Arcads Review 2026: AI UGC Ads, Pricing per Video and HeyGen Compared
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Arcads makes UGC-style video ads: an AI actor reads your script to camera, the way a creator films a product review. Prices appear only after sign-up; review sites put Starter at $110 a month for 10 videos.
Verdict: 2.6/5 (output quality not scored). Not our first pick: a video costs about $11 at the reported Starter price, prices stay hidden until sign-up, the trial covers roughly one video and Trustpilot shows 2.5. It suits ad teams that need many consented actors and paid-ad rights. For explainers, HeyGen Avatar IV/V costs $0.39 to $1.16 per 30 seconds.
Try Arcads: 72-hour trial, card required
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On this page: what it makes, pricing and credits, free trial, HeyGen vs Arcads, ad rights, refunds, reviews, who it suits, score, FAQ.
What Arcads makes: AI UGC ads with consented actors
Arcads’ help center defines AI UGC ads as “creator-style videos where a realistic AI actor speaks your script to camera, the way a real creator would film a review or recommendation”. You pick an actor by age, gender, type and setting, such as a car, write the script and get a lip-synced video. The actor can hold your product or show your app.
The 1,000+ actors are AI versions of real people who “gave consent and are paid for the use of their likeness”. From the Pro plan, a private custom actor costs 1,600 credits, and cloning yourself takes one uncut video of at least 2 minutes.
The same credits pay for clips from other video models (Seedance 2.5 by default, Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0 Pro), images, captions, lip-synced translation and an AI agent called Mark. Arcads is built by FRESHR SAS, a French company registered in Rouen. It sells only to businesses and offers support on weekdays, 9 am to 6 pm Paris time.
Arcads pricing: plans, credits and the price of one video
There is no public price list: /pricing, /plans and /price return a 404 error, and the help center says “Current prices are on the pricing page in the app”. It does publish each plan’s credits and the standard credit cost of each generation type.
| Plan | Credits a month | Talking-actor videos* | Reported price a month | At the credit limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 8,000 | 10 | $110 ($77 in an August promotion) | Generation stops; credits reset |
| Creator | 16,000 | 20 | $220 ($154 in the same promotion) | Generation stops; credits reset |
| Pro | 48,000 | 60 | $550, Creatify’s figure only | Billed on the next invoice; credits roll over |
| Scale | 96,000 | 120 | Not reported | Billed on the next invoice; credits roll over |
| Business | 192,000 | 240 | Not reported | Billed on the next invoice; credits roll over |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Through sales | Custom |
*Standard Arcads 1.0 videos, one actor each, up to 2 minutes, at 800 credits apiece. Yearly billing is “20% off”, per the help center. The promotion and Pro prices come only from Creatify; eesel.ai calls Pro custom-priced.
What one video really costs
On the standard Arcads 1.0 model, a talking-actor video is priced per clip, not per second. It uses 800 credits whether it runs 15 seconds or 2 minutes. Audio-Driven and OmniHuman 1.5 videos run up to 5 minutes at 800 credits per started minute. Each actor is a separate video.
At the reported $110, Starter works out at $11 a video, or $7.70 at the promotion price. In the help center’s own example, a 1 minute 45 second video with two actors on OmniHuman 1.5 counts as 2 minutes × 2 actors: 3,200 credits, or 40% of Starter’s month.
- Video model clips: Veo 3.1 uses 800 credits for 8 seconds; Seedance 2.5 uses 210 for 5 seconds at 720p, or 520 at 1080p.
- Translation: 240 credits per started 30 seconds, per language.
- Product shots: 400 credits for an unboxing point-of-view video, 200 for an app showcase.
- Captions and edits: from the Creator plan, captions cost 8 credits in TikTok style or 80 in Classic; trimming, resizing and voice changes are free.
What each plan adds
- Every plan: all models up to 4K, Mark the AI agent and an MCP connection for Claude or ChatGPT.
- Creator and above: Workflows for batches, background removal and AI captions.
- Pro and above: the public API, team seats, custom actors, ElevenLabs voices, free voice cloning (80 credits otherwise) and Slack access to the team.
