Synthesys Review 2024: Features, Performance and Alternatives
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7/10 Synthesys: Text to Video with Human Avatars
Summary: Synthesys is a platform to create AI images, AI voiceovers, and AI video generation tools with human avatars. Avatars need polishing, and the video editor needs improvements. This review will help you understand the platform's ins and outs and help you decide if it meets your needs. Pricing: From $20/month. Free trial with no credit card. |
In this Synthesys review, I will check this AI video creation platform and make a video to see how it performs.
Synthesys offers a complete suite of AI-based products for video creators, including videos featuring human avatars, natural AI-generated voices, voice cloning, and AI image generation.
The platform provides various customizable options, including over 400 voices in 140 languages.
What are Synthesy's benefits?
- You can create a video without actors: Since Synthesis provides AI human avatars, you don´t need to hire actors or find the character that suits your target audience.
- Filming gear is unnecessary. The entire video production process occurs on the web platform, so forget about expensive filming gear.
- There is no need for locations and studios: You don't need to find the right location and move all the production team there because this tool offers different backgrounds to suit your needs.
- Ultra-low costs: The above benefits result in a substantial cost reduction compared to standard video production.
- Consistency: Digital avatars always deliver the same high-quality results as human actors, who can experiment performance variations.
- Time savings: Synthesys allows you to create videos in minutes, while traditional video creation can take weeks.
- Deliver highly personalized messages: You can create a custom digital avatar and use it to make a unique, customized video.
- You don´t need technical expertise: The platform offers a smooth learning curve, and you can create videos in just minutes.
Of course, Synthesys doesn´t replace professional video suites like Camtasia, Filmora, DaVinci Resolve, or similar ones because these have complex editing and effects capabilities. Still, it is a good complement to have in your video toolbox.
Furthermore, while Synthesys offers many advantages, there are also some issues to consider when we compare AI video makers to traditional video creation:
- Limited Creativity: AI can generate impressive visuals and voiceovers, but it may lack the creativity and emotional depth that human artists and actors can bring to a project.
- Deepfakes and Misinformation: AI-generated content can be used to create misleading or harmful content, raising ethical concerns about its use and regulation.
- Subscription Fees: While Synthesys can reduce labor costs, it often requires a subscription fee or per-minute usage charges.
Who is Synthesys for?
Synthesys is the right tool for
- Course creators: The ability to create a course video with a human-like speaking avatar guarantees high engagement rates.
- Video localization Since Synthesys supports 140 languages, there are no localization costs, and you can reach worldwide audiences at minimal cost.
- Podcast creators: Cloned voices can streamline podcast production, minimizing editing time and offering consistent sound.
- Content creators: YouTubers and anyone who produces video content can use Synthesys to create videos with AI avatars, voiceovers, and original AI-generated images.
- Advertising professionals: This platform enables the creation of video Ads, sales letters, and other promotional stuff, helping marketers capture leads and drive conversions.
- Creators with limited technical expertise: Synthesys' friendly interface and smooth learning curve allow anyone to create professional-looking videos.
Synthesys main features
This platform offers three main products.
- AI Voices: To create voiceovers with quality voice actors from text-to-speech input. A wide range of accents and languages are available to find the perfect tone and emotion.
- AI Humans: This feature allows you to create videos with real-life actors. You type in a text and choose an avatar, then the system generates a video in minutes.
- Synthesys Lab: Here, you can generate AI images and AI videos, take photos, and create images and videos from text in Canva.
Languages and voices
- Audio render: From 2 minutes in the Free Plan to unlimited in the Business Plan.
- Voice Adjust: Adjust tone, pitch, and pauses for better audio output.
- Multi-voice functionality: Allows different voices to be used in the same audio file.
- Voice cloning: Clone your voice for highly customizable podcasts or videos.
- Speech to Speech: Convert words spoken by a person into another person´s voice.
- Languages: 140+ with 370+ voices.
- Speech to Speech: Change the voice of an existing file with another one.
- Multilingual voice cloning: You can clone and use your voice in your podcasts or videos.
- Text-to-Speech API: This is used to connect your apps to Synthesys.
- AI Voices GPT: This feature generates and clones high-quality voiceovers in 17 languages.
Avatars
- Stock avatars: 80+ diverse avatars. This ensures you can find the perfect actor that fits your target audience.
- Instant avatar: Create a digital twin using your phone's cell camera.
