DEV Community: Flow & Funnel

HeyGen Free Plan Tutorial (2026): Make an AI Avatar Video Without a Camera

Flow & Funnel — Sun, 25 Oct 2026 15:31:07 +0000

Sometimes you need a short explainer or demo, but you don't want to be on camera, set up a mic, or spend an afternoon editing. HeyGen lets you type a script and have an AI avatar present it. The free plan is enough to learn the whole workflow, as long as you know its limits before you start.

Try HeyGen (affiliate link): heygen.com

Disclosure: this is an affiliate link. If you sign up through it, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Everything below comes from a fresh free account we tested on October 25, 2026.

Here's the full video walkthrough:

Below is the written version.

The free plan limits

We checked these on HeyGen's pricing page and in the app on October 25, 2026:

What	Free plan (as of Oct 2026)
Videos	Up to 3 a month, watermarked
Length	Up to 1 minute per video
Download resolution	720p
Watermark	HeyGen logo, bottom-right corner
Processing	Standard speed. Our test video (about 12 seconds) took about 1 minute
Previews	Did not count toward the 3 videos in our test
Credit card	Not required at signup

You also get hundreds of stock avatars, many languages, the AI Studio editor, templates, and limited trial access to Avatar IV and Video Agent. Gestures ("Add Motion") are capped at 3 uses a month.

So the free plan is for learning and testing: three short, watermarked videos a month. Let's make them count.

Step 1: Sign up

Go to HeyGen and click Get started free. You can sign up with Google or with email. HeyGen asks a few onboarding questions; they only personalize suggestions, so pick whatever is closest. If you see an upgrade or trial screen, skip it. We're staying on Free.

Step 2: Find your way around the dashboard

The left menu holds the main areas: creating a video, avatars, templates, and your projects. Find where your usage is shown (Usage & History). That's how you track how many free videos you have left this month.

To start a project, click Create video, then choose Scene by scene → Start in landscape for YouTube. Use portrait for Shorts and Reels.

Step 3: Pick an avatar

Open the avatar panel and browse the stock presenters. Hover to preview, and use the filters to find a style that fits. For a first video, a stock avatar is the easiest choice because there's nothing to upload.

HeyGen also offers photo avatars, where you upload an image and it gets animated. Only use photos you own or have permission to use, and never someone else's face without their consent.

Step 4: Write a short script

Type what the avatar should say into the script box. Remember the 1-minute cap: at a normal pace that's roughly 150 words, so aim for 100–120 words to leave room.

Example script:

Hi, I'm an AI presenter, and this whole video was made on HeyGen's free plan.
No camera, no microphone. Just a script, an avatar, and a few clicks.
Stick around and I'll show you how.

Write the way people talk, in short sentences. If a word gets mispronounced, spell it the way it sounds, or add a comma where you want a pause.

Step 5: Choose a voice and language

Each avatar has a default voice, but you can change it. Open the voice menu, filter by language and accent, and play a few samples. The free plan covers many languages.

Then use the play button next to the script to hear the whole line. In our test, previews did not appear in Usage & History; only the generated video did. So preview as often as you need.

Step 6: Design the scene in AI Studio

This is where it starts to look like a real video:

Background: it's under Avatar → Avatar Background. Pick a color, an image, or a video.
Text: add a title from the Elements panel, then set the size, font, and position.
Layout: drag the avatar to resize it or move it to the side to make room for text.
Scenes: add more scenes for multi-part videos. Each scene has its own script and layout, but all scenes together still need to fit in one minute.

Want a head start? Pick a template and swap in your own script.

Keep in mind that the watermark sits in the bottom-right corner, so don't put important text there.

Step 7 (optional): Avatar IV and motion

Avatar IV is HeyGen's more expressive avatar model. Free accounts get limited trial access, and Avatar IV videos are also capped at 1 minute. To add gestures, use Add Motion from the settings icon next to Motion Engine. You get 3 uses a month on Free, so save them for a video you plan to keep.

Step 8: Generate and download

Play the preview one last time, because every generation uses one of your 3 free videos. Then click Generate and name the video. 1080p is locked on Free; downloads are 720p.

Our test video, about 12 seconds long, took about a minute to process. When it's done, open the project's "..." menu → Download to save the 720p MP4.

Bonus: Video Agent

Video Agent turns a one-line prompt into a draft video. It writes the script, picks visuals, and assembles everything. Free accounts get limited trial access. Always read the script before you generate, because AI drafts can be generic or simply wrong.

