Arcads Starter costs about $110 a month and Creator about $220, according to reviewers who reached its in-app paywall (Marketer Milk, March 2025, repeated by eesel.ai in June 2026), since Arcads itself publishes no dollar prices on its site as of October 2026. Its help center lists Starter at 8,000 usage units a month and Creator at 16,000, and a one-actor talking video uses 800 units per started minute, so each Starter video costs about $11. Those dollar figures date from when the plans were sold as 10 and 20 videos a month, so confirm today’s price at checkout.
Key takeaways
- No public prices. Arcads lists plan names and usage allowances in its help center, but no dollar amounts anywhere on its site, as of October 2026.
- Reported, not quoted. Starter at $110 and Creator at $220 a month come from a March 2025 paywall screenshot in Marketer Milk’s review, repeated by eesel.ai in June 2026. Scale and Business are custom-priced, and no one has reported a current Pro price.
- Minutes round up. A talking actor uses 800 units per minute, per actor, rounded up, so a 15-second ad bills like a 60-second one.
- Starter and Creator stop at the limit. Units don’t roll over, and the account pauses until renewal unless you upgrade (Creator from the paywall, Pro through sales). Pro and above roll over and bill overage (plan limits).
- Cheaper per video elsewhere, with different strengths. As of October 2026, a 30-second talking video works out to $3.90 on Creatify Starter and under $1 on HeyGen Creator, against about $11 on Arcads Starter at the reported price.
How much does Arcads cost in 2026?
We re-checked Arcads’ site on October 8, 2026: /pricing is a 404, and the homepage shows “Free trial available” with no prices. We did not go through the in-app checkout, so every dollar figure below is a third-party report and labeled as one. Those figures come from a paywall screenshot Marketer Milk published on March 27, 2025, when Starter and Creator were sold as 10 and 20 videos a month. Arcads has since moved from one unit per video to per-minute metering (800 units a minute per actor) and added a trial, so today’s price may differ. Plan names, allowances and rules come from Arcads’ own help center. Arcads’ app has its own name for usage units; the numbers are the same.
| Plan | Price shown by Arcads | Price reported by others | Usage units a month | At the monthly limit | Unused units |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free trial | $0 for 72 hours, card held, not charged (trial rules) | Not applicable | 1,000 for the trial | You pick a paid plan and are charged | Not applicable |
| Starter | Not published | $110 a month (Marketer Milk, March 2025; eesel.ai, June 2026) | 8,000 | Paused until renewal, or upgrade to Creator from the paywall | Reset each cycle |
| Creator | Not published | $220 a month (Marketer Milk, March 2025; eesel.ai, June 2026) | 16,000 | Paused until renewal, or upgrade from the paywall (Pro through sales) | Reset each cycle |
| Pro | Not published. The trial rules list Pro at the paywall, and the plan limits article says to contact sales | Custom (Marketer Milk) | Not published | Not blocked, overage billed per extra unit | Roll over while subscribed |
| Scale, Business | Not published, contact sales | Not reported | Custom, with a lower unit cost at volume | Overage billed | Roll over while subscribed |
Allowances and limit rules are from Arcads’ plan limits article, checked October 8, 2026. Three things the table doesn’t show:
- The plan list. Arcads’ FAQ names three plans: Starter, Creator and Pro. Pro appears on the trial’s plan-selection screen, but the help center sends upgrades to it through sales. If a review quotes a tier that isn’t on that list, check it at the paywall before you budget for it.
- Where the numbers come from. eesel’s figures come from a paywall screenshot it attributes to Marketer Milk’s March 2025 review. eesel says to verify them at the paywall and notes the actor library has grown since that capture. Creatify’s Arcads review, a competitor’s page, shows $110 and $220 but labels the $220 tier Pro and says Arcads has no free trial, so treat it as out of date.
- Renewal and upgrades. Arcads’ Terms say subscriptions renew automatically for the same period, and units left when you move to a higher plan carry over to it. We found no annual price on any Arcads page.
What does one Arcads video cost?
Everything draws from one monthly allowance. These rates are from Arcads’ usage table as of October 2026.
| What you make | Units used | How many fit in Starter’s 8,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Talking actor, one actor, up to 1 minute | 800 | 10 |
| Talking actor, two actors, 1 minute 45 seconds (Arcads’ own example) | 3,200 | 2 |
| Show Your App preset | 200 | 40 |
| Product showcase or fashion try-on preset | 800 | 10 |
| Veo 3.1 clip | 800 per generation | 10 |
| Seedance 2.0 clip | 96 to 1,620 per generation by resolution, plus 240 to 1,080 with a reference video | 2 to 83 |
| Captions | 80 | 100 |
| Translate video | 240 | 33 |
| Hook repurposer or replace actor | 800 each | 10 |
| Nano Banana Pro or Seedream images | Free up to 100 a day | Not counted |
At the reported $110, if it still holds, Starter works out to $11 per one-actor talking video if every unit goes into finished ads. Add captions to each one and only 9 fit (9 × 880 = 7,920 units), about $12.22 a video. Creator at the reported $220 lands on the same $11, since it doubles both price and units.
Workflows multiply this quickly. Arcads’ own Workflow example turns one script into 20 eight-second clips across 10 AI characters in English and Spanish. Arcads doesn’t publish what that run costs. At 800 units per talking-actor clip, the 10 English clips alone use 8,000 units, a full Starter month, for 80 seconds of footage, before the Spanish versions.
Does Arcads have a free trial?
Yes: 72 hours from sign-up, 1,000 usage units and every feature (Studio, Workflows, Agent), as of October 2026. A card is required as a hold, not a charge (trial rules). If you use all 1,000 units before the 72 hours are up, a plan-selection screen appears and your card is charged for the plan you pick. 1,000 units is one talking-actor minute plus a few add-ons.
