REC AI UGC pricing

AI UGC Pricing 2026: What Every AI UGC Ad Generator Costs Per Video

Every plan price, credit formula, and real cost per finished ad across the main AI UGC tools, read off each vendor's own pricing page in August 2026. Including the metering trap in each one. Or skip the spreadsheet: paste a product URL on the right and render a real UGC ad in minutes, free with your account.

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The short answer Last updated August 2026

AI UGC ad tools cost between $25 and $110 a month for a usable paid plan in August 2026. Captions Max is $24.99, HeyGen Creator is $29, Creatify Starter is $39, UGCGen Starter is $49, Zeely renews at $79.95, and Arcads Starter is $110. The sticker price tells you almost nothing, because five of those six meter your usage in credits and a credit is almost never one video. Creatify charges 5 credits per 15 seconds, so a 30 second ad is 10 credits and costs $3.90 on Starter. Arcads charges roughly 800 credits per minute per talking actor, so the same 30 second ad runs about $5.50. Zeely does something else entirely and takes 12 percent of your Meta ad spend on top of the subscription, which means its cost rises with your budget rather than your usage. The number that actually matters is cost per winning ad, and on credit pricing every hook variant you test and throw away costs exactly as much as the one that works. Full tables below, plus per vendor detail on the Creatify pricing, Arcads pricing, HeyGen pricing, Captions pricing, and Zeely pricing pages.

$24.99

Cheapest paid entry

$110

Most expensive entry

5 of 6

Meter in credits, not videos

12%

Zeely fee on Meta ad spend

The plans

AI UGC pricing compared: every plan, August 2026

Prices read off each vendor's own pricing page in August 2026. These change often, so confirm before you buy. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, this table says so instead of guessing.

Tool	Entry paid plan	Next tier up	Free option	Best for
Captions	$24.99/mo Max, 500 credits	Scale from $69.99/mo, 1,400 credits	Yes, but no AI credits	Editing and captioning your own footage
HeyGen	$29/mo Creator, 600 credits	Pro $49/mo, 1,000 credits	Yes, 3 videos/mo up to 1 min	Studio-style spokesperson and avatar video
Creatify	$39/mo Starter, 100 credits	Pro $99/mo, 300 credits	Yes, 10 credits, watermarked	Cheap short-form hooks with published credit math
UGCGen	$49/mo Starter	Plus $149/mo, Pro $499/mo	Yes, with account, no card	Forecastable volume, counted in finished ads
Zeely	Renews $79.95/mo, 10,000 credits	Booster add-on $39.95/yr	Yes, limited free tier	Hands-off campaign running, small ad budgets
Arcads	$110/mo Starter, 8,000 credits	Creator $220/mo, 16,000 credits	No free plan or trial	Realistic talking-actor UGC at agency volume

Two honesty notes. Captions displays iOS plan pricing on its pricing page, so web and Android rates can differ. Zeely sells discounted fixed-term entry offers, currently around $19.95 for two weeks and $29.95 for four weeks, which then roll onto the $79.95 monthly Growth rate, so the entry price you see advertised is not the price you keep paying.

The real meter

What each tool actually charges you for

This is the table nobody publishes, and it decides your bill far more than the plan price does. Two tools with the same sticker can differ by 3x in cost per finished ad depending on what the meter counts.

Tool	What the meter counts	Published rate	The trap
Creatify	Duration of finished video	5 credits per 15 seconds, rounded up	Credits expire after about two months
Arcads	Actor minutes, per model	About 800 credits per minute per talking actor	A two-actor 90 second spot eats three of the ten advertised videos
HeyGen	Credits by feature and model	Plan credits published, per-render rate varies	No flat per video rate, so cost is hard to forecast
Captions	Credits by model tier	Plan credits published, cost varies by model	Higher-quality models drain credits faster
Zeely	A percentage of your Meta ad spend	12% of spend, 6% with the Booster add-on	Cost scales with your budget, not your usage
UGCGen	Finished ads	Ads included per plan, no credit math	Fewer knobs to tune than a raw credit balance

Where the rate is not published as a flat per video figure, this table says so rather than inventing one. HeyGen and Captions both vary credit cost by which model you select, so any blog quoting you a single "cost per video" for either is guessing.

The worked example

What 20 finished 30 second ads a month really costs

Twenty finished ads a month is a realistic testing cadence for a small DTC brand running Meta and TikTok. Here is what that volume forces you onto, using each vendor's published formula. Prices are the monthly plan you would need, not the entry tier you would like to buy.

Tool	Usage for 20 ads	Plan you need	Monthly cost
Creatify	200 credits (10 per 30s ad)	Pro, since Starter carries only 100	$99
Arcads	8,000 credits (about 400 per single-actor 30s ad)	Starter, which is exactly 8,000	$110
Zeely	Within the 10,000 credit allowance	Growth, plus 12% of ad spend	$79.95 plus $600 at $5,000 spend
UGCGen	20 finished ads	Depends on plan allowance, from $49	From $49
HeyGen	Not forecastable from published rates	Creator or Pro	$29 to $49
Captions	Not forecastable from published rates	Max or Scale	$24.99 to $69.99

Two things jump out. First, Creatify's cheap $39 sticker does not survive contact with real volume: 20 ads is 200 credits and Starter carries 100, so you are on the $99 plan whether you like it or not. Second, Zeely is the cheapest looking option on subscription and comfortably the most expensive in practice for anyone actually spending money on ads, because the 12 percent fee is charged on ad spend rather than on video output. At $5,000 a month in Meta spend that is $600 in fees on top of the $79.95 subscription, and the number keeps climbing as you scale. The Booster add-on at $39.95 a year halves the fee to 6 percent and pays for itself almost immediately at that spend level, which is worth knowing before you decline it.

