Disclosure: the Synthesia link in this post is an affiliate link. If you buy a paid Synthesia plan through it, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Key takeaways
- Syren turned a 5.4 KB English article into an accurate 2 minute 42 second voice-over video in 6 minutes 17 seconds, and put an avatar host on screen once the prompt used the third person.
- Videos made in Syren can be downloaded on the free plan as 1080p MP4 files with a watermark, while the Studio editor requires a paid Starter plan to download.
- Three test videos totalling 4 minutes 14 seconds cost $0, drawing from Syren's 1,000 free promo credits before using the monthly workspace allowance.
Tested on: Synthesia free (Basic) plan, November 7, 2026, Chrome on Windows 11. Syren for the English videos, the Studio editor for the Chinese avatar video.
After noting in my HeyGen vs Synthesia YouTube review roundup that I had yet to try Synthesia myself, I tested its free plan on November 7, 2026. I signed up in Chrome on Windows 11 with a new account and no card added, using my earlier article, ElevenLabs Free Plan vs a Local Open-Source Model: Same Chinese Script, Side by Side, as test material.
Sign up and pick the free plan
Right after signup, a plan picker lets you choose the free Basic plan. Basic includes 500 credits a month, about 10 minutes of video a month, 9 AI avatars, Syren videos up to 3 minutes long, a share link, and a Synthesia watermark on videos. After two quick onboarding questions about your role and how you heard about Synthesia, you land on a "What do you want to make?" box where Synthesia had already pulled my site's logo from my email domain and suggested three topic prompts.
Make a video from an article with Syren
To test Syren, Synthesia's AI video agent, I pasted the full 5.4 KB text of my ElevenLabs article into the prompt box with a short instruction at the top: "Make a short explainer video (about 2 minutes) from the article below. Keep every number and conclusion as written. Do not add facts that are not in the article."
After waiting 6 minutes 17 seconds, Syren finished a 2 minute 42 second explainer in 11 sections with a US English voice-over called "Sarah" over animated charts. I checked every scene against my source text, and every number and conclusion matched the article.
Syren left out an avatar because the article was written in the first person, explaining: "There's no on-screen presenter, because a generated face saying 'my own cloned voice' would pretend to be you." Listening through the full video, the "Sarah" narration had natural intonation, smooth phrasing from sentence to sentence, and a clear voice.
Get an avatar presenter
To get an avatar on screen in Syren, write the script in the third person so the presenter reports "the tester's" results and never says "I". I gave Syren the Muse pronunciation facts from the article, asked for a video under 1 minute with a stock avatar, and instructed the presenter to act as a host reporting a test by Hands-On AI Tools.
Syren asked "Which avatar do you want to use?" and opened the avatar list. I picked Hana, and Syren built the video in two passes taking about 4 minutes in total (2 minutes 49 seconds, then 1 minute 17 seconds).
The result was a 45-second video, which you can watch at the top of the original article. Hana speaks in a voice called "Jade". Her lip sync matched the words throughout, the voice was clear with a natural accent, and it was hard to tell she was a generated avatar. One on-screen detail was invented (an alternating "miù zi / miù sī" chip pattern on the Muse panel), so you should still check the screen before publishing.
Make a video by hand in the Studio editor
To build a video manually, click Create, choose Start from blank, paste a script, pick an avatar and its voice in the speaker list, and click Generate. I tried a Chinese script (three paragraphs, about 260 characters) from my ElevenLabs article with Hana. Rendering the 47-second video took about 12 minutes. While Hana looked realistic in the video, the Chinese narration sounded clearly synthetic with a mechanical quality and a few mispronunciations, so for Chinese, listen before you use it.
Download and share
Syren videos can be downloaded on the free plan from the Share menu ("Download the video") as 1080p, 30 fps MP4 files with a watermark, or shared by link. Studio videos cannot be downloaded on the free plan; clicking the Download button asks you to upgrade to Starter.
What it costs
Basic is free. Starter costs $19 a month, or $14 a month billed yearly ($168 a year), with 15,000 credits a year (about 150 minutes of studio video or about 24 Syren videos), and adds downloads, logo removal, the AI Video Assistant, and 125+ avatars. Pro costs $89 a month, or $59 billed yearly ($708 a year), for 72,000 credits a year.
In this test, I made 3 videos running 4 minutes 14 seconds in total (2:42 and 0:45 from Syren, plus 0:47 from Studio) and paid nothing. Syren's own counters showed 347.5 and 955.1 credits, about 1,300 in total, taken first from the free Syren credits (Basic currently gets 1,000 promo credits for Syren, limited time) and then from the workspace credits; afterwards Syren showed 394 workspace credits left. The Studio video did not show up as used credits. According to Synthesia's own note, a 1-minute Syren video typically uses 1,000 to 2,000 credits.
Who the free plan suits
The free Basic plan is a good choice for trying English videos from an existing article or script in Syren if a watermark on your 1080p download or share link is acceptable. You need Starter to remove the watermark, download Studio videos, or use the AI Video Assistant. I did not test personal avatars, voice cloning or dubbing.
Originally published on Hands-On AI Tools. Cover: a frame from the 45-second avatar video made in this test with Synthesia's free plan. Hana is one of Synthesia's stock AI avatars.
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