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By the toolist.ai editors. Researched from Tavus's own pages and hands-on tests published by others, not hands-on tested by toolist.ai. Updated October 20, 2026.

Tavus review: pricing, features and what testers found

Tavus is mainly a developer platform for real-time AI humans that hold video calls, and it also renders script-read avatar videos from a stock face or a clone of you through its Video API. It has a free plan; paid plans start at $22 a month (Starter) for 60 minutes of live conversation and 5 minutes of script-to-video.

Our take

Tavus now sells itself mainly as a platform for live AI humans that see, hear and talk on video calls; script-read avatar video is a side product, made through its Video API (its docs also point to PAL Maker). It suits developers building an interactive interviewer, tutor, coach or support agent who also want a few scripted clips from the same face, not people who want an editor for presenter videos. MIT Technology Review's James O'Donnell had a clone that looked and sounded like him within a few hours, but in conversation it repeated itself and talked in loops, and he called it a bust as a stand-in (September 2025); TechCrunch's Lauren Forristal found Tavus's AI Santa mostly engaging, with long pauses and a flat voice (December 2025). None of the cited testers tried script-to-video. Its video minutes are few: Starter costs $22 a month with 5 minutes and no extras, Builder $59 with 15 minutes and then $1 a minute, Growth $397 with 50 and Business $975 with 250; each video is charged at least 30 seconds, fees are non-refundable and unused minutes do not carry over. This verdict rests on those published tests, Tom's Hardware's 2024 AI Santa call, and Tavus's pricing page, docs, terms and acceptable use policy.

Based on Tavus's published plans and the hands-on tests linked below, not on a test of our own.

Good for

  • Developers and product teams putting a live AI interviewer, tutor, coach, intake or support agent with a human face into their own app or site
  • Teams that want the same face both in live conversations and in the occasional scripted video, rendered from a script or audio file rather than built in a scene editor
  • Companies that want an AI participant to join Google Meet, Zoom or Teams calls (Starter includes 1 Meet/Zoom configuration, Builder 3)

Watch out for

  • Script-to-video is a side product. Tavus's pricing FAQ calls CVI its primary product, and its own 'Info for AIs' page sets Tavus apart from asynchronous video generation tools. A video is one face reading one script or audio file, with an optional background, made through the Video API (the docs also name PAL Maker); Tavus's docs describe no scene, slide or caption editor.
  • Video minutes are few: none on Free, 5 a month on Starter (which sells no extra minutes), 15 on Builder, 50 on Growth and 250 on Business, and each video is charged at least 30 seconds. Extra minutes cost $1, $0.90 and $0.80 on Builder, Growth and Business, rounded to 6 seconds, so for video alone Builder plus extras is far cheaper than moving up: 30 minutes a month cost $74 on Builder ($59 plus 15 minutes at $1) against $397 on Growth.
  • Fees are non-refundable: cancelling only stops the renewal, you keep the plan to the end of the term with no prorated refund, and a downgrade starts at the next renewal and may lose content or features. Tavus's FAQ says unused minutes and credits do not roll over unless the plan terms say so, and that overage can be charged several times within one billing cycle once usage passes set thresholds.
  • Live minutes are billed from the API connect to disconnect, rounded to 6 seconds with a 30-second minimum, and a conversation is billed once it is created even if nobody joins (it closes itself after 5 minutes without a participant unless you change that); Tavus's docs warn that idle or open sessions keep billing. Its test_mode creates conversations at no cost.
  • The pricing page contradicts itself: the Starter card lists no watermark, but the comparison table marks No watermark only from Builder up; the Growth card promises no conversation duration limit, while the table says 60 minutes; and the Growth and Business cards offer 100+ stock faces where the table says 75+. New Phoenix-4.5 faces also carry a visible watermark until tuning finishes, which Tavus says takes a few hours.
  • Reviews quoting a $59 Starter plan with 100 conversation minutes, 10 video minutes, $0.37 a minute extra and $65 per extra replica describe Tavus's older plans, whose table is still hidden in the pricing page's code; today $59 buys Builder, and Starter is $22.
  • A custom face needs the explicit consent of the person shown; the acceptable use policy bans faces of minors and of real people, public figures included, without their consent, and political content, and bars stock faces from political campaigns, news broadcasts and sensitive current events without Tavus's written permission. Scripts that break its community guidelines are refused.
  • The terms (last updated April 24, 2025) say you own your uploads and the videos made from them, but give Tavus a perpetual licence to use both to run, maintain and improve its products, and your custom face stays inside Tavus and cannot be downloaded. SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance reports and zero data retention are Enterprise-only in the plan table.
  • No cited tester tried script-to-video, and the tests are of older versions: MIT Technology Review's clone ran on Tavus's 2025 models (he quotes plans from $59 a month), and both Santa tests used a free consumer showcase rather than the paid developer plans. Griffin, which Tavus says 26 of 54 callers (48%) took for a real person in its own study, is a research preview for select testers and is in no plan.

What Tavus does

Price

Free plan: 20 minutes a month of real-time conversational video (calls of up to 5 minutes, one at a time) with 10 stock faces, the API and the no-code builder; no script-to-video minutes and no custom faces, and the plan table does not mark Free as watermark-free. No credit card is needed.

