Arcads AI Pricing: The Real Cost, and What Nobody Can Verify

Updated November 7, 2026. Arcads' help center now documents its free trial, plan credits and what each generation costs, so we rewrote those parts. Dollar prices still appear only inside the app.

Arcads AI has no pricing page. We checked: arcads.ai/pricing returns a 404, and dollar prices appear only after you create an account. That single fact explains why this query exists at all: with no vendor page to rank, everyone evaluating the tool ends up reading a summary written by somebody else.

We are somebody else too, and we make a competing product, so here is our standard: we state what Arcads' own help center says, we state what independent write-ups report, we mark what we could not verify, and we do not pretend to have seen the inside of an account we do not hold.

What Arcads says, and what write-ups report

Here is what we could confirm and what stays second-hand, as of November 7, 2026:

The first three rows are second-hand. Arcads publishes no dollar prices outside the app, so they can't be confirmed from outside an account, and they can change without a public changelog, which is worth weighing when you plan a budget around them. The other rows come from Arcads' pricing article, which also says Arcads tests new pricing from time to time, so your account may show different rates or plan sizes.

Is there a free trial? Yes: 72 hours, with a card

This is the most-searched question about Arcads pricing, and Arcads' own help center now answers it: a 72-hour trial with 1,000 credits and every feature unlocked. A card is required at sign-up and isn't charged during the trial. Its pricing article lists no free plan.

What happens next is the part to plan around:

• After 72 hours, the Starter monthly plan starts on its own. You get a reminder email 24 hours before.
• If you use all 1,000 credits early, a plan selection screen appears, and your saved card is charged for the plan you pick.
• If you cancel during the trial, your access ends right away. Free daily images aren't included during the trial.

At 800 credits, the trial covers one talking-actor video, so have your script ready before you start.

What the help center now settles, and what it doesn't:

• Entry pricing is still second-hand: around $110/month for the entry plan and near $220/month for Creator. Starter's 8,000 credits are ten talking-actor videos and Creator's 16,000 are twenty, which fits what write-ups report.
• Credits reset each cycle on Starter and Creator. Pro, Scale and Business roll unused credits over.
• Paid plans include up to 100 free standard-resolution images per rolling 24 hours, but that is static images, not video, which is not what you came for.

To see the dollar prices, you have to go through sign-up: Arcads says current prices are on the pricing page in the app.

⚠️ The practical consequence of hidden dollar prices is worth naming, because it is why this query has so much volume: you can't compare Arcads' price against anything before you create an account. Every dollar figure you read, including ours, is second-hand. Treat them as directionally useful and individually unverified.

What to do if you specifically wanted to try before paying

If your actual requirement is "let me see output before I put in a card", Arcads' trial doesn't meet it, because the card comes first. Test the category somewhere that publishes its terms.

• Tools with genuine free tiers let you produce something and judge it. That is a different question from "which tool is best" and it is the right first question.
• Per-second billing answers it differently again: the rate is published before you pay, and you are billed only for the seconds of video you actually generate, so a short test uses only its own seconds. That is how Riffkit meters usage inside its plans, which start from $15/mo, or $12/mo billed yearly, and can be cancelled anytime.

Either way, the thing to avoid is committing to a plan whose price you cannot see before signing up. If you do start the Arcads trial, note the 72-hour mark, since the Starter plan starts on its own after that.

Length is the number that matters

Arcads' pricing article lists what each generation costs, and for talking actors that decides more than the plan does.

An Arcads 1.0 talking-actor video is 800 credits for up to 2 minutes. Audio-Driven and OmniHuman 1.5 are 800 credits per started minute. Most TikTok, Reels and Shorts ad creative runs 9 to 30 seconds, so on either one a 15-second ad uses the same credits as a 60-second one. If the reported $11 per video is right, that's $11 for 15 seconds of usable video, four times as much per second as a 60-second video, in the format most people are buying it for.

This is not a criticism of per-video pricing as a model; it is a mismatch between that model and short-form creative. If you produce 60-second explainers, you lose little. If you produce 15-second ad variants at volume, it is the biggest line in your bill. Arcads' other models are priced differently: 5 seconds of Seedance 2.5 at 720p is 210 credits, and a Kling 3.0 Pro clip is 240 credits for 5 seconds or 400 for 10. The Generate button shows the cost before you start, so you can check during the trial.

Two things to check inside the product before you commit, in this order: what your model charges for a short clip, since Arcads says rates can differ by account, and how often you get a usable take. Arcads says failed generations are refunded automatically; it doesn't say the same for a video that renders but isn't usable. Aggregated reviews sit around 2.8 out of 5 across roughly 140 Trustpilot ratings as of August 2026, and the recurring complaint is spend accumulated before a usable video.

What it is good at, which pricing does not tell you

Arcads is a script-to-talking-head engine with a large library of AI actors. You bring a script, pick a presenter, and get a UGC-style video of a person saying your lines. When the message is verbal (a testimonial, an offer, a hook that works as speech), that is a real capability, and the actor library is its genuine advantage.

Independent reviews repeatedly identify the same weak spot, and it is the opposite case: product handling, product placement, and generated scenes. If the ad has to show your product doing something rather than a person describing it, that limitation will matter more to your results than the price does. Arcads' price list now also includes Unboxing POV and Show Your App generations and third-party models such as Veo 3.1, Seedance 2.5 and Kling 3.0 Pro. We haven't tested those, so judge them on your own product during the trial.

The comparison worth making is per second

We publish per-second rates on our pricing page and plans start from $15/mo, or $12/mo billed yearly, so a 15-second ad costs 15 seconds. We are stating that as a structural contrast, not a verdict: the tools do different jobs. Arcads generates a presenter from your script. Riffkit starts from a short video that already performed and rebuilds its formula around your product: same hook shape, pacing and beat order, your product and your script, new footage that is yours.

Pick by which job your ad needs. If it needs a person delivering a message, a talking-head engine is the right category and the actor library is worth paying for. If it needs a structure that has already proven it converts in your category, starting from the script is starting one step too late.

Whatever you land on, two questions are worth asking any vendor in this space before you pay: can you see the price without creating an account, and does a short clip cost less than a long one? Both answers are usually available in under a minute, and both change the real cost more than the plan name does.