with a broad catalogue of third-party models, an Agent, HDR and ProRes output and plugins for the main editing suites. A $315 m... |
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Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.