How to choose an AI video generator

How we checked what these tools publish

The generators in this group are sold on pages that already answer most of the buying questions, and the answers line up once you know which line to read. Three of the four we have reviewed publish a plan table carrying the same four entries: how long a video may run, how many languages the narration reaches, how many people may log in, and what the file comes out as. This guide walks those four, plus the one question that splits the group before the other four matter.

The order is deliberate. The first question sorts the field into two kinds of product, and it is the only one of the five that a larger plan cannot correct. The rest are read straight off published plan tables, and any of them can end the search on its own.

No account was opened and no clip was rendered to write this page. Everything below is read from what the companies publish about their own plans, checked on the date at the end, and the scores in the linked reviews are editorial readings built from those same pages.

Five questions before you pay

Question 1: Is the clip about a product, or about a process?

The first fork is not quality and not price, it is what the tool expects to be handed. Two of the tools here start from a script you write and return a presenter speaking it. The third takes a product page as its input and returns a set of ad variations built around that listing. The second kind is not a weaker version of the first, it is a different workflow, and a team that buys it expecting a script editor spends its first week working around the interface.

Ask what actually goes in. If the answer is a listing or a product feed, the batching tool is the one to look at. If it is a paragraph of narration, start with the script-driven tools and leave the price talk below until the other four questions are settled.

Question 2: How long does the finished video run?

Length is capped per plan, and the caps differ enough to decide the purchase by themselves. At the entry level the figures we read across the group are 1 minute, 2 minutes and 10 minutes, and the top rung of the longest range here publishes 60 minutes. A training module that runs twenty minutes is therefore not a plan upgrade on every product here; on some of them it is a different product.

Read the limit as it is written. A cap quoted per video and a cap quoted per project are different promises, and a free tier that stops at a minute is telling you what that tier is for.

Question 3: How many languages does the script have to reach?

This is the most countable line on any of the plan tables, and the easiest to misread. The widest published list here runs from 160 upward and is not held back for a top tier, so the entry plan already covers the markets. The second opens a shorter list on its free plan and a much longer one the moment you pay. The third sits between the two.

A count is not the whole question. Two vendors can both claim a language and differ in how many distinct voices sit inside it, and no pricing page settles that. Where the narration has to carry technical vocabulary in a second language, the count is a starting point rather than the answer, and the free plan is where to test it.

Question 4: How many people need to log in?

This is the line most often read as a feature when it is a price. Across the plans we read, a second editor is not a setting, it is a tier. One tool covers a single editor on everything below its top published plan, with guests rather than seats alongside. Another keeps every tier below its highest on one seat and charges for each additional one on top of the plan. A third allows a handful of seats on its mid tier.

Count the people who will touch the video, not the people who will watch it. A workflow where one person writes and another approves needs two logins from the moment the approval step exists, and the tier carrying it is usually the one quoted rather than listed.

Question 5: What does the file come out as?

Resolution and watermark are the two levers a free plan uses to separate testing from publishing. One of these tools exports full HD on every paid plan with no resolution held back for the top tier; another reserves 4K for the plans above its entry level; every free plan in the group either watermarks what it exports or stops short of an export. If the clip is going to a social feed the ceiling rarely matters, and if it is going into a training system the format does, because one of these tools publishes a package that drops straight into an LMS rather than a plain video file.

When one answer settles the rest

The five questions do not carry equal weight, and which one decides depends on the shape of the work rather than on the plan table.

If the video is a one-off

A single clip for a launch or a landing page is priced by the month it takes to make, so the field narrows to two questions: whether the tool starts from what you have, and how long the clip may run. The seats line and the language list are noise at that size, and a monthly plan bought for one video is worth cancelling on the day the file is delivered.

If the video runs on a schedule

Once clips go out weekly, the account rather than the clip is what is being bought, and the seats question moves to the front. A second editor, a consistent brand kit and a sign-off step are what stop a schedule depending on one person being available, and on every tool here that layer sits at the top of the published range. Budget for the tier that carries the workflow rather than the tier that carries the first clip.

Sources

HeyGen (heygen.com), checked 16 September 2026: the pricing page for plan rates and credit allowances, and the plan comparison for video length limits, avatar counts, language coverage and the export resolution each tier reaches.

Synthesia (synthesia.io), checked 16 September 2026: the pricing page for plan rates and what each tier unlocks, and the documentation for the scene and runtime limits and the export format a finished project leaves as.

Creatify (creatify.ai), checked 16 September 2026: the pricing page for plan rates, the credit allowance on each tier and the actor counts the entry and mid plans carry.