A July 2026 help article adds that Pro accounts can “connect your ElevenLabs account to import custom voices”, so a brand voice made there carries over. ElevenLabs’ own Starter plan costs $6 a month with instant voice cloning, per its pricing page on 21 October 2026.
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Credit traps to know before you pay
- Hard stop on small plans. On Starter and Creator, “Generation stops and an upgrade offer opens” at the limit, and unused credits reset each cycle.
- Upgrades reset billing. The new plan is charged the same day, and your billing date moves.
- Rollover from Pro. Unused credits carry over “in full, with no cap and no expiry”, but extra usage lands on the next invoice.
- Rates can differ. Two help articles price Replace Actor at 500 and 800 credits, and the company “tests new pricing from time to time”.
The 72-hour trial: 1,000 credits and a card on file
The homepage says “Free trial available”. The help center gives the terms: 3 days and 1,000 credits with every feature unlocked, and a card held at sign-up but not charged. A reminder arrives 24 hours before the end. If you don’t cancel, the Starter monthly plan starts after 72 hours.
- About one video: 1,000 credits cover one 800-credit talking-actor video, with 200 left for captions.
- Early charge: use up the credits before 72 hours, and the plan you then pick is charged at once.
- No grace period: cancelling during the trial ends access immediately.
A one-star Trustpilot review from 13 October 2026 says the trial credits “will not allow you to create your first video”. Plan one test: one actor, one script under 2 minutes.
Start the Arcads trial with one test script
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HeyGen vs Arcads: price per ad, avatars, languages
Both put an AI presenter on screen but meter it differently. HeyGen counts credits per minute of video, so a short ad uses few. Arcads prices a standard talking-actor video per clip, so a 15-second hook costs as much as a 2-minute one.
| Compared on | HeyGen Creator | Arcads Starter |
|---|---|---|
| Price a month | $29, or $24 billed yearly | Not public; $110 reported |
| Monthly allowance | 600 credits | 8,000 credits |
| One 30-second ad | $0.39 to $1.16 on Avatar IV/V; about $0.10 to $0.17 on Avatar III | About $11, same up to 2 minutes |
| 30-second ads a month | About 25 to 75 on Avatar IV/V | 10 |
| Longest video | 30 minutes | 2 minutes; 5 on OmniHuman 1.5 |
| Stock presenters | 700+ avatars | 1,000+ AI actors |
| Languages | 175+ languages and dialects | 74 for talking actors |
| Free option | Free plan: 3 videos a month, 1 minute each, watermark, no card | 72-hour trial, card required |
| Unused credits | Roll over one month on monthly plans | Reset each cycle |
| Refunds | “Payments are non-refundable” | Full refund if no credits used |
| Trustpilot, 21 Oct 2026 | 4.2 (4,693 reviews) | 2.5 (187 reviews) |
How we got there: Creator’s $29 buys 600 credits, about 4.8 cents each. Avatar IV uses 16 credits a minute with a photo avatar and 31 with a video avatar; Avatar V uses 48, “with limited usage” on Creator. HeyGen bills part of a minute pro rata (20 credits for a 30-second scene at 40 a minute), so 30 seconds costs 8, 15.5 or 24 credits.
Avatar III, also on Creator, uses 4 to 7 credits a minute: about $0.10 to $0.17 for 30 seconds.
Where Arcads wins: a bigger library of UGC-style actors, per-clip pricing that suits 1 to 2 minute ads, a refund when no credits were used, and a license that names paid distribution.
Where HeyGen wins: a public price, a free plan without a card, videos up to 30 minutes and 4,693 Trustpilot reviews averaging 4.2. Free-plan output, though, may not be used “in connection with commercial activities, advertising, client work”.
HeyGen’s affiliate program excludes blogs, so we earn nothing from it. See its pricing page, or our guide comparing nine HeyGen alternatives.
Avatars and languages, with Creatify for comparison
| Tool and plan | Stock presenters | Your own avatar | Languages | Longest video |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arcads Starter | 1,000+ AI actors | Custom actors and self-clone from Pro | 74 spoken; 176 translation options | 2 min; 5 on OmniHuman |
| HeyGen Creator | 700+ (500+ on Free) | Custom video avatar included | 175+ languages and dialects | 30 min |
| Creatify Standard | 300 AI actors (1,500 on Pro) | 3 custom avatars, from Pro | 75+ | 2 min (10 on Pro) |
The language count depends on the page: the homepage promises translation “in more than 30 languages”, a July 2026 help article lists 35, and the current FAQ says talking actors speak 74. We use the FAQ figure.