- Studio avatar: This is a high-quality option for creating avatars.
Video Editor and Media
- Video length: 2 minutes in the Free Plan to unlimited in the Business Plan.
- Templates: 24+ templates.
- Video quality: 1080p
- Transitions: 6 transitions available.
- Video from PDF
- AI Video translator: 31+ languages available for instant video or audio translation.
- AI Talking photos: Turn a picture into a dynamic speaking portrait.
- Music: 4 tracks.
AI Tools
- Image to video: Create a short video from an image.
- AI images and videos: Create an AI image or video from a text prompt.
- Face swapping: You can upload a photo to swap faces within an existing video.
- Synthesys X: Replicate any image using a Chrome extension.
- Synthesys Video Translate: Translate any existing video in 29 languages.
- AI Phone Call: A full suite of tools to handle inbound and outbound phone calls.
Collaboration and publishing
The only mention of collaboration I could find is in Enterprise Plans, where the webpage states that you can have up to five simultaneous logins. However, there are no options for team management or live collaboration. Thus, if you have an agency or need to share your video before publishing, you will have to go for other tools.
Security and Privacy
Synthesys discloses a privacy policy but does not mention security, incidents, or server management. There are no mentions of Single Sign On or SOC2 compliance.
Integrations
Synthesys integrates only with Canva, and you cannot streamline this platform into your current workflow if you are using other software.
If you need to scale text-to-speech voices, a proprietary API is available.
Synthesys Pricing
- Free Plan: AI voices, AI humans, AI Images, and AI video, 2 minutes of video or audio generation, 50 AI image generation, voice cloning, three slides per video.
- Personal Plan: $20/month, adds 15 minutes of video or audio generation, 100 image generation, six slides per video, personal license.
- Creator Plan: $41/month with 40 minutes of video or audio, 250 image generation, six slides per video, and commercial license.
- Business Plan: $69/month with unlimited video and audio generation, 12 slides per video, and priority render.
Synthesys' pricing scheme is quite good. It offers a generous Free Plan that allows you to create images and videos for free. Paid options show a good cost/benefit ratio.
Synthesys reviews and support
I found Synthesys score on G2 to be 4./5 from 11 reviews. Although there are few reviews, this is a good score from the user side.
Regarding support, there is a chat window at the bottom right that provides pre-made answers and the option to ask a specific question. In the upper window, a legend says, "We usually respond in a few hours," so don´t expect a quick response here.
Furthermore, the dashboard provides access to many video tutorials. The comprehensive knowledge base covers every aspect of the platforms, making it a helpful resource for getting the most out of it.
How to make a video with Synthesys
Once on the home dashboard, I go down to the AI Humans tab, and a new dashboard appears. From there, I can create a video from scratch or use any available templates. Let´s start with a pre-made template:
Let´s choose the red template. On the right, you can see that the system automatically adds four slides to the video.
To make things easier, I deleted the second scene and added some text to each scene. From the left dashboard, adding text, frames, shapes, and icons to the third scene is easy. In the upper left, a button lets you choose whether to show full-body avatars, circle view, or no avatars, as well as the aspect ratio.
The text input box has four controls: these allow the translation of the script, adding pauses, and changing pitch and speed. There are no phoneme controls to fine-tune word pronunciation.
There are only six transitions to play with. Let´s add the "Cross Disolve" transition to see how it works.
I saved the project before rendering the video. This process takes some time; the system updates the saved project in 40 seconds.
Now, the video is ready to render. I click the "Create Video" button at the top right. The system warns me about how many credits the render will take and offers the option to add captions and set the video name.
The video was ready 15 minutes later. This is too much time for a simple video of only 23 seconds. Although I am on the Free Plan, the time it took to render is ridiculously high.
Check it out:
Lip-syncing is good, and although the overall video quality is acceptable, the avatar is somehow frozen and does not look natural. Of course it can be improved, but the idea is to create a quick video to check how the tool works.
I can download the video, but there is no option to share it via URL or a social media link.
How to generate an AI image or video with Synthesys
Synthesys has an interesting AI image generator. Like similar tools, you must type detailed instructions in a text prompt, and the system returns an image in seconds. The system generates up to four images simultaneously to choose the best one that fits your needs.
