Avatars and live video
Talking faces, realtime video models and live vision input.
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| Preview | $0.002 | $0.0042 | $0.002 | $0 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | - | - | 2 | - | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | No | No | 1 | 4 | high | 2026-10-10 | ||
| Beta | $0.005 | $0.20 | $0.005 | $39 | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | - | - | - | 10 | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | 1 | 4 | Roboflow | medium | 2026-10-10 | |
bitHumanbitHuman |
GA | $0.02 | $0.10 | $0.02 | $20 | Yes | $0.99 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | 1,080 | - | Yes | - | - | - | 3 | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | No | 2 | 5 | bitHuman | high | 2026-10-10 |
| GA | $0.04 | $0.075 | $0.04 | $0 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | No | No | 0 | 4 | fal | medium | 2026-10-10 | |
LemonSliceLemonSlice |
GA | $0.048 | $0.31 | $0.048 | $8 | No | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | 560 | - | - | - | - | 30 | 3 | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 1 | 4 | LemonSlice | medium | 2026-10-10 |
SimliSimli |
GA | $0.05 | $0.05 | $0.05 | $0 | Yes | $10 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | 300 | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | No | No | 1 | 4 | Simli | low | 2026-10-10 |
LiveAvatar (HeyGen)HeyGen |
GA | $0.08 | $0.19 | $0.08 | $99 | Yes | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | - | 720 | - | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | No | No | 2 | 5 | HeyGen | high | 2026-10-10 |
Beyond PresenceBeyond Presence |
GA | $0.09 | $0.35 | $0.087 | $49 | Yes | - | Yes | - | Yes | Yes | - | 1,080 | - | - | - | - | - | 10 | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 0 | 4 | Beyond Presence | high | 2026-10-10 |
AnamAnam |
GA | $0.11 | $0.24 | $0.11 | $12 | Yes | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | 768 | - | - | - | - | 120 | 1 | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 1 | 5 | Anam | high | 2026-10-10 |
| GA | $0.20 | $0.22 | $0.20 | $0 | No | - | Yes | - | - | Yes | - | - | 24 | - | 1,750 | - | 30 | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 0 | 4 | Runway | medium | 2026-10-10 | |
Tavus CVITavus |
GA | $0.24 | $0.37 | $0.24 | $22 | Yes | - | Yes | - | Yes | - | Yes | 1,080 | 40 | - | 500 | 42 | 60 | 1 | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 2 | 5 | Tavus | medium | 2026-10-10 |
D-ID AgentsD-ID |
GA | $0.35 | $0.45 | $0.35 | $14.4 | Yes | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 500 | - | - | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 2 | 5 | D-ID | low | 2026-10-10 |
Decart Realtime (Lucy)Decart |
GA | $0.60 | $2.40 | $0.60 | $0 | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | - | 720 | - | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 1 | 5 | Decart | high | 2026-10-10 |
Daydream (hosted StreamDiffusion)Daydream / Livepeer |
Beta | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | 1 | 3 | Daydream / Livepeer | low | 2026-10-10 |
Google Project Genie (Genie 3)Google DeepMind |
Preview | - | - | - | - | No | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 1 | 3 | Google DeepMind | medium | 2026-10-10 |
| Preview | - | - | - | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | No | - | - | - | - | No | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | No | 0 | 3 | NVIDIA | low | 2026-10-10 | |
| Beta | - | - | - | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | - | 720 | 20 | - | - | - | 2.5 | 5 | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | No | No | 1 | 4 | Odyssey | medium | 2026-10-10 | |
| GA | - | - | - | $0 | No | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | No | No | 0 | 4 | OpenAI | medium | 2026-10-10 | |
OvershootOvershoot (YC W26) |
Beta | - | - | - | $0 | No | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 0 | 4 | Overshoot (YC W26) | medium | 2026-10-10 |
Synthesia Interactive AvatarsSynthesia |
GA | - | - | - | $89 | No | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 1 | 3 | Synthesia | low | 2026-10-10 |
| Deprecated | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 1 | 3 | Hedra | medium | 2026-10-10 | |
Soul MachinesSoul Machines (in receivership) |
Deprecated | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | Yes | - | - | - | - | - | No | No | 1 | 3 | Soul Machines (in receivership) | medium | 2026-10-10 |
A dash means the vendor does not say. Latency is the vendor's own claim, not our measurement. Per-minute figures are estimates from list prices; each API page explains the basis, because vendors bill by tokens, characters, connection time or flat minutes.
Category warnings
These apply to most APIs in this category.
Custom avatars need the real person's consent
Vendors that clone a real face require a recorded consent statement from that person (Tavus requires a word-for-word consent statement in the training video for personal replicas, and a matching consent video if you use footage of someone else). Never build a custom avatar from footage of someone who has not agreed, and keep the consent records.
EU AI Act Article 50 disclosure applies since 2 August 2026
Secondary legal commentary reports that Article 50 transparency duties (tell users they are talking to an AI, label deepfakes) took effect on 2 August 2026 and were not delayed by the Digital Omnibus; only machine-readable marking for systems already on the market got a grace period to 2 December 2026. Show a visible 'AI avatar' notice in any realtime avatar or video-to-video product used in the EU. Not legal advice; check the official text.
The session meter runs while nobody is talking
Avatar vendors bill wall-clock session time, not speaking time. Anam says silence, a muted mic or an idle avatar does not pause billing; bitHuman bills active session time whether talking or idle; Tavus bills a 30 second minimum per conversation. Always set a max session length and an idle or participant-left timeout, and end sessions server-side.
Concurrency caps are low on cheap plans
Entry plans usually allow 1 to 3 simultaneous sessions (Tavus Free/Starter 1, Anam Free/Starter 1, LemonSlice Starter 3, bitHuman Creator 3). Over the cap you get HTTP 429 or a burst surcharge (LemonSlice bills calls above the limit at 2x). Size the plan by peak concurrent users, not by total minutes.
Avatar price is only one layer of the bill
Most avatar APIs only render the face. Speech-to-text, the LLM, text-to-speech and the WebRTC room (LiveKit, Daily, Agora) are billed separately unless you buy the vendor's managed 'full' mode. Budget the whole pipeline per minute.
Realtime video-to-video is far pricier than avatars
Generative realtime video is billed per second of GPU output: Decart Lucy 2.5 is $0.02/sec at 720p ($1.20 per minute, $72 per hour), double in fast mode. Leaving a stream open in a background tab can burn money quickly; stop streams on tab blur and enforce a hard cap.
Products in this space are being retired fast
Hedra's Realtime Avatar was sunset on 15 April 2026 (LiveKit marks the plugin as no longer working), HeyGen's Interactive/Streaming Avatar API was replaced by LiveAvatar with a stated sunset of 31 March 2026, and Soul Machines went into receivership in February 2026. Keep the avatar layer behind an adapter so you can swap vendors.
Video ramps up and needs bandwidth
WebRTC video takes time to stabilise (Roboflow says quality and FPS can take up to a minute to ramp at 1080p30), and corporate firewalls can block UDP. Test on mobile data and behind a strict firewall, and provide TURN.
No realtime API from Luma, Twelve Labs or Google Genie
As of this research Luma's API is asynchronous job-based, Twelve Labs streams text output from analysis of stored video (no live-feed ingest found), and Google's Project Genie is a consumer research prototype for AI Ultra subscribers with no developer API. Runway's realtime offer is Runway Characters (avatars); GWM Worlds 2 is contact-form preview only per secondary reporting.