Synthesia vs ElevenLabs: Avatar Training Video or Narration

The short answer: if your training or product video needs someone on screen, a presenter whose mouth matches each language, Synthesia does it from Starter at $19 a month on monthly billing, and dubs with lip sync at 80 credits a minute (Synthesia pricing, checked on 26 October 2026). If the picture already exists, a screen recording, a slide walkthrough, a product demo, and what is missing is a voice in several languages, ElevenLabs is the sharper tool and costs less: Starter is $6 a month for 30,000 credits, at 1 credit a character of speech (ElevenLabs pricing). ElevenLabs states that its dubbing does not move lips (help article), and that is the line between them.

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Start with the sums:

1. A 6-minute video in three languages, priced both ways. For example, a voiceover script of 5,000 characters, voiced in English, German and French with ElevenLabs text to speech, uses 3 x 5,000 = 15,000 credits, half of Starter's 30,000 (ElevenLabs pricing). In Synthesia, the 6-minute avatar video fits inside the 10 minutes every plan includes, and two lip-synced dubs cost 2 x 6 x 80 = 960 credits, inside Starter's 1,750 a month (Synthesia pricing, credits article). Neither bill decides it.
2. Start from the footage you have. A recorded screen walkthrough or a webinar with slides has no face to sync, so a voice is all it lacks. A video that does not exist yet, for a policy or a process nobody wants to film, is Synthesia's starting point.
3. Check the names before the numbers. Before launch, one native speaker per market marks every mispronounced product name; after two weeks, compare how far viewers in each language watch against the original.

What each one makes

Read on 26 October 2026 from Synthesia pricing, ElevenLabs pricing, the ElevenLabs homepage, the ElevenLabs lip sync article and the ElevenLabs avatars docs.

Where the decision sits

A presenter, or a soundtrack

Synthesia generates the person and the scene around them from a script, and every Synthesia plan includes 10 minutes of video a month (pricing). ElevenLabs generates sound: speech, music at 900 credits a minute, sound effects, transcription, all from one credit pool (ElevenLabs pricing). Its avatars exist, on all paid plans, but they have no API yet and are priced through the Image & Video rate card (avatars docs). A training team that needs a face daily will find Synthesia's editor built for it.

Dubbing what you already filmed

Synthesia dubs uploaded files or YouTube links, with voice and accent kept, in 70+ languages on self-serve plans (pricing). ElevenLabs dubs on every plan, the free one watermarked, and charges per minute of source for each language, with the total shown before the dub starts (plans article, cost article). For a filmed founder, the lips decide it; for a narrated screen, they do not exist.

Prices on both sides

ElevenLabs, monthly: Free with 10,000 credits, Starter $6, Creator $22 with 121,000 credits, Pro $99, Scale $299 with 3 seats; on yearly billing you pay for ten months, so Creator works out at $18.33 a month (ElevenLabs pricing). The page also showed introductory first months, Starter at $1 and Creator at $11, until 1 November. Synthesia: Basic free with a watermark, Starter $19 monthly or $14 billed yearly, Pro $89 or $59, Enterprise quoted (Synthesia pricing). All checked on 26 October 2026, in US dollars, before tax.

A voice sample before the script is locked

ElevenLabs' hosted MCP server connects to Claude through OAuth, without an API key in the client, and besides managing voice agents it can generate speech audio from text, returned as a short-lived download link (hosted MCP docs). Paste the first paragraph of the walkthrough script and ask for it in two candidate voices. The human check: the product owner listens to both with the script open, marks every product name the voice gets wrong, and only then is the full narration produced. A workspace held in the EU connects to its own residency URL, listed on the same page.

The rule behind the rollover

ElevenLabs lets unused credits roll over for up to two months while you stay subscribed, up to three times the monthly quota, and forfeits them at the end of the cycle if you downgrade or cancel (pricing FAQ). The banked balance is a reason to keep paying for the tier you are on. Size the plan by this month's characters, not by what has piled up.

Test both without paying

ElevenLabs' Free plan gives 10,000 credits a month, enough to voice about 10,000 characters (pricing); Synthesia's Basic plan gives 10 minutes of video a month with a watermark (pricing). Take one 60-second script. Voice it with ElevenLabs over your own screen recording, and build it with a stock presenter in Synthesia. Show both to the team that will use the video and ask which one they would rather watch twice.

The call

Choose Synthesia if your job is training or explainer video with a presenter, in many languages, where a dubbed face has to look right.

Choose ElevenLabs if your job is the voice: narration for screen recordings and demos, podcasts, audio ads, or a voice agent, with lips either absent or someone else's problem.

Entries: Synthesia and ElevenLabs.

FAQ

Can Synthesia dub a video filmed outside Synthesia?

Yes. Its plan table lists dubbing from a file upload or a YouTube link, with voice and accent preserved (Synthesia pricing).

Can ElevenLabs avatars be generated through the API?

Not yet. The avatars docs list API access as not available at launch and planned for later; the Avatar node in Flows is the way to automate them for now (avatars docs).

Does dubbing with ElevenLabs cost more than text to speech?

Per minute, yes. Automatic dubbing without a watermark is 3,000 credits a minute, while speech is 1 credit a character, so voicing a translated script you already have costs less than dubbing the finished video (ElevenLabs pricing).