Tavus Pricing 2026: The Per-Minute Catch

TL;DR: Tavus pricing in 2026 is $0 free (25 conversational video minutes), $59/mo Starter (100 minutes), and $397/mo Growth (1,250 minutes), plus a Custom Enterprise tier. The catch: those monthly fees are access fees. Real-time video conversation is metered per minute — $0.37/min on Starter, $0.32/min on Growth — with a 30-second minimum charge on every session.

Last updated: August 2026 · By Sandeep Singh, DailyFix

Tavus is one of the most talked-about conversational video AI platforms right now — it gives you a real-time, talking AI "replica" that can see, listen, and reply on a video call. As of August 2026, the sticker prices look approachable. But if you plan to put a Tavus agent in front of real traffic, the monthly plan is only half the story. The other half is a usage meter that runs every second the video is live.

What does Tavus cost per month in 2026?

Tavus cost per month runs on four tiers as of August 2026: Free at $0, Starter at $59/mo, Growth at $397/mo, and a custom Enterprise plan. According to Tavus's pricing page (checked August 2026), each paid tier is a "monthly access fee + pay as you go," meaning the fee buys you a fixed pool of minutes and then usage bills on top.

Here is what each tier includes. Free gives you 25 minutes of AI conversational video, 5 minutes of AI video generation, and 25 stock replicas. Starter adds 3 custom replica trainings per month, 100 conversational video minutes, and up to 3 concurrent streams. Growth jumps to 7 custom replica trainings, 1,250 conversational video minutes, 100+ stock replicas, conversation recordings, and up to 10 concurrent streams. Enterprise is custom-quoted for volume, white-labeling, and SLAs.

Plan	Monthly fee	Included conversational video	Concurrent streams	Overage / min
Free	$0	25 minutes	—	n/a (no paid overage)
Starter	$59/mo	100 minutes	Up to 3	$0.37/min
Growth	$397/mo	1,250 minutes	Up to 10	$0.32/min
Enterprise	Custom	Custom	Custom	Volume discount

Prices and limits change often — verify on the official pricing page before deciding.

What is the real per-minute cost of Tavus conversational video?

The real Tavus per-minute cost is $0.37/min on Starter and $0.32/min on Growth for any conversational video beyond your included pool, billed in 6-second increments with a 30-second minimum charge per conversation. That per-session floor is the part most people miss when they budget off the $59 headline.

Do the math on a busy month. Say you run a Tavus receptionist that handles 2,000 short calls averaging 90 seconds each. That is roughly 3,000 minutes. On Starter, your first 100 minutes are included, and the remaining ~2,900 minutes bill at $0.37 — about $1,073 in overage on top of the $59 fee. Move to Growth and 1,250 minutes are included, leaving ~1,750 minutes at $0.32, or about $560 plus the $397 fee. The monthly access fee is a rounding error; the usage is the bill.

The 30-second minimum matters most for high-volume, short-interaction flows. According to Tavus's pricing page (checked August 2026), "each conversation incurs a 30-second minimum charge." A caller who hangs up after saying "wrong number" in 8 seconds still costs you half a metered minute. Multiply that across thousands of drop-offs and the floor becomes a real line item.

Is the Tavus free plan enough to test with?

The Tavus free plan is enough to prototype and demo, but not to run anything live. It includes 25 minutes of AI conversational video, 5 minutes of AI video generation, 25 stock replicas, and 30-plus languages, with no upfront payment. That is enough to wire up the API, test turn-taking, and record a client demo — but 25 minutes disappears in a single afternoon of testing.

Treat the free tier as a proof-of-concept budget, not a pilot. Twenty-five minutes covers maybe 15 to 20 short test conversations. There are no custom replica trainings on free, so you are limited to the 25 stock faces. For a client-facing pilot you will need at least Starter, and you should model your expected minutes before you flip it on — because the meter starts the moment you go past 100 included minutes.

How much do Tavus custom replica trainings cost?

Tavus replica training cost is bundled into the paid tiers first, then billed per extra replica: Starter includes 3 custