Comparison
Twinly Lab vs HeyGen: a live AI twin, not just an avatar video
A lot of people search for "HeyGen AI twin" when what they actually want is a live version of themselves that talks to visitors and gets paid for it. That is worth naming plainly: HeyGen is a large, well-known AI video generation platform — avatar creation, text-to-video, translation — and it is very good at making video you publish on your own schedule. It is not built around a real-time paid consultation with a visitor on a public page. That is the job Twinly Lab does. Everything specific below is about Twinly Lab; for HeyGen's current features and pricing, check their site.
What Twinly Lab is built to do
A conversation, not a render
A visitor lands on your public Twin page and talks face-to-face with an avatar that has your face and your cloned voice, in real time — it listens and answers them. Free gives 2-minute consultations from a photo avatar; Pro gives 10-minute consultations with a premium video avatar.
Paid before the session, through your own Stripe
You set the consultation price and connect your own Stripe account. Payment is collected before the call starts. On Pro you keep 80% per session on monthly billing, or 90% on annual, net of platform streaming costs — the breakdown is in your dashboard before and after every call.
A page that does the selling for you
Every creator gets a shareable Twin page with bio, category, featured affiliate links and the live consultation stage, optimised for mobile fullscreen — plus an optional widget for your own site. Pro removes Twinly Lab branding so the page is fully yours.
Different jobs, side by side
This is not a feature scorecard. The rows below describe two products aimed at different outcomes, and several of them are simply outside what a video generation tool sets out to do.
| Twinly Lab | HeyGen | |
|---|---|---|
| What you end up with | A public page where visitors talk to your avatar live and pay for the session | A generated video asset featuring an avatar, which you publish or share yourself |
| Timing | Real time — the visitor speaks, the twin answers | Asynchronous: you create the video first, the audience watches later |
| Two-way interaction | Yes — the visitor drives the conversation | Not the product's focus; it is built for video creation, not live interaction |
| Charging your audience | Built in: set a price per consultation, paid via your own Stripe before the call | No built-in live consultation or payment flow for that — you would wire it up elsewhere |
| Typical use | Selling live time you cannot scale: consults, Q&A, coaching, fan calls | Marketing, training and presentation video, including translated versions |
| Getting started | $0 Free plan, no credit card, avatar from a photo and an instant voice clone | Check their current plans and pricing on their site |
HeyGen is a product of its respective owner and is not affiliated with Twinly Lab. We describe their category and general positioning only, make no claims about their current features or pricing, and quote no numbers — check their site for those.
Choose Twinly Lab if…
- You want a visitor to have a live conversation with your avatar, not watch a video you made.
- You want to be paid for that conversation, before it starts, into your own Stripe account.
- You want one link you can put in a bio that turns attention into booked, paid sessions.
- Your audience is bigger than your calendar and you keep repeating yourself.
- You want to test the idea for $0 before paying anything.
And if you also want polished pre-recorded video, keep using a video generation tool for that. These two are not a either-or choice.
Common questions
- What is the difference between Twinly Lab and HeyGen?
- They solve different problems. HeyGen is a large, well-known AI video generation platform — avatar creation, text-to-video, video translation — used widely for asynchronous video content like marketing, training and presentations. You generate a video asset with an avatar, on your own schedule, then publish or share it. Twinly Lab is built around a live, real-time paid consultation: a visitor opens your public Twin page, talks face-to-face with an avatar that has your face and your cloned voice, and pays before the session starts. Recorded video is not a live conversation, and a live conversation is not HeyGen's core product.
- Can I use HeyGen and Twinly Lab together?
- Yes — they are not mutually exclusive, and plenty of people will want both. Use a video generation tool for the content you publish: launches, lessons, translated versions, evergreen explainers. Use Twinly Lab for the moment someone wants your actual time — a live consultation with your twin, paid up front through your own Stripe account. One fills your feed; the other fills your calendar without you being in the room.
- So is this page saying HeyGen is worse?
- No. HeyGen is a strong product for what it does, and this page makes no claim about its quality, features or pricing — check their site for those. The point is narrower: if you searched for an AI twin because you want a live version of yourself talking to visitors and getting paid for it, a video generation tool is not the shape of that job.
- Do I need to record a video to use Twinly Lab?
- No. A clear photo is enough to launch on Free — $0, no credit card, with an avatar generated instantly from that photo, an instant voice clone, a basic knowledge base and 2-minute consultations capped at a $5 price. The Pro plan's premium video avatar can be trained from about a minute of footage if you want the higher-fidelity, real-time version of yourself.
- How does Twinly Lab handle payment for a live session?
- You connect your own Stripe account and set the price of a consultation. Visitors pay on your public Twin page before the session starts, and payouts go to your Stripe account. On Pro you keep 80% of every session on monthly billing or 90% on annual, net of platform streaming costs, with the full breakdown shown in your dashboard. On Free you keep 70%.
New to the idea? Read what an AI twin actually is, or follow the step-by-step build guide.