The bigger cost nobody puts in a table is variant testing. Every figure above assumes 20 finished ads. If you render four hooks per product to find one that works, your real usage is 80 generations, not 20, and on credit pricing every loser costs exactly what the winner cost. That is the single biggest reason teams blow through a credit balance in week two. For the framework behind how many variants to actually run, see the ad creative testing guide, and for how the credit systems differ mechanically, read how AI video credits work.

How to choose

Which pricing model fits how you actually work

Pick the meter before you pick the plan. The right answer changes completely depending on whether you test heavily, run long videos, or spend big on ads.

You test a lot of hooks

Credit pricing punishes you, because rejected variants cost full price. Count generations rather than finished ads when you size a plan, or pick a tool counted in finished ads so the arithmetic stops mattering.

You run short 15 second hooks

Duration-metered pricing is in your favor. Creatify at 5 credits per 15 seconds works out near $1.95 a clip on Starter, which is genuinely cheap. The math flips hard if your ads run a full minute.

You spend real money on Meta

Avoid percentage-of-spend fees, or take the discount add-on. Zeely at 12 percent costs $600 a month on $5,000 of spend, which dwarfs every subscription on this page. The Booster halves it.

You need forecastable budget

If finance needs a number before the month starts, credit tools are awkward because usage is unpredictable and Creatify credits expire. A per finished ad plan gives you one line item that does not move.

Being straight about it

Where each tool genuinely beats us

We sell an AI UGC ad generator, so treat the recommendation with the skepticism it deserves and check the tables against the vendors' own pages. That said, price is not the only axis, and several of these tools are the better buy for specific jobs.

Arcads produces the most convincing talking-actor footage in this group, and if photorealistic delivery is what your creative lives or dies on, the $110 entry is defensible. HeyGen is the stronger choice for studio-style spokesperson and avatar video, especially longer explainers, and it has by far the most generous free tier for evaluation. Captions is not really a UGC generator at all, it is an editing and captioning tool, and if you already shoot your own footage it is the cheapest way to finish it well. Creatify is the only tool here that publishes a precise, checkable credit formula, which is a genuine mark of good faith and makes it the easiest to budget among the credit tools.

Zeely is the one we would push back on hardest, and not because of the subscription. A percentage of ad spend is a fundamentally different deal from a software fee, and it means the tool gets more expensive precisely as your campaigns start working. That can still be worth it if you want the platform to run the buying for you and your budget is small. On $500 a month in spend the fee is $60. On $20,000 it is $2,400, and at that point you are paying agency rates for software.

AI UGC pricing FAQ

How much does AI UGC cost?

As of August 2026, AI UGC ad tools start between $25 and $110 a month for a usable paid plan. Captions Max is $24.99, HeyGen Creator is $29, Creatify Starter is $39, UGCGen Starter is $49, Zeely renews at $79.95, and Arcads Starter is $110. Free tiers exist at Creatify, HeyGen, Captions, and Zeely, but most watermark exports or cap you at a couple of videos a month.

How much does an AI UGC ad cost per video?

For a 30 second UGC ad in August 2026, Creatify costs 10 credits, which is $3.90 on the $39 Starter plan and $3.30 on the $99 Pro plan. Arcads costs about 400 credits for a single actor at 30 seconds, which is roughly $5.50 a video on the $110 Starter plan. HeyGen and Captions do not publish a flat per video rate because their credit cost changes with the model you pick.

What is the cheapest AI UGC ad generator?

By sticker price, Captions Max at $24.99 a month and HeyGen Creator at $29 a month are the cheapest paid entries in August 2026. By cost per finished UGC ad, Creatify Starter at $39 is usually cheaper, because its published formula of 5 credits per 15 seconds works out to about $1.95 for a 15 second hook. Cheapest sticker and cheapest per ad are rarely the same tool.

Is there a free AI UGC generator?

Several tools have free tiers, but they are trials rather than a way to run campaigns. Creatify gives 10 credits a month, roughly two videos, and watermarks every export. HeyGen allows 3 videos a month up to one minute each. Captions free tier includes no AI generation credits at all. UGCGen lets you create an account and render UGC-style ads free with no credit card.

How do AI video credits work?

Most AI UGC tools meter usage in credits rather than videos, and the conversion rate is the part that decides your real cost. Creatify charges 5 credits per 15 seconds of finished video. Arcads charges roughly 800 credits per minute per talking actor. HeyGen and Captions vary the credit cost by which AI model you choose. A credit is almost never one video.

Do AI UGC tools charge per video or per credit?

Most charge per credit, not per video, and the two are frequently confused. Only a minority price in finished ads. Credit pricing means every discarded hook variant costs the same as a winner, so heavy testers pay far more per usable ad than the sticker price suggests. Zeely is different again: it charges a subscription plus 12 percent of your Meta ad spend.

How much should I budget for AI UGC ads per month?

For a small ecommerce brand testing 20 finished 30 second ads a month, budget $99 to $149 on a credit-based tool in August 2026. Creatify needs the $99 Pro plan for that volume because 20 ads is 200 credits and Starter only carries 100. Arcads needs the $110 Starter plan, which covers exactly 8,000 credits. Add more if you test several hook variants per winning ad.

Which AI UGC tool is best value for high volume?

At high volume the metering model matters more than the plan price. Credit tools get expensive because each rejected variant is a full charge, and Creatify credits expire after two months. Zeely gets more expensive as you scale, since its fee is a percentage of ad spend rather than usage. Tools counted in finished ads, like UGCGen at $49 a month, keep the per ad cost flat as volume rises.

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