What is HeyGen?

HeyGen is an AI generative text-to-video service developed by HeyGen labs. It helps businesses of all sizes create engaging AI videos for various use cases requiring video explanation, from training to marketing & sales - and even interactive support. The pièce de résistance is that every video can be translated into one of 175 different languages.

HeyGen operates on a credit system: one credit is used for one minute of video content, rounded up from 30 seconds.

HeyGen markets itself as a one-stop shop for generative AI video creation - simply type what you want the avatar to explain. They have a wide variety of options and customizations available.

Their mission statement is simply to "make visual storytelling accessible to all." Their belief is that you shouldn't be constrained by a lack of resources or equipment. With HeyGen, everyone can produce video content that audiences can engage with in their native language.

HeyGen History

HeyGen was launched on July 29, 2022, by co-founders Joshua Xu and Wayne Liang. The founding team has previous experience in companies like Snapchat and Smule. HeyGen's offices are located in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Toronto. They currently employ about 30 staff members across their four locations.

Key Features of HeyGen AI

HeyGen's unique selling point is their video translation. Their diverse AI avatars boast a wide variety of use cases in tandem with their massive language library.

Their features include:

• Text to speech: Type exactly what you want the AI spokesperson to convey to your audience.

• Voice cloning: Clone voice tone, intonation, and realism into up to 25 different languages.

• Custom AI Avatars: Customizable AI avatars including generative outfits.

• Zapier integration: Utilize it with Zapier automations to trigger responses.

• Photo avatars: Upload a photograph of a teenager or adult, and they can read text authentically.

HeyGen Use Cases

Product tutorials and demonstrations showcase HeyGen's versatility. AI avatars excel at demonstrating products without needing physical items, leveraging clever b-roll integration and AI-scripted presentations to create compelling demonstrations.

Multilingual marketing videos represent a key strength, as traditional presenters rarely master multiple languages. HeyGen enables content creation across different regions and languages, allowing businesses to test various avatars to find what resonates best with each market segment.

Corporate training materials become easily scalable with HeyGen. Global organizations can streamline employee onboarding and training processes, updating information quickly when needed. When company policies or procedures change, the avatar's script can be edited and new training materials distributed company-wide within minutes.

Customer support and FAQ videos become more engaging through AI avatars. Rather than forcing customers to read through text-heavy support documents, HeyGen can create personalized video responses addressing common pain points. As market needs shift and new questions arise, support content can be quickly updated.

Educational content creation becomes more efficient with HeyGen's AI avatars. Course creators can produce and maintain up-to-date materials without the time investment traditional video production requires. When course content needs updating, simple script adjustments allow for quick revisions without requiring new video shoots.

Content repurposing becomes streamlined as HeyGen allows brands to refresh and reuse successful content efficiently. Rather than creating entirely new content daily, businesses can update and repurpose existing materials, maintaining consistent messaging while saving time and resources. Particularly unique is the ability to repurpose content in one language to several.

HeyGen's Pricing

Note: Annual Billing cost shown below. Monthly billing attracts a 22% premium.

Pros and Cons of Using HeyGen

HeyGen Pros

HeyGen AI provides a variety of text-to-video features covering multiple use cases, and it is certainly more cost-efficient than traditional video generation. The multilingual video translations in a selection of dialects help to make realistic and engaging content for non-English speakers. The Zapier integrations are a benefit to any business utilizing automation and triggers for different videos. Finally, the large video template library provides a good entry point for users to begin making content.

HeyGen Cons

HeyGen's main drawback is in its freemium offering, specifically a lack thereof. Both the Free and Free API versions are limited in number of videos, duration, max quality, and translations, providing a bare-bones version of the final product.

In addition, all free videos are watermarked. This means the free version is really only usable for in-house concept testing but cannot be used to verify product-market fit publicly. Furthermore, the credit system has a monthly expiry that doesn't account for businesses that may need to ramp up and down content production during different times of the year.

A tertiary issue is that many of the advanced technical features are difficult to master. A steep learning curve (likened to the microwave feature overload) may deter some users from utilizing anything but the most basic feature set to "cook" their videos.

Creatify AI: The best HeyGen alternative

While HeyGen excels in multilingual video content and general business communications, Creatify is undoubtedly the superior HeyGen alternative for performance marketers and advertisers focused on creating high-converting video ads. Creatify's specialized AI ad intelligence, trained on successful ad campaigns, produces video content engineered for marketing performance. The platform's recent 3.0 launch introduced competitor tracking capabilities, providing marketers with data-driven insights for identifying gaps in the advertising landscape and creating effective video ads to capitalize.

Key differentiators that make Creatify the ideal HeyGen alternative include:

• Advanced AI ad intelligence: creates high-converting video ads based on proven success patterns

• 500+ avatars

• Performance marketing niche: specialized tools for advertising success

• Batch creation: produce multiple ad variations simultaneously for split testing

• Competitor analysis: Track and analyze competitor video ads across platforms

• Custom avatar design: Create unique brand ambassadors through simple text prompts

• 24/7 Support: Round-the-clock assistance for marketing teams

For businesses focused on creating AI video ads and marketers focused on producing remarkable ad performance, Creatify's specialized features and marketing-centric approach make it the clear choice over HeyGen's general-purpose video creation platform.

Try Creatify for free if you're a performance marketer looking to improve your business's bottom line.