To avoid the Starter charge, cancel in Settings, Subscription and Billing before the 72 hours are up (FAQ). Cancelling ends access immediately. If you are charged at conversion and haven’t used any units since, ask support within 24 hours: the refund policy says it may qualify as a one-time courtesy refund.
How does Arcads’ cost per video compare with Creatify, MakeUGC and HeyGen?
To compare like with like, here is one 30-second, one-actor talking video on each tool’s entry plan, using each vendor’s published monthly list price and rates on October 8, 2026 and the full monthly allowance.
| Tool and plan | Monthly price | Monthly allowance | How a talking video is metered | 30-second videos a month | Cost per video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arcads Starter | Not published, $110 reported (March 2025 capture) | 8,000 | 800 per started minute, per actor | 10 | About $11.00 |
| Creatify Starter | $39 | 100 | 5 per started 15 seconds | 10 | $3.90 |
| MakeUGC Starter | $59 | 500 | 100 per video (API rate) | 5 | $11.80 |
| HeyGen Creator | $29 | 600 | 31 a minute (Avatar IV, video look) | About 38 | About $0.75 |
Read the last column as a floor, not a quote:
- HeyGen bills per minute of output. We assumed a 30-second clip uses half a minute (15.5 units at about $0.048 each), as HeyGen’s own example does for its motion add-on, and its help center says rates can vary by account.
- We found MakeUGC’s per-video rate only in its API docs (100 units per generated video). Its pricing page says each generation costs units based on model, duration and resolution.
- Annual billing lowers the three published prices. MakeUGC Starter drops to $29 a month billed yearly, HeyGen Creator to $24 billed annually, and Creatify advertises up to 50% off on annual plans. We found no annual price for Arcads.
- The plans aren’t equal. Creatify Starter lists 300 AI actors and one generation at a time, MakeUGC Starter exports at 480p and 720p, and HeyGen is a general avatar video tool. Arcads advertises 1,000+ AI actors.
- None of this counts re-rolls. If you keep one render in three, triple the cost per video.
For cost per video across ten tools, see best AI UGC video generators. For how AI video compares with paying human creators, see our UGC cost per video guide. For features side by side, see Arcads vs Creatify vs MakeUGC.
What hidden costs should you budget for on Arcads?
- Rounding, actors and add-ons. A 15-second ad uses the same 800 units as a 60-second one, a second actor doubles it, and captions, translation and upscaling come out of the same allowance.
- Re-rolls stay paid. Arcads’ refund policy restores units only for confirmed platform errors. Poor output quality alone, such as unsatisfying lip sync, doesn’t qualify.
- Use it or lose it. Starter and Creator units reset each cycle, and the Terms say units left over when you downgrade are lost.
- Promo versus list price. Review prices are snapshots of a paywall Arcads doesn’t publish, and Arcads runs promotions. Its Terms (article 12.5) say promotional generations don’t draw from your plan’s units but are time-limited and subject to fair use, speed and concurrency limits. Screenshot the paywall, note whether the price shown is a discount, and ask what you’ll pay at renewal.
Is Arcads worth the price, and who is it for?
For performance media buyers who need fresh talking-head variations every week, yes: about $11 a generated ad, more once you count re-rolls, can be cheap next to filming each one. The homepage names “Fast growing D2C brands, $1B mobile app studios, top marketing agencies,” and the help center describes output as ready-to-upload ads for Reels, Stories, feed and TikTok, with captions in TikTok and Instagram styles. Workflows, a public API and an MCP connector (FAQ) suit teams testing many actor and hook variations every week.
Where Arcads is strong: 1,000+ AI actors, voices in 35 languages and accents and translation into more than 130 languages and accents (FAQ), custom actors, a wide menu of video models, and a 72-hour trial that is longer than Relay’s 1-day trial. Its Terms also describe an optional TikTok connection that, where available, publishes a post after you review and confirm it.
When is Relay or managed UGC the better buy?
This guide is published by Relay, so weigh it with that in mind.
- You want organic TikTok, not ad files. Relay starts from your website or App Store link and makes slideshows and videos based on formats getting views in your niche, and you swipe to approve. Connect your TikTok once and Relay sends each approved post to your TikTok inbox on its day. Relay Starter is $49 a month after a $25 first month, for 40 posts made and 20 sent to TikTok. Relay Growth is $99 a month after a $45 first month, for 120 made and 60 sent (pricing). A post is a slideshow or a video, not a talking-actor ad, so this isn’t a like-for-like price.
- You want real people, made for you. Relay’s managed UGC ads service makes UGC ads from a network of 50,000 creators at about $5 a creative, starting with a free 15-minute call and 5 UGC ads free.
- You want posts from real creator accounts. On Relay Scale ($249 a month after a $149 first month), drafts can go to creators in Relay’s creator network, who post them from their own accounts.
When is Arcads a better buy than Relay?
- You need talking AI actors, custom avatars or lip-synced translation. Arcads, Creatify, MakeUGC and HeyGen are built for that job.
- You want a self-serve tool for paid campaigns on Meta or YouTube. Relay’s self-serve product sends organic posts to TikTok only and doesn’t manage paid ads.
- You want a longer free trial. Arcads gives 72 hours and 1,000 units, and Relay gives 1 day.
- You need an API or MCP connector to generate video from your own tools. Arcads offers both.
- You want the lowest cost per talking video. On the math above, HeyGen Creator and Creatify Starter come in well under Arcads.
For a feature-by-feature view, read Relay vs Arcads or the full list of Arcads alternatives. If organic TikTok is the job, paste your website at relaystudio.ai. It’s $0 today on a 1-day trial (card required) that converts to the paid first month unless you cancel before it ends.