HeyGen Launches Universal Video Model at Half Price in October

HeyGen has released its first universal video model, HeyGen Video, aimed at enterprises looking to produce high-quality films without paying production costs. Starting in October, the pricing is $0.01 per second, half of the standard price of $0.02. The model is based on MiniMax H3, trained by HeyGen, with documentation available in the developer directory HeyGen Video 1.0.

The same interface covers text-to-video, image-to-video, and reference video: a single prompt, first frame, or reference image can generate the entire scene and sound. It is now live on the HeyGen API and integrated with OpenRouter, Runware, and ComfyUI. The developer platform has categorized it alongside Avatar V, Avatar IV, digital avatars, and Video Agent as a new model layer, generating subjects, scenes, and sounds in one call.

The official pricing for 768p image-to-video with audio is compared to competitors: HeyGen at $0.03 per second (promotional price additional), H3 Max Turbo at $0.04, H3 Max and balanced tier at $0.08, Kling 3.0 Pro at $0.168, Seedance 2.0 at $0.303, and Veo 3.1 at $0.40. Internal evaluations using the Artificial Analysis Arena query set and 4800 votes have normalized HeyGen's Elo to 1000, compared to Seedance 2.0 at 955, H3 Max at 952, and Veo 3.1 at 744. The DiT inference for a 10-second image-to-video shows HeyGen at about 3.7 seconds, H3 Max Turbo at about 4.1 seconds, and H3 Max at about 8.3 seconds.

The MiniMax H3 base was released on July 31, featuring unified multimodal context, native stereo sound, up to 2K resolution, and a maximum length of about 15 seconds, targeting advertising, branding, e-commerce, and gaming. MiniMax claims its 2K unit price is less than one-third of mainstream models and plans to open weights under compliance. H3 Max is a speed tier trained further on open-source weights, with a resolution cap of about 768p. HeyGen is taking a third path: not directly reselling H3 but using its own data for post-training and selling by the second according to enterprise workflows.

Existing products are still available. The Avatar series creates digital avatars from real human materials that can swap scripts; Video Agent generates films from a single sentence; the voice line Starfish handles cloning and dubbing. The developer platform claims to orchestrate digital humans, voices, editing, and materials, rendering in bulk into clients' own systems, with over 1 million developers using it. This release expands "digital population broadcasting" into "full video generation."

In market mechanics, buyers are enterprises and agencies needing bulk training, onboarding, and advertising materials, while sellers are model APIs charging by the second. The October half-price offer serves as a customer acquisition window to transition from trial to production. Beneficiaries include existing digital human clients who can switch the same account to universal video, HeyGen, and the selected base MiniMax; those under pressure include closed-source video models priced above $0.16 per second and small production companies still charging daily rates. The driving force is product launch and limited-time discounts, not financing.

Supplementary information: The release post garnered about 760,000 views within hours. The standard price of $0.02/second and promotional price of $0.01/second only apply until the end of October. Evaluations are based on HeyGen's internal set, with Elo normalized and not constituting a third-party overall ranking.

Source: Public Information

HeyGen leverages digital population broadcasting to initially capture enterprise training and marketing budgets, then transitions the same client accounts to universal video. Choosing MiniMax H3 as the base allows for purchasing open-source multimodal at a lower price point, then using post-training to ensure "generable" content meets "brand specifications." $0.01/second shifts the pricing unit for production-level video from person-days to seconds.

Capital is not opening a new round but expanding existing API SKU pipelines. OpenRouter, Runware, and ComfyUI integrate the model into developer-friendly routers rather than creating a new consumer app for customer acquisition. Avatar V continues to sell consistent facial features, while HeyGen Video sells complete scenes; both lines share settlement and cloud rendering.

In comparison to Runway, Kling, Seedance, and Veo: the former is moving from creative tools to enterprise, while HeyGen is moving from enterprise digital humans to general generation. The industry is in an expansion phase for video models priced by the second, with quality differences described by internal Elo metrics, and transactions relying on discounts.

Structural judgment indicates a transfer of pricing power. Filming costs are priced by team and location, while generation costs are priced by GPU seconds. The mechanism is: whoever trains the base model to acceptable brand stability for enterprises can use half-price second fees to undercut small production quotes. Open-source weights lower base rental costs, while post-training determines who can sell the markup.

ABAB News · Cognitive Laws

Once production costs are priced by the second, person-day quotes begin to lose validity.
Open-source bases determine rental costs, while post-training decides who can increase prices.
First sell into enterprise accounts, then switch to the cheapest model category.

ABAB AI Insight