HeyGen
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The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free: a recording up to 20 minutes transcribes in full, a longer one is previewed, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export, and credits never expire.
AI avatar video generator with talking-head cloning and 100+ language dubs.
Best for marketers and educators who need talking-head video at scale or dubbed in multiple languages. Pricing: freemium.
What it is
HeyGen generates talking-head video from a script using AI avatars (preset or cloned from a personal video). The Video Translate feature lip-syncs an existing video to a new language.
Watch out for: Avatar realism varies by language; consent + likeness terms apply to clones.
Install / use
Go to HeyGen heygen.comWhat people actually do with HeyGen-style transcription
The tool is the means. These are the jobs — each one priced at published rates, each one wired up on its own page.
Wire it into ZapierMake.comAmazon S3SlackGoogle DriveEmergent
Features
| Speaker diarization | No |
| Word-level timestamps | No |
| Streaming / real-time | No |
| Languages supported | 175 |
| HIPAA eligible | No |
HeyGen vs Whipscribe
| Feature | HeyGen | Whipscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Products | Transcription APIs |
| Pricing | Not verified | $6–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · first 20 minutes free |
| Speaker identification | Not verified | Named in the summary, key quotes and chapters |
| Word timestamps | Not verified | Yes |
| Streaming | Not verified | No |
| Languages | 175 | 99 |
| Platforms | Web | Web, API, MCP |
Alternatives to HeyGen
Frequently asked about HeyGen
Is HeyGen free?
Partly. HeyGen has a free tier with paid plans above it — published pricing: freemium. Free-tier limits change more often than this page does; verify on the vendor's pricing page.
Does HeyGen work on Mac, Windows and Linux?
HeyGen runs in the browser, so it works on any desktop OS with a modern browser, and on phones and tablets.
How do I get started with HeyGen?
There is nothing to install — HeyGen is used in the browser. Create an account on the vendor's site and upload or connect your audio.
How many languages does HeyGen support?
HeyGen lists 175 languages. That is the Whisper-family multilingual set, so quality varies by language — English and the large European languages are strongest.
What are the limitations of HeyGen?
Avatar realism varies by language; consent + likeness terms apply to clones.
Who is HeyGen best for?
Marketers and educators who need talking-head video at scale or dubbed in multiple languages.
Is HeyGen open source?
No. HeyGen is a proprietary product. If you need source you can read and run yourself, the open-source tools in this directory are the place to look.
Is there a HeyGen desktop app?
No — HeyGen is browser-only. There is nothing to install and nothing runs on your machine.
What kind of tool is HeyGen?
In this directory HeyGen is filed under avatar, translation as a product.
What are the alternatives to HeyGen?
There is a side-by-side page at /tools/heygen-alternatives comparing HeyGen with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.
Can I automate HeyGen-style transcription without running it myself?
Yes. If what you want is transcripts rather than the tool itself, Whipscribe does the same job as a hosted API: submit a file or URL, poll a job id, pull the result as txt, json, srt, vtt or docx. $0.012 a minute — about $0.72 an audio hour — bought as credits that never expire. The automation recipes on this site show it wired to Drive folders, Zoom recordings, S3 buckets and no-code platforms.
How is Whipscribe different from HeyGen?
HeyGen is another vendor's product; Whipscribe is a per-minute transcription service. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and never used for training, and every job returns five formats plus an AI summary, quotes and topics. The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export.
What does transcription cost if I use Whipscribe instead of HeyGen?
$0.012 a minute — about $0.72 an audio hour — bought as credits that never expire. There is no subscription and no monthly minimum: a 3-hour recording is about $2.16, a thousand-hour archive is about $720 once. The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export, so you can see what your recording holds before paying anything.
Where is the HeyGen category heading?
Three things are moving across the whole speech-to-text market right now: summaries, action items and speaker insights generated on top of the transcript rather than sold separately; private, secured deployment where the audio never leaves a boundary you control; and agent access — transcription exposed as a tool that Claude, Cursor or a workflow runner can call directly. Whipscribe ships all three today: per-job insights, our own servers, and an MCP server.
Whipscribe is a hosted transcription service. If you want transcripts without running infrastructure, paste a URL or drop a file in the form below — you'll have a transcript in seconds.
Transcribe your recordings
Using HeyGen today? Send your next recording here and compare the transcript. Transcribe any language, any recording · Transcription services from $0.29 an hour · Transcribe from any meeting or recording platform · How to transcribe, step by step
Explore
All transcription tools · By language · By platform · By file format · How-to guides · Transcription services · Transcription API · Pricing
Long recording to get through?
One file up to 10 hours, as an upload or a link: see transcribing a long MP3 or M4A, a podcast episode as text from its link and an SRT subtitle file from any recording.
Looking at paid options?
Before you choose a transcription tool or service: see an honest roundup of the best transcription services, cheap transcription services and the real cost per hour and how our transcription services work.