Hedra animates a character image with an audio track: its Character 3 and Hedra Avatar models produce talking or singing video up to 10 minutes long at 540p, 720p or 1080p, for 2.5 to 6.25 cents a second through the API. Studio plans cost $20 a month for 2,000 credits (Basic), $50 for 7,200 (Pro) and $100 for 18,000 (Ultra). Since 2026 Hedra has also become a platform with a creative agent and more than 100 third-party models.
Reviewed by EdGrows·Updated Sep 25, 2026This analysis is based on documentation, public user reports, and vendor materials — not yet on our own hands-on testing. How we rate
Hedra's reputation rests on one trick done well: give it a single image and an audio track, and it returns a video of that character talking or singing, with lip sync, head movement and facial expression that follow the voice. Its Character models made it one of the most used tools for talking portraits, mascots and animated presenters, and Hedra says more than 20 million people have used it.
The company has since grown well beyond that. The homepage now describes Hedra as the platform, models and infrastructure for visual intelligence, and the product has four parts:
This review focuses on the avatar models and the Studio plans, which is where most individual buyers spend their money.
Hedra lists two in-house avatar models with the same specifications and prices. Character 3 is the one most tutorials refer to; Hedra Avatar is described as its long-form avatar model and runs on Together AI's infrastructure.
The models do not produce the voice. You bring speech or music from a recording, a text-to-speech tool such as ElevenLabs or the ElevenLabs voices Hedra offers on its own platform, and the character follows it.
Hedra's individual plans as of September 25, 2026.
| Plan | Price | Credits per month | Cost per 1,000 credits | Speed and extras |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $20/mo | 2,000 | $10.00 | Slower generations |
| Pro | $50/mo | 7,200 | $6.94 | Faster generation |
| Ultra | $100/mo | 18,000 | $5.56 | Fastest, allowances up to 57,600 credits, team access |
| Teams | $75/mo | 14,400 | $5.21 | Fastest generation, team workspace |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | SSO, private deployments, dedicated engineers |
Every paid plan includes commercial use, and video is billed by the seconds generated, so a 10-second clip costs 10 seconds. Monthly credits reset each cycle; credit packs never expire and are used after the monthly allowance.
The plan table has a gap: it does not say how many credits a second of Character 3 costs in Studio. Third-party trackers reported about 6 credits a second at 720p in mid-2026. At that rate Basic buys about five and a half minutes of 720p avatar video a month, Pro about 20 minutes and Ultra about 50.
Converting everything to one minute of 720p talking video makes the options easy to compare. Studio figures use the reported 6 credits a second; API figures come from Hedra's model pages.
| Route | One minute of avatar video |
|---|---|
| Hedra API, Character 3 at 540p | $1.50 |
| Hedra API, Character 3 at 720p | $3.00 |
| Hedra API, Character 3 at 1080p | $3.75 |
| Studio on Basic, 720p (reported rate) | about $3.60 |
| Studio on Pro, 720p (reported rate) | about $2.50 |
| Studio on Ultra, 720p (reported rate) | about $2.00 |
| Hedra API, Kling AI Avatar v2 | from $3.37 |
| Hedra API, HeyGen Photo Avatar 4 | $6.00 |
| Hedra API, ByteDance OmniHuman 1.5 | $9.60 |
Hedra's own models are the cheapest avatar option on its own platform, and on Pro or Ultra the Studio plans undercut the API. For occasional use, the API's pay-per-second pricing avoids paying for credits you do not use.
There is no stock presenter library, so if you want to pick a professional-looking human from a catalog, translate a script into dozens of languages and drop it into a branded template, HeyGen and Synthesia are built for exactly that.
Pricing is less transparent than the per-second API suggests. Studio credit rates for each model are not on the pricing page, and all plans are listed on monthly billing only.
The company's direction is broader than its best-known product. A platform built around an agent, an API and enterprise inference can serve talking-character creators well, but it also means the consumer app competes for attention with enterprise customers.
Against HeyGen and Synthesia, Hedra wins on flexibility and price: any character, including cartoons and animals, for 5 cents a second at 720p, where HeyGen's Photo Avatar 4 costs twice that even when run through Hedra. They win on business workflow: stock avatars, translation, templates and team approval.
D-ID covers similar photo-to-talking-head ground with an API of its own; test both with your own character and voice before committing.
Against multi-model platforms such as Higgsfield, Hedra is narrower for general video but stronger for dialogue: talking and singing characters are its own model, not a resold one. For general AI video, see the best AI video generators of 2026.
Hedra suits creators, marketers and educators who want their own character to speak: a brand mascot explaining a product, an animated teacher, a podcast with illustrated hosts, a singing claymation figure. Test your character and voice on the API or Basic, then move to Pro once you produce more than a few minutes a month, since that is where the Studio price per minute drops below the API. Videos that need a realistic human presenter from a catalog, translated into many languages with company branding, are a job for HeyGen or Synthesia.
AIVario has no affiliate relationship with Hedra, so this review earns no commission from it.
Hedra's pricing page lists Basic at $20 a month for 2,000 credits with slower generations, Pro at $50 for 7,200 credits and Ultra at $100 for 18,000 credits with the fastest generation and allowances up to 57,600 credits. The Teams plan costs $75 a month for 14,400 credits, and Enterprise is priced on request. Every paid plan includes commercial use.
Through Hedra's API, Character 3 costs 2.5 cents a second at 540p, 5 cents at 720p and 6.25 cents at 1080p, so a one-minute 720p video costs $3. Hedra does not publish Studio credit rates on its pricing page; third-party trackers reported about 6 credits a second at 720p in mid-2026, which would make Basic's 2,000 credits about five and a half minutes.
Up to 10 minutes per generation with Character 3 or Hedra Avatar. The length follows your audio: supply three minutes of speech or song and you get three minutes of video. Both models support seven aspect ratios from 21:9 to 9:21, and Hedra bills only the seconds you actually generate.
Yes, that is what sets it apart from stock-avatar tools. The start frame can be any character image, and Hedra's own showcase includes a talking bear roofer, a fox scientist, a claymation singer and a cat podcast host. Results are best with a clear, well-lit, front-facing portrait, and a text prompt can steer the delivery.
Monthly plan credits do not; they reset each billing cycle. Credits from credit packs never expire and are spent after your monthly allowance. If you cancel, you keep only limited watermarked generations, and you need to resubscribe to use any pack credits left on the account.
In a limited way. The pricing page is titled free plan, no credit card, and Hedra's help text says accounts without a subscription keep limited watermarked generations, but the plan table itself lists only paid tiers. Expect enough to judge the lip sync, not to produce anything you can publish.
HeyGen sells stock and custom human avatars with translation, templates and business workflows. Hedra animates the character you bring, including non-human ones, and is cheaper per second: Character 3 costs 5 cents a second at 720p on Hedra's API, while Hedra charges 10 cents a second to run HeyGen's Photo Avatar 4 on the same platform.
Fast, cheap short-form AI video for TikTok, Reels and Shorts. The free plan now gives 30 credits a day; Standard is $10 a month.
AI Edit turns raw talking-head footage into a finished social video; credits pay for generation, and they roll over up to 3x.
Luma's Ray models, Veo, Kling and Seedance in one credit pool, now run by creative agents that plan the work for you.