---
id: "2026-09-30-heygen-video-1"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-30-heygen-video-1/"
as_of: "2026-10-25T23:49:00+01:00"
date: "2026-09-30"
date_precision: day
category: media-generation
importance: 2
confidence: medium
status: [Partly confirmed]
sources: 2
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-25"
---

As of: 2026-10-25 23:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-30-heygen-video-1/

# HeyGen Video 1

Full title: HeyGen releases HeyGen Video 1, a text/image/reference-to-video model with dialogue and sound, at $0.01 per second at launch

HeyGen, known for AI avatar videos, released its own general video model, HeyGen Video 1, around Sept 30, 2026. It generates visuals, dialogue and sound effects in one pass from text, images or references, from 480p to 2K through the API, at a launch price of $0.01 per second. It ranked #3 on Artificial Analysis' text-to-video board in late October.

## Key facts
- Release date not printed by HeyGen; Sept 30, 2026 is OpenRouter's listing date and HeyGen's changelog says 'September 2026'
- Text-, image- and reference-to-video with dialogue and sound effects generated together; styles from live action to claymation and anime
- API: 480p to 2K, 16:9 / 9:16 / 1:1, seeds and webhooks; free web demo (two 5 s 768p clips a day)
- Launch API price $0.01 per second 'through October'
- HeyGen's page says it ranked first on Artificial Analysis' video leaderboard; read on 2026-10-25 it was #3, Elo 1160

## What happened

HeyGen moved beyond avatar videos with a general video model that writes and voices its own dialogue. It is available in the HeyGen
app, as a free demo and through HeyGen's API and OpenRouter at a promotional price of one cent per second.

## Why it matters

A cheap, top-five video model from an application company shows how quickly video generation has commoditised in 2026.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): 153 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): 92 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Argon (training cutoff March 2026): 183 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): 122 days after its cutoff

## Sources

1. [HeyGen: Introducing HeyGen Video](https://www.heygen.com/blog/introducing-heygen-video) (heygen.com, official)
2. [OpenRouter: HeyGen Video 1](https://openrouter.ai/heygen/heygen-video-1) (openrouter.ai, docs)

## Changes

- 2026-10-25 (filed): Created. Exact release date unverified

## Related

- 2026-08-24: [Alibaba Wan 3.0 video model](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-24-wan-3-0/index.md)
- 2026-07-31: [ByteDance Seedance 2.5 video model](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-07-31-seedance-2-5/index.md)
- Models: [HeyGen Video 1](https://postcutoff.com/m/heygen-video-1/) (`heygen-video-1`)