Tips to save your 3 free videos

Preview, don't generate. Test voices and timing with the preview button. It didn't count against the quota in our test.
Keep scripts around 100 words so you stay under the 1-minute cap.
Start from a template so you're not designing from scratch.
Keep the bottom-right corner clear, since the watermark goes there.
Save gestures and Avatar IV for the video you actually want to keep.
Plan your month: for example, one test, one final, and one spare for fixes.

When is Free enough?

If you're learning, testing ideas, or making an internal demo where a watermark and 720p don't matter, Free is fine. If you need no branding, 1080p, or videos longer than a minute, those features are on HeyGen's paid plans. Plans change often, so check the pricing page before you decide.

Try HeyGen's free plan (affiliate link): heygen.com

Disclosure: the HeyGen link above is an affiliate link. If you sign up through it, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Free-plan details were checked on October 25, 2026 and may change.

If you make a video with this, tell me in the comments what you used the avatar for. More AI tool walkthroughs are on the Flow & Funnel YouTube channel.

Build a Free AI News Digest in n8n (No API Key)

Flow & Funnel — Sun, 25 Oct 2026 05:14:38 +0000

Every morning I used to open five tabs to find out what happened in AI overnight. Now an n8n workflow does it for me and sends one short digest to my inbox (or Telegram) at 7:00. It doesn't need an OpenAI key or any paid API, and the whole thing runs on free RSS feeds.

Here's the full video walkthrough:

Below is the written version, plus the importable template.

What you'll build

Schedule (7:00) ─┐
Manual (test) ───┴─> Settings ─┬─> TechCrunch AI RSS ─┐
                               ├─> The Verge AI RSS ──┼─> Merge ─> Rank & summarize ─> Build digest ─┬─> Email
                               └─> Hacker News RSS ───┘                                             └─> Telegram

Get the template (JSON): 01-ai-news-digest.fixed.json

Step 1: Triggers

There are two triggers:

Schedule Trigger, set to every morning at 7:00
Manual Trigger ("Run now"), so you can test without waiting for tomorrow

Both feed into the same chain.

Step 2: A Settings node

A Set node holds the two values you'll actually change:

maxStories: how many stories go into the digest (default 8)
emailTo: where the digest goes

Keeping config in one node means you never have to dig through Code nodes to change a setting.

Step 3: Three free RSS feeds

Add three RSS Read nodes:

Source	URL
TechCrunch AI	`https://techcrunch.com/category/artificial-intelligence/feed/`
The Verge AI	`https://www.theverge.com/rss/ai-artificial-intelligence/index.xml`
Hacker News (AI, 50+ points)	`https://hnrss.org/newest?q=AI+OR+LLM+OR+agent&points=50`

The Hacker News feed comes from hnrss.org, which lets you filter by keywords and a minimum score right in the URL. The points=50 part removes most of the noise before n8n even sees it.

Step 4: Merge

A Merge node combines the three streams into one list of items.

Step 5: Rank & summarize (Code node)

This is where the work happens. The Code node:

Dedupes stories that show up in more than one feed
Filters to the last 36 hours, so a missed run won't leave gaps and old news won't repeat
Ranks each item by how many of your keywords it matches. Edit the keyword list to fit what you care about.
Summarizes each story into a short line from its feed description
Keeps the top maxStories

Want LLM-quality summaries but still free? You can swap this node for a call to a local Ollama model. It's optional, and the template works without it.

Step 6: Build digest

A second Code node turns the ranked items into one message: a title, then a numbered list of headline + summary + link. The same output works for both email and Telegram.

Step 7: Deliver by email or Telegram

The template includes both Send Email (SMTP) and Telegram nodes. Enable whichever you want:

Email: add an SMTP credential (your mail provider's SMTP settings work fine)
Telegram: create a bot with @botfather, add the token as a credential, and set your chat ID

Importing the template

Download the JSON template
In n8n, go to Workflows → Import from File (or paste the JSON onto the canvas)
Add your SMTP or Telegram credential and enable that node
Set emailTo in Settings
Click Run now (test), check your inbox, then activate the workflow

That's it. Tomorrow at 7:00 you'll get your first digest.

Ideas to extend it

Add more feeds (company blogs, arXiv categories, newsletters with RSS)
Post the digest to a Slack or Discord channel
Store each day's stories in a Google Sheet to build an archive
Use different keyword lists for different recipients

Prefer a visual no-code tool?

n8n is my pick for this because it's free to self-host and the Code node gives you full control. If you'd rather not host anything, Make can build the same RSS → filter → email flow with its visual scenario builder: try Make.

Disclosure: the Make link above is an affiliate link. If you sign up through it, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I don't have any affiliate relationship with n8n.

If you build this, tell me in the comments which feeds you added. More automation walkthroughs are on the Flow & Funnel YouTube channel.