Hedra
Hedra Labs · Video · Chatbot
Hedra is an AI video studio built around Character-3, a model that turns a photo and an audio track into a talking character, plus an agent and 110+ models in one workspace.
About Hedra
What Is Hedra
Hedra is an AI video studio that started as a talking avatar and AI character video generator, then grew into a broader production tool. Its own Character-3 model takes a portrait, an audio clip, and optional text, then renders a performance where the whole face follows the voice. Lips move first, then eyebrows, small head turns, and the tiny shifts most lip sync tools skip.
The company launched in 2023 in San Francisco, and Michael Lingelbach and Alexander Bergman founded it around one bet: believable digital characters will carry more stories than stock footage ever did. Hedra Studio opened to the public in 2024, and the model has moved from Character-1 to Character-3 since then.
What the product does now goes past avatars. An agent can take a one-line brief, pick a model, write the prompt and the voiceover, and drop a finished clip onto a shared canvas. Behind that agent sits a catalog of outside models, including Seedance 2.5, Kling, Veo 3.1, MiniMax, GPT Image, and Nano Banana, all paid from the same credit balance. Hedra's developer platform lists more than 110 generation models.
Three limits shape the fit. Character-3 output tops out at 720p, so broadcast and 4K work is out. Credits disappear quickly on premium models, and monthly credits reset each billing cycle. The face also needs a clean, well-lit source image, since busy backgrounds and fast speech can throw the sync off.
Getting Started
- Create a free account at hedra.com. No card is needed, and free output carries a watermark.
- Pick a starting point. Upload a portrait for a talking character, or type a brief and let the agent choose the model and settings.
- Add the performance layer. Upload your own audio, generate a voice, or clone a voice you have rights to use.
- Generate and review. Check the face at full size, then re-roll or adjust the prompt if the mouth drifts.
- Export the clip or keep building in a Space, where teammates can comment and edit on the same canvas.
Product Information
A quick look at Hedra's pricing, supported platforms, and performance.
Best for
The users, tasks, and scenarios where this tool fits best.
Users
- Social media marketers
- Small agencies and freelancers
- Educators and course creators
Tasks
- Turning a script into a spokesperson clip
- Making a short product ad from a brief
- Releasing one presenter video in several languages
- Building a music or performance video from a single image
Scenarios
- A weekly social calendar
- Pitching an ad concept before a shoot
- Localizing a campaign across markets
Key features
Character-3 Omnimodal Performance
Character-3 reads image, audio, and text together instead of stitching a mouth onto a still. The result is a face that reacts to the sentence, with eyebrow raises and head movement that land close to the emotion in the voice. It handles photographs, illustrations, and stylized art, so an illustrated mascot can speak as easily as a person. Tight framing works best, and fast speech or a noisy source photo can still cause drift.
The Hedra Agent
Describe the clip you want in a sentence and the agent does the rest: it plans the shots, selects a model, writes the prompt and voiceover, and places the output on the canvas. In a common test, a logo plus one sentence produced a 15-second brand ad with narration on the first attempt. You can still open the manual Video and Image tools to see exactly which model ran and what each take cost.
One Credit Balance Across 110+ Models
Hedra's own models sit next to Seedance 2.5, Kling, Veo 3.1, MiniMax, GPT Image, and Nano Banana, and all of them draw from the same credit pool. There is no second subscription for a different video engine. Premium models charge much more per second, so the same balance buys very different amounts of footage depending on what you pick.
Spaces and Real-Time Collaboration
Spaces are persistent workspaces where the agent, your assets, and the timeline live together. Teammates and clients can open the same canvas, watch a generation land, and leave comments without a separate review call. Multiplayer editing arrived in 2026 and runs on every plan, which matters for agencies that hand work back and forth.
Visual Skills and Developer Access
Visual Skills are reusable agent workflows that can carry up to 10 reference images, so a recurring format keeps the same look between runs. A hosted MCP server and a command line tool connect Hedra to Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor, letting an assistant trigger renders from a chat window. The public API covers video, image, audio, and language models with prepaid usage and no seat fee.
Voice Generation and Cloning
Voice work happens inside the same project. You can generate a narrator from text, clone a voice you have permission to use, or bring a track from ElevenLabs and Cartesia. A cloned voice keeps its tone and pacing across a series, which is the difference between a channel that sounds like one person and one that drifts clip to clip. Premium voices cost more credits, and rights stay your responsibility.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Character-3 delivers some of the most convincing facial performance in a consumer tool, with micro-expressions that go beyond lip sync.
- One subscription reaches Hedra's own model plus Seedance, Kling, Veo, and image models, which removes a stack of separate bills.
- The agent turns a one-line brief into a usable first cut, so you spend time on taste rather than on settings.
- Spaces keep assets, generations, and client feedback in one place, and collaboration is included on every plan.
- Commercial use is allowed on paid plans, with no watermark once you leave the free tier.
Cons
- Premium models burn credits fast: a top-end Seedance clip can take close to half of a Pro month in one generation.
- Character-3 caps out at 720p, which rules out broadcast, cinema, and most 4K delivery work.
- Monthly credits do not roll over, so a quiet month still costs the full plan price unless you buy packs instead.
- Fast speech, heavy accents, and busy source photos can still break the sync, so expect a few re-rolls per finished clip.
Frequently asked questions
Hedra makes short videos with a human or illustrated character at the center. The main jobs are talking-head clips, spokesperson ads, social shorts, and music or performance videos built from a single image.
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