Creatify, another ad tool, replaced its $39 Starter plan in October 2026. On 21 October, its pricing page showed Standard at $10 a month on yearly billing (a 30% offer), with $15 struck through, which we read as the monthly price. Standard’s 55 credits make 11 avatar videos of 15 seconds (Aurora model), per the page. At $15, that puts a 30-second ad near $2.73, our estimate.
Creatify’s plans allow its creatives “in any channel without limitations”, and its Trustpilot score on 21 October was 3.7 from 842 reviews.
Who owns the ad: license, actor consent and penalties
FRESHR’s terms grant “a non-exclusive, personal and non-transferable license” to each video, worldwide and for the legal life of the rights, including broadcasting it “free of charge or in return for payment”. Another client with a similar script and the same actor may get a “similar or identical” video.
- Edits are listed: cropping, music, text and subtitles, emoji, B-roll, GIFs, sound effects, format and your logo.
- Banned: misleading ads, feeding the video to another AI, cloning the actor or any deepfake.
- Penalties: €500,000 per breach of the actor-model rules left unfixed 30 days after notice, and €100 a day for deleting a video late on request.
- Your inputs stay yours, but you license them to FRESHR, including the right “to train FRESHR’s artificial intelligence models”.
- Honest framing: “AI actors must not be presented as real or verified customers”, and adult, political and misleading ads are banned.
Rules differ by vendor:
| Tool | Stock avatars in paid ads | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Arcads | Covered by the license | Not exclusive; edits limited to a list |
| HeyGen | Commercial use on paid plans | Free-plan output barred from advertising |
| Synthesia | Only with its written consent | Custom avatars need the person’s consent |
| Colossyan | Policy excludes “television broadcasting or advertising” | No opinions or experiences voiced as the avatar’s own |
| Creatify | “In any channel without limitations” | Custom avatars start on Pro |
Refunds, cancelling and surprise renewals
- Refund if unused: “If you were charged for a billing period and used zero generation credits during that period, we’ll refund the full amount.” Ask within 30 days; that limit is “firm”.
- One courtesy refund: a first charge, including the one when a trial converts, may be refunded within 24 hours if no credits were used since; once per account.
- Quality doesn’t count: “Dissatisfaction with the creative output” brings neither a refund nor credits back; only a confirmed platform error restores credits.
- Cancelling: Settings → Billing → Manage subscription → Cancel subscription. It takes effect at the end of the cycle, unused credits are lost, and refunds go through support.
- Keep the cancellation email: with it, every charge after the cancellation date is refunded; without proof, only the most recent one.
That beats HeyGen’s terms, which say “Payments are non-refundable, except where required by law”, and Creatify’s no-refund rule. But a refund only works if you generated nothing in that period.
What customers say: 2.5 on Trustpilot, no G2 reviews in July
On 21 October 2026, Trustpilot showed 2.5 out of 5 from 187 reviews, 143 from the last 12 months: 49% one-star, 41% five-star. The profile was claimed in September 2026, and Trustpilot notes the company “Hasn’t replied to negative reviews”. An archived G2 page from 23 July 2026 listed no reviews.
The nine newest reviews on 21 October were all one-star, with three themes:
- Credits: a reviewer making ads for a coffee brand “burned ~3,000 credits” (27 September); another ran out of trial credits after “2 short 10 second videos” (29 September).
- Cost: “The adverts on Instagram dont make the true cost clear,” one customer wrote on 2 October, quoting “£425 a month minimum” for lip-synced videos with the reviewer’s own face and voice.
- Support and output: “Customer service doesn’t exist and the generations are horrible” (12 October).
Trustpilot doesn’t fact-check reviews and warns that they “may not be representative”, since the company hasn’t invited customers recently; 41% of ratings are five stars. Still, with G2 empty in July, these reviews are most of the public record.
