Arcads AI pricing
Currency: USD · Last verified May 20, 2026
Plans
Pricing tiers
Starter
$110
$90/mo billed annually annual
Solo DTC marketers testing UGC-style ads at low volume
- 20 UGC-style videos per month
- Access to 300+ AI actors
- Multi-language script generation
- Basic brand kit setup
- Single user
- 20 videos/mo is restrictive for serious DTC testing
- No bulk-generation mode at this tier
Growth
$310
$259/mo billed annually annual
DTC marketers and small agencies producing UGC at meaningful volume
- 100 UGC-style videos per month
- Everything in Starter
- Bulk generation mode (10+ variants at once)
- Advanced brand kit + multi-brand support (up to 3 brands)
- Priority generation queue
- Up to 3 user seats
- Per-video cost still ~$3.10 - more than competitor alternatives
- Brand-quality variance noticeable across the 300 actors
Scale
$910
$759/mo billed annually annual
Agencies and larger DTC brands running creator-style ads at scale
- 500 UGC-style videos per month
- Everything in Growth
- Unlimited brand workspaces
- API access for programmatic generation
- Custom actor creation
- Dedicated success manager
- Up to 10 user seats
- Annual commitment standard
- Custom actor setup is additional fee
Shuttergen
Volume isn't enough. Strategy is.
Arcads generates 100 UGC variants from a prompt. Shuttergen generates them from competitive context - so the 100 variants beat category median, not just match it.
Watch out
Hidden costs
Per-video pricing structure
Arcads is fundamentally per-video pricing. Starter at $110/20 videos = $5.50/video. Growth at $310/100 = $3.10/video. Scale at $910/500 = $1.82/video. The per-video economics improve dramatically at higher tiers - which pushes serious users up the price ladder fast.
Custom actor creation
Beyond the 300+ stock actors, custom actors (your own talent or branded characters) cost $500-2,000 one-time per actor. Useful for brands with consistent talent across campaigns; meaningful upfront investment.
Translation and dubbing credits
Multi-language output is supported but advanced translation features (lip-sync match across languages) consume extra credits. Plan for 1.5-2x video budget if you're translating content heavily.
Overage on monthly cap
Exceed your monthly video cap and you're billed per additional video at $5-7 depending on tier. Caps reset at the billing date, not calendar month - track usage carefully.
Annual prepay pressure at Scale
Scale tier defaults to annual contracts with substantial prepay discounts (~17% off). Mid-term cancellation is hard to negotiate. Stay on monthly billing at Growth and below if there's any chance you'll churn.
What Arcads AI actually does
Arcads is an AI UGC-style video generator. Type a script, pick from 300+ AI 'actors' (synthetic creators), get a finished video that reads like UGC - lo-fi production, creator-style framing, native social aesthetics. The pitch is volume of creator-style ad creative at a fraction of what real UGC partnerships cost.
The value proposition is real for DTC scale. Hiring 20 creators to produce 100 UGC videos in a month would cost $30k-100k+ in creator fees. Arcads produces the same volume for $310/mo on the Growth tier. The output quality is meaningfully below real UGC for high-AOV brands, but for high-velocity DTC testing the volume-economics win.
The trade-off: Arcads-generated content has a recognizable feel. Sophisticated audiences (and Meta's algorithm) can identify AI-generated UGC by 2026. For brands competing in saturated categories where distinctiveness matters, the AI-UGC content underperforms real creator content by 30-60% on engagement.
Per-video economics across tiers
Starter at $5.50/video is the worst economics in the lineup. Suitable only for solo creators or marketers testing the product. Real workflow use ships you to Growth quickly.
Growth at $3.10/video is the sweet spot for most buyers. Comparable to lower-tier real UGC commissioning ($50-200 per video for low-fi creators) at materially lower cost. Most Arcads customer growth is happening at this tier.
Scale at $1.82/video is genuinely cheap. Below typical real-UGC commissioning rates by 95%+. For agencies and larger DTC brands running 500+ videos per month, the math becomes unbeatable on pure cost grounds.
The output quality is constant across tiers - paying more doesn't get you better videos, it gets you more of them. The quality discussion is about Arcads vs alternatives, not Arcads tier-to-tier.
Volume isn't enough. Strategy is. Arcads generates 100 UGC variants from a prompt. Shuttergen generates them from competitive context - so the 100 variants beat category median, not just match it.
Arcads vs alternatives in 2026
vs Creatify (~$45-200/mo): Creatify is cheaper at entry tier but ships fewer videos per dollar. Strong for mixed talking-head + B-roll workflows. Arcads wins on pure UGC-style volume; Creatify wins on format diversity.
vs Captions AI (~$25-100/mo): Captions is mobile-first and cheaper. Strong for solo creators producing short-form social content. Arcads wins on volume and scale; Captions wins on solo-creator simplicity.
vs HeyGen ($39-200+/mo): HeyGen is broader (explainers, ads, training) but per-video output volume is lower than Arcads. Choose Arcads for pure UGC-style; HeyGen for varied use cases.
vs Shuttergen: Shuttergen layers competitive intelligence on top of UGC-style generation - tells you what to make based on category winners. Arcads generates from a prompt; Shuttergen generates from a brief informed by what's winning. Different category; sometimes used together.
Internal: arcads-ai-pricing-2026, arcads-pricing, arcads-ugc-pricing.
When Arcads is actually worth it
Three personas where the math works clearly. First: DTC brands testing UGC at volume. The price per video at Growth tier ($3.10) and Scale tier ($1.82) is materially below real-creator commissioning. For brands shipping 50-200 UGC variants per month, Arcads is the cost-effective floor.
Second: DTC agencies serving 10+ small clients. The Scale tier's multi-brand workspaces and seat counts cover agency operational needs. Per-client cost is reasonable even with markup.
Third: high-velocity creative testing programs. When you need 100+ structurally-similar variants to test hooks, archetypes, or angles, real UGC commissioning can't scale fast enough. Arcads can. The output isn't best-in-class but it's good enough for testing-stage volume.
Where Arcads fails: premium brands where authenticity matters and audiences are sophisticated enough to identify AI-generated content. The pattern recognition has gotten too good in 2026 - what worked in 2023 is now identifiable.
FAQ
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Related
Keep reading
Volume isn't enough. Strategy is.
Arcads generates 100 UGC variants from a prompt. Shuttergen generates them from competitive context - so the 100 variants beat category median, not just match it.