What Is Arcads? AI Actors for UGC-Style Video Ads

The short answer: If your paid social team needs more creator-style videos each week than it can brief real creators for, Arcads makes them with AI actors: you write the script, pick a face from a library of 1,000+ (homepage), and the actor says your lines to camera. Plans start at 8,000 credits a month and a talking-actor video of up to a minute costs 800, so the entry plan buys ten of them (pricing article).

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Before you start the trial:

1. Count in actors, not in videos. Each actor is a separate video, so one script read by 10 actors is 10 x 800 = 8,000 credits, the whole Starter month (AI UGC guide). The trial's 1,000 credits cover one.
2. Start from the words you already own. Arcads tells users to base testimonial scripts on real customer feedback they can stand behind (testimonial guide). Your review export and your current winning script are the raw material.
3. Pick the deciding metric first. Write down which number judges the variants and what each may spend, so the test ends on a figure, not a favourite face.

What Arcads does

Arcads is one workspace for making ads with AI: video models such as Veo 3.1 and Kling 3.0, image models, three talking-actor models and an agent, all on one credit balance (what Arcads is). The talking actor is the centre. You choose a face from the library or build a custom actor from a photo or a video of yourself, put your product in the actor's hands, and add captions.

The rest multiplies one ad into many: Translate Video offers 176 language and accent options with lip sync (FAQ), and Workflows, from the Creator plan up, turn one script into 20 videos across 10 actors and 2 languages in a run (Workflows). Mark, the built-in agent, takes a brief in plain words, and an MCP server lets Claude do the same.

Where it fits, and where it does not

It fits teams on TikTok, Reels and Meta who test many openings a week, and agencies. It fits badly where the ad depends on a real person, such as a founder or a verified customer, and Arcads' rules forbid political ads outright (prohibited content).

The actor is synthetic, and the law reads it that way. The EU AI Act defines a deep fake as AI-generated video that resembles existing persons and would falsely appear authentic (Article 3), and whoever deploys one must disclose that it was generated (Article 50), from 2 August 2026 (Article 113). In the United States, the FTC's rule bans testimonials that pretend to come from someone who does not exist (FTC).

Plans and credits

Arcads publishes plan sizes but not prices: the help centre says current prices are shown inside the app, and arcads.ai/pricing returned a not-found page when checked on 26 October 2026. The pricing article lists Starter at 8,000 credits a month, Creator 16,000, Pro 48,000, Scale 96,000 and Business 192,000, with yearly billing 20% below monthly. Pro and above add the public API, team seats and custom actors.

The trial converts into a paid Starter plan on its own after 72 hours, a design that gets you past the decision without making it. At hour 72 the Starter fee goes on your card, whether or not the first video convinced you. Set a reminder for hour 48; cancelling a trial ends access at once (trial article).

How it compares

• Creatify starts from a product link rather than a script, publishes its prices, and has a free plan of 10 credits a month (Creatify pricing). Choose it when the catalogue, not the hook, is the bottleneck.
• HeyGen is a general avatar platform, free for three watermarked videos a month, with videos up to 30 minutes on Pro (HeyGen pricing). It suits explainers more than streams of short creator-style ads.

Getting started

How to use Arcads runs one hook test, from script to launch.

FAQ

Are the Arcads actors real people?

They are AI actors based on real actors who consented and are paid for their likeness, and custom actors stay private to your workspace (FAQ).

What happens to unused credits?

They reset each cycle on Starter and Creator and roll over without expiry on Pro and above; cancelling loses them at the end of the billing cycle (pricing article).

Can Arcads run from Claude or an API?

Yes. The MCP server at mcp.arcads.ai works on any plan with credits, and the public API starts on Pro (MCP documentation, FAQ).