Who it suits, and when HeyGen or Synthesia fits better
Arcads names its buyers as “performance marketers, e-commerce brands, app and game companies, service businesses, and agencies running ads for several brands”. Per-clip pricing fits the first and the last best.
A good fit:
- Ad teams testing hooks at volume: “one workflow run can return 20 videos, 10 actors in 2 languages”.
- Agencies that want consented actors plus Veo, Seedance and Kling clips on one balance.
- Brands taking a winning ad abroad, at 240 credits per 30 seconds per language.
Look elsewhere if:
- You make training or explainer videos: videos stop at 2 or 5 minutes, while HeyGen Creator allows 30. See our Colossyan review, the Synthesia review and Synthesia alternatives.
- Your budget is under $100 a month: HeyGen Creator ($29) and Creatify Standard ($10 to $15) cost far less per ad. Our AI avatar generator comparison covers more options.
- You need a real testimonial: the vendor itself says a human creator is better “When you need a real customer’s experience”.
- You need a face no competitor can use: the license is non-exclusive.
Our score: 2.6 out of 5, and how we checked
We score tools on six weighted criteria, explained on our How we test page. With no account here, output quality is not scored, and the total averages the other five. Prices missing from the vendor’s own pages cap the price score at 3.
| Criterion | Weight | Score | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price for real work | 25% | 2 | About $11 a video at reported prices; no public price list |
| Output quality | 25% | Not scored | No account yet |
| Limits and fine print | 15% | 3 | License covers paid ads; credits reset on small plans; €500,000 penalty clause |
| Billing and reputation | 15% | 2 | Hidden prices; Trustpilot 2.5 (187); no G2 reviews (July snapshot); refund only if unused |
| Support and learning | 10% | 3 | Detailed help center; weekday support; Slack only from Pro |
| Maturity of AI features | 10% | 4 | Seedance 2.5, Veo 3.1 and Kling 3.0 Pro live; API and MCP |
The math: 0.25 × 2 + 0.15 × 3 + 0.15 × 2 + 0.10 × 3 + 0.10 × 4 = 1.95. Divided by 0.75, the weight of the scored criteria, that gives 2.6. Below 3.0, we don’t recommend a tool; here the reasons are the price per video, hidden prices and the review record.
Sources, read on 21 October 2026: the help center, terms and homepage; HeyGen’s pricing page, credit guide and terms; Creatify’s pricing page; Trustpilot; an archived G2 page. We may earn a commission through this page’s links and will re-check prices within 90 days.
See Arcads’ in-app prices before you commit
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Frequently asked questions
No. There is no free plan, only a 72-hour trial with 1,000 credits, enough for about one talking-actor video. A card is required, and the Starter plan starts automatically unless you cancel; cancelling during the trial ends access at once. HeyGen’s free plan needs no card but allows only 3 watermarked videos a month.
Prices appear only inside the app. Review sites report Starter at $110 a month for 8,000 credits, or 10 videos, and Creator at $220 for 16,000. Creatify, a competitor, reports Pro at $550 and a 30% promotion in August 2026. Yearly billing is 20% off. Check the paywall before you enter a card.
Per video on entry plans, yes. HeyGen Creator costs $29 a month for 600 credits, so a 30-second Avatar IV or V video works out at about $0.39 to $1.16. At the reported $110 for Starter, an Arcads video of up to 2 minutes works out at about $11, so longer ads narrow the gap.
Yes, with conditions. The license covers paid distribution worldwide, but it is non-exclusive and limits edits to a list such as cropping, music, captions and logos. You may not present an AI actor as a real customer. HeyGen allows commercial use only on paid plans; Synthesia needs written consent for stock avatars in paid social ads.
Pro and above. The workspace owner creates API keys under Settings, Public API, and teammates join by email. Every plan can also connect to Claude or ChatGPT through the company’s MCP server. On Pro, unused credits roll over without a cap, and extra usage is billed on the next invoice.
Only for an unused period. You get the full amount back if you used zero credits in the charged period and ask within 30 days. If the trial converted and you used no credits since that charge, a one-time courtesy refund may apply within 24 hours. Poor lip sync or accents don’t qualify, and cancelling forfeits unused credits.