Comparison
Cutroom vs Synthesia: a captive viewer, or one trying to leave
Synthesia is built for video people have to watch. Many languages, re-rendered whenever a fact changes. Cutroom is built for forty seconds a stranger is actively trying to scroll past. This page covers what changes between those two clocks, what our avatar actually is, and what a finished ad costs. By the end you will know which clock your video runs on.
- percent b-roll cap by pace
- 40 / 45 / 52
- credits per avatar minute
- 320
- Basic, 2,500 credits a month
- $39.99
Synthesia owns compliance in six languages. A cold feed runs on another clock
Corporate video at a scale that used to be impossible. Onboarding, compliance, product training, internal announcements, in many languages and all of it updatable.
When one line of policy changes, you rewrite a sentence and re-render. That beats booking a studio and a presenter for a reshoot, in time and in money.
The consistency is the feature rather than a side effect. Every module looks the same. Every presenter sounds the same. The brand does not drift across forty pieces made by six teams.
All of that assumes the viewer has to be there. Cutroom assumes the opposite. Every decision in it follows from that one difference.
Training video is watched by people who must. An ad is watched by someone leaving
Training video is watched by people who have to watch it. The clock is generous. Clarity beats pace. Completeness beats punchiness. A slightly stiff delivery costs nothing.
Nobody in that audience is deciding whether to keep going. They already decided, or somebody decided for them.
An ad is watched by somebody actively trying to leave. The first second does more work than the next twenty.
Pace, cutting, caption rhythm and the emphasised word all exist to buy one more second of attention. The delivery has to feel like a person rather than a presentation.
That is what Cutroom is tuned for, from the headline on the opening down to the coverage cap that keeps your face on screen.
This is the whole editor
Highlight a phrase and a clip lands on those exact words. No timeline, no keyframes, no layers.
Cutroom tunes everything for the first second and hands you eleven moves
One take, filmed by you, up to three minutes. Cutroom transcribes it and drafts the cut. An opening headline goes on. Slack comes out. The pace gets set before you touch anything.
B-roll lands on the phrases that need showing. Captions are styled for a phone held at arm's length. Then you direct on the transcript. That is the only surface there is.
Delete the sentence that hedges. Emphasise the word carrying the claim. Trim the opening. Change the pace and the machine re-cuts everything around the new rhythm.
Eleven actions, no timeline, no layers. Output is one 9:16 MP4. A batch is 100 credits and export is 20 credits per output minute, so a one-minute ad is about 120 from a fresh take.
Coverage is capped by pace and the caps are load-bearing. Your face holds the frame for at least 48 percent of the ad, even at the fastest setting. The person is what the viewer is deciding about.
- Output is one 9:16 MP4, sized for a vertical feed and nothing else
- Six caption packs including bold-impact and fast-native
- B-roll coverage never exceeds 52 percent, even on fast
- 7 day trial, 300 credits, no card, then $39.99 or $79.99 a month
How much of the ad your own face is allowed to leave
The cap is enforced by the compiler, not by taste. Even at the fastest pace, the speaker holds the frame for most of the ad.
- Chill pace40% b-roll
- Normal pace45% b-roll
- Fast pace52% b-roll
Our avatar is one photo you own, and it costs 320 credits a minute for a reason
Both products can put a synthetic presenter on screen, so be precise about what ours is. You supply a photo and a voice-over. You get a lip-synced presenter video. It then goes through the same cutting pipeline as a filmed take.
There is no library of licensed performers. No scenes or backgrounds. No way to produce one module in nine languages. No versioning for when a fact changes next quarter.
Avatar render is 320 credits a minute and voice-over is 70. Cutting a take you filmed is 20. The price is a recommendation about which path to take.
Ours is for continuity. You have a script and you cannot film today. Shipping something with a face on it beats shipping nothing this week.
The default is your own camera. Every other decision assumes it, from the three minute ceiling to the coverage caps that keep you on screen.
Credits per minute, by which route you take
Sixteen minutes of exported cuts cost what one minute of avatar does. The pricing is the recommendation.
- Export a cut of your own take20 CR
- Generated voice-over70 CR
- Avatar render320 CR
Second three decides it, and here are the facts to decide on
The deciding factor here is whether a stranger watches past second three. That is a different craft from being understood in twelve countries. Cutroom does the first one, and does nothing that gets in its way.
Now the facts a buyer needs. It does not translate and does not dub. It exports 9:16 only. It refuses a source over three minutes at upload.
You can fix a mis-heard word in the transcript, delete a line and re-cut. Changing what was said means filming that part again, because the spoken audio is yours.
Synthesia is the buy when the video informs instead of persuading, needs several languages, or gets updated as facts change.
Cutroom is the buy when the video goes into a paid feed and somebody will film. Plenty of companies need both, on different budgets. Trouble starts when the marketing team inherits the training tool because procurement already approved it.
Read Synthesia's pricing on their own page. We publish ours: a 7 day trial, 300 credits, no card, then $39.99 or $79.99 a month, and top-ups at $15 for 1,000.
Synthesia and Cutroom, row by row
Two rows go to Synthesia, and they decide it for a training team. The other six are what a paid feed asks for.
| Synthesia | Cutroom | |
|---|---|---|
| One script, many languages | Translation built in | The language you spoke |
| Presenter library | Licensed avatars to browse | A photo you supply |
| B-roll on phrases you name | Scenes chosen per block | Highlight words, clip lands |
| Speaker held on screen by a cap | No cap, no filmed face | 40, 45 or 52 percent b-roll |
| Built for a cold feed | Tuned for a captive viewer | Tuned for the first second |
| Edit driven by the transcript | Script blocks and scenes | Delete a line, cut rebuilds |
| Captions sized for a phone | Subtitles, corporate styling | Six packs, restyleable |
| Cheap second version | Re-render the whole module | 20 credits per output minute |
Questions people ask
- Does Cutroom support other languages?
- It transcribes and captions the language you spoke. There is no translation and no dubbing, so a multi-language rollout is not something we do.
- Can I use a stock avatar instead of my own face?
- The avatar module takes a photo you supply plus a voice-over and produces a lip-synced presenter, at 320 and 70 credits a minute. There is no library of licensed performers to pick from.
- Can I update one line and re-render?
- You can fix a mis-heard word in the transcript, delete a line and re-cut. The spoken audio is yours, so changing what is said means filming that part again.
- Is it right for every video?
- It is built for a paid feed, where a stranger decides in the first second. If your video is compliance, training or internal comms, a training tool fits that job and Synthesia is the strong one.
Nobody scrolls past mandatory training. Everything else has to earn the second. Cutroom is the one that puts your claim, your face and the footage inside it.