Images aspect ratios can be square (1024x1024) horizontal (1536x640) or vertical (640x1536)
You can personalize the output by uploading a personal photo, and the AI will generate pictures with the same face. The "pose control" feature instructs the AI to create images by copying body poses and patterns.
Regarding AI video generation, videos can be square (768x768), Horizontal (1024x576), or vertical (576x1024). The tool offers the same options as images but adds face-swapping and lip-syncing.
Let´s try this tool for AI images. Once on the image generation dashboard, I type this prompt: "A young man driving a red vintage car in a mountain road with some trees. It is afternoon and the sky has some clouds." When I click the "Generate" button, the system comes up with these images
The overall result is outstanding. Synthesys takes AI image generation offering the option to upscale the images, edit them, create a video, or create variations.
How to generate an AI voiceover with Synthesys
This platform offers a wide range of accents and voices for voiceover generation.
I can preview how the voice sounds on the right side. I tried English and Spanish voices (the only languages I know), and all of them have excellent output with human-like quality.
So, let’s see how it works. I type in a short script, but it only accepts text of up to 300 characters, a significant disadvantage if you need to generate a voice from a longer paragraph.
I clicked the "Generate" button, but a pop-up appeared saying I didn't have enough credits. I still own 116 credits, so there may be some error here. After three attempts, I finally managed to generate my voiceover.
The generated voiceover is top quality, although the 300-character limit makes this tool too slow.
Synthesys Pros: What I like
- AI image generation: The quality of generated images is excellent, and the additional options add much value to this platform.
- Generous Free Plan: The Free Plan has many features you can use if you don´t need to create lots of monthly videos.
- Excellent voice quality: The quality of AI voices in Synthesys is excellent and it is difficult to tell they are not human.
Synthesys Cons: What needs improvement
- Team management: This feature must be added to make this app eligible for teams or agencies.
- Platform buggy at times: The platform freezes occasionally, and you have to go back and start again.
- Avatar quality: Although lip-syncing is good, avatars don´t look as natural as on other platforms.
- Integrations: This app is far behind its competitors because it integrates only with Canva. The lack of integrations needs improvement.
- Free royalty assets: There are only a few templates, stock images, music, and videos. You will definitely have to look for these items on other sites.
- No ChatGPT for scripts: There is no ChatGPT integration for writing scripts, a feature every competitor offers.
Three best Synthesys alternatives
The best way to determine whether this is a good fit for your needs is to sign up for a free account and test it yourself.
Anyway, I am listing below the three best Synthesys options:
Synthesia
Synthesia is the leading tool in the AI video creation business. With 230+ top-quality avatars, 1-click translation, live collaboration, tons of templates and integrations, and a fully featured video editor, this platform lets you create professional-looking videos in minutes.
Synthesia pricing starts at $18/month for 120 minutes of video per month, but there is no free trial.
Read my Synthesia Review or go to the Synhtesia webpage.
HeyGen
HeyGen AI video maker is another solid option for video creation. A unique free plan lets you create up to three videos per month, each up to three minutes in length. But if you are keen to pay $24/month, you can create unlimited videos per month. (Yes, unlimited)
HeyGen features 700+ avatars, interactive avatars, URLs to video creation, workspaces, branding kits, and enterprise security and privacy.
Read my HeyGen review or go to the HeyGen webpage.
Elai.io
Elai is the best AI video creator for learning and course creators. Elai's interactive options are unique, and you can create videos featuring human avatars with quizzes, branching, links, clickable hotspots, and interactive timelines.
Add to this 300+ voices, voice cloning, 75+ languages, collaboration features, and real-time streaming avatars, and you have a solid AI video creator.
You can try Elai for free, and paid plans start at $23/month with 15 minutes of video per month.
Read my Elai review or go to the Elai webpage.
Synthesys Review: My Conclusion
I wouldn´t say I like multitool platforms because they try to do many things with average results. And this is my feeling about Synthesys, with some good tools (like image and video generation) but with room for improvement in AI video generation.
Since team management and collaboration options are absent, Synthesys is limited to consumers and is not the best tool for teams or agencies.
AI image and video generation are a plus, but I want better avatar quality and lip-syncing. The number of available templates and free royalty assets also needs improvement, not to mention the lack of integrations.
The foundation is just here, Synthesys just needs some improvements to offer a better user experience.

Mario here. I am the owner of Vidmetoo, a one-man band.
I founded this website to provide you with useful insights about video tools and related resources. Thanks for reading!