Synthesia alternative
A Synthesia alternative without a talking head
Synthesia makes videos with AI avatars presenting to camera. Motiongist makes no avatars at all: the narrator stays off screen while diagrams, titles and numbers explain the idea.
- 500 free credits at sign-up
- Free storyboard review
- 45–180 s, vertical 9:16
- 8 voices, 10 languages
Your idea
9:16 · 1080×1920“Phishing awareness for all staff. Must show: the sender address check and the Report button. Avoid: blaming language.”
- Length
- 45–60 s
- Look
- Light
- Voice
- Sarah
- Rendering
- 2D · English
Storyboard · 5 scenes
- 0–5 sHook. An inbox fills up; one e-mail pulses red. Title: “One of these isn’t from IT.”
- 5–17 sSign one. The sender address zooms in and a single swapped letter in the domain gets circled.
- 17–29 sSign two. An urgent line (“Your account closes today”) shakes, labelled “pressure”.
Synthesia is an enterprise platform for AI avatar videos, with share links, branded video pages, comments and folder permissions. If your audience expects a person on screen, it is built for exactly that, and Motiongist is not a replacement.
But many training and internal videos don’t need a face. They need the process drawn out: the steps, the do and don’t, the number that matters. Motiongist makes those as short vertical explainers. Synthesia facts on this page come from its pricing page, checked on October 24, 2026.
Why look elsewhere
Why people look for a Synthesia alternative
Each reason is tied to a fact from Synthesia’s public pages, checked on October 24, 2026. Anything we could not confirm is marked unverified.
- 01
You don’t need a presenter
Synthesia is built around AI avatars for enterprises. If your content is a process or a concept, an animated explainer shows it without anyone on camera.
- 02
You want vertical shorts
Motiongist makes 9:16 videos of 45 to 180 seconds, sized for phones, chat apps and social feeds.
- 03
You want the price before each video
Every render shows its exact credit cost first, and a failed render is refunded automatically.
Where Synthesia is strong
- Presenter-style videos with AI avatars.
- Share links, and branded video pages with a call to action on Pro and Enterprise.
- Comments with @mentions, folder permissions and version history.
- Guests who can comment, and a public updates page.
Stay with Synthesia if…
…you need an on-screen presenter, or enterprise review workflows with comments and folder permissions.
At a glance
Motiongist
Synthesia
- Pricing
- Motiongist:Credits. Solo $19, Studio $49, Team $149 per month; −35% yearly
- Synthesia:Starter $29/month
- Free plan
- Motiongist:500 credits at sign-up, enough for a first short video (watermarked)
- Synthesia:Free plan with 500 credits
- Formats
- Motiongist:9:16 (1080 × 1920). 16:9 is coming soon
- Synthesia:Not covered by our research
- Review before render
- Motiongist:Free, optional storyboard step: edit, reorder, add or remove scenes before paying; after a render, only edited scenes are rebuilt
- Synthesia:Not covered by our research
How it works
From avatar scripts to animated explainers
- Step 1
Reuse your training script
Paste the script you wrote for the presenter (up to 4,000 characters) and it is narrated as written, or start from the policy document itself.
- Step 2
Let the visuals do the presenting
Add notes for what must appear on screen, like “the report button” or “the three warning signs”. If you want a guide, switch on the illustrated presenter.
- Step 3
Review before anyone else does
Check every scene in the free storyboard step, then confirm the exact credit price before rendering.
- Step 4
Share it internally
Send an unlisted share link with an optional button to your intranet, embed it, or download the MP4 with SRT captions.
Example
How to spot and report a phishing e-mail
What you give: “Phishing awareness for all staff. Must show: the sender address check and the Report button. Avoid: blaming language.”
What the video shows, scene by scene
- 0–5 s
Hook. An inbox fills up; one e-mail pulses red. Title: “One of these isn’t from IT.”
- 5–17 s
Sign one. The sender address zooms in and a single swapped letter in the domain gets circled.
- 17–29 s
Sign two. An urgent line (“Your account closes today”) shakes, labelled “pressure”.
- 29–41 s
Sign three. A cursor hovers over a link and the real address appears underneath, pointing somewhere else.
- 41–54 s
What to do. The Report button highlights, the e-mail flies to a security shield, and the line “Reporting is never wrong” closes the video.
An illustrative storyboard for this brief (Light look, 2D). Motiongist writes its own scenes from your input, and you can edit them for free before rendering.
A real render, made with Motiongist
How end-to-end encryption keeps your messages private
1:10 · Night look · more examples
Why Motiongist
What a no-avatar explainer gives you
No uncanny valley
Vector motion design is crisp in every frame: no faces, no lip sync to judge, just the idea on screen.
Works on mute
Word-by-word captions are part of the video, and an SRT file comes with every export.
Every office, its language
Narrate the same video in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Turkish and Indonesian, with 8 voices that each speak all of them.
A guide if you want one
An optional animated presenter can accompany the narration. It is an illustration, never a realistic human.
On brand
Apply your logo and colors from the Solo plan; import them straight from your website.
When an avatar is still the right call
If the message depends on a human face (a welcome from leadership, a role-play, a spokesperson), an avatar or a real recording does something motion design can’t. Motiongist is the better fit when the content is a process, a concept or a set of rules that are clearer drawn than spoken to camera.
Start faster
Templates that fit
Each template is a ready-made brief: an example subject, a target length, a look and notes. Open one and change the subject.
What it costs
One credit balance. A short video is 400 credits, a standard one 700, a long one 1,000, plus 1 credit per 10 narrated characters for the final voice.
Free
$0
500 credits at sign-up
To try it out: a first video, draft voice, discreet watermark.
Solo
$19 / month
3,000 credits / month
To post every week: final voice, clean exports, your brand.
StudioMost popular
$49 / month
30,000 credits / month
To produce at volume: priority rendering, custom looks, API and MCP.
Team
$149 / month
100,000 credits / month
For teams and agencies: 5 seats, 4 renders in parallel, one invoice.
Prices before tax, in US dollars. Yearly billing is 35% cheaper. Failed renders are refunded automatically.
FAQ
Questions, answered
Does Motiongist have AI avatars?
No, and that is deliberate. Videos are motion design with an off-screen narrator; the optional presenter is an illustrated character, not a realistic person.
Is Motiongist cheaper than Synthesia?
Synthesia’s Starter was $29 a month when we checked, with a free plan of 500 credits. Motiongist’s Solo is $19 a month, and sign-up gives 500 credits. Credits aren’t comparable across tools, so compare one typical video.
Can I make horizontal training videos?
Not yet. Videos are vertical 9:16; 16:9 is coming soon. Vertical works well on phones and in chat tools, less well on a projector.
Can reviewers comment on a video?
Not inside Motiongist. Share pages let anyone watch through an unlisted link, but there are no comment threads or approval workflows like Synthesia’s.
Can I import my Synthesia videos?
No. Reuse the script: pasted text is narrated exactly as written, and the scenes are built around it.
Ready to make your first one?
500 free credits at sign-up. Review the storyboard for free, see the exact price, then render.
Create your video