PlanBilled monthlyBilled yearly, per monthIncludesPrice per minute of avatar video
Free free free 20 minutes a month of conversational video, calls of up to 5 minutes, 1 at a time; 10 stock faces, the API and the no-code builder, 42+ languages; no custom faces, no Google Meet or Zoom, no script-to-video minutes; the plan table does not mark it as watermark-free; best-effort support –
Starter $22 not listed 5 minutes a month of script-to-video, with no extra minutes sold; 60 minutes of conversational video with no pay-as-you-go overage, calls of up to 10 minutes, 1 at a time; 1 custom face slot (from a photo or video), 10 stock faces, 1 Google Meet/Zoom configuration, conversation transcripts; the card says no watermark but the comparison table does not; best-effort support $4.40
Builder $59 not listed 15 minutes a month of script-to-video, then $1 a minute; 175 minutes of conversational video, then $0.35 a minute, calls of up to 15 minutes, 3 at once; 3 custom face slots, 25 stock faces, 3 Google Meet/Zoom configurations, no watermark, standard support $3.93
Growth $397 not listed 50 minutes a month of script-to-video, then $0.90 a minute; 1,300 minutes of conversational video, then $0.31 a minute, calls of up to 60 minutes by the table (the card says no duration limit), 10 at once; 7 custom face slots, 75+ stock faces by the table (100+ by the card), 7 Google Meet/Zoom configurations, conversation recordings at $0.03 a minute, priority support $7.94
Business $975 not listed 250 minutes a month of script-to-video, then $0.80 a minute; 4,000 minutes of conversational video, then $0.26 a minute, calls of up to 60 minutes, 15 at once, prioritized call starts; 15 custom face slots, 75+ stock faces by the table (100+ by the card), 15 Google Meet/Zoom configurations, conversation recordings at $0.03 a minute, priority support and a 1:1 onboarding call $3.90
Enterprise not listed not listed Contact sales: custom minutes and concurrency with volume discounts, unlimited custom face slots and dedicated stock faces, full white-labeling including the face consent flow, SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance, zero data retention, performance SLAs, faster boot times, dedicated support with a named account team and private Slack, and forward-deployed development –

Price per minute of avatar video is our calculation: the monthly-billing price divided by what the plan includes, assuming you use all of it. It is not a measured cost.

Prices last checked: 2026-10-30 on Tavus's pricing page. Full breakdown: Tavus pricing.

Price history

No price change since we first recorded these prices on October 20, 2026. We re-check them every week and list each change here.

What hands-on testers found

We have not tested Tavus ourselves. These are the published tests we found that used it hands-on, newest first; follow the links for the full reviews.

TechCrunch · Lauren Forristal · December 10, 2025

What they tested: Tavus's free AI Santa, a consumer showcase rebuilt for 2025 as a Tavus PAL (its name for its real-time AI agents), reached by video, phone or text after signing up for a free account. The test is two paragraphs of a news story built on an interview with Tavus's CEO and does not say how long the call lasted; as a caller, the tester built no PAL or face and used neither the paid developer plans nor script-read videos. Its links to Tavus are plain (nofollow), with no affiliate code.

  • Most of the chat held the tester's interest: when they said they wanted a new PlayStation, Santa asked which games they liked and knew particular ones, Baldur's Gate 3 among them.
  • Long pauses and a flat voice showed it was not yet fully human-like, and it smiled back when the tester smiled, which TechCrunch did not much like.
  • Asked whether it was real, it answered that it was an AI Santa powered by Tavus.

MIT Technology Review · James O'Donnell · September 2, 2025

What they tested: A custom Tavus clone of himself, for a column first published in MIT Technology Review's The Algorithm newsletter: he recorded the onboarding on camera (reading a script that also served as his consent, then a minute of sitting in silence), shaped the clone's personality through Tavus's chat-based setup, gave it about three dozen of his stories and talked with it to judge whether it could stand in for him on calls. Tested in 2025 on Tavus's models of the time. The article names no plan (he quotes plans from $59 a month), does not say the clone joined a real meeting, and covers neither script-read videos nor plan limits; it does not link to Tavus.

  • His avatar was ready a few hours after recording, and it looked and spoke like him, though he disliked its teeth.
  • Tavus's chatbot setup asked what he wanted the clone to do and helped him write its instructions.
  • As a conversationalist it was unpredictable: it got too keen on story ideas he would never take up, said the same things again, kept claiming to check his calendar although it had no access to it, and went round in circles, leaving the other person no way to end the conversation.
  • As a reporter's stand-in he judged it a bust. Quinn Favret, a Tavus cofounder, told him such quirks are usual at first, and that it is often the developers building on Tavus who decide how a clone ends a call or uses a calendar.

Tom's Hardware · Mark Tyson · December 15, 2024

What they tested: The first AI Santa (December 2024), a free Tavus showcase built on its Conversational Video Interface, in a real-time video call that needed his email address; it ran on older versions of Tavus's real-time models than today's, and as a caller he built no PAL or face and used neither the paid plans nor script-read videos. Its link to the Santa site carries no affiliate code.

  • The chat felt natural: Santa asked what he would do with the present he wanted, and commented on items in his room.
  • The call transcript emailed afterward said he had wished for nothing, although he had asked for a new PC.
  • He could find no terms or fine print on the Santa site's front page saying whether Tavus might keep the call, for training or anything else.

Test result

toolist.ai has not run its own test of Tavus; the findings above come from the published tests linked. See how we research and test.

Best avatar video tools · Tavus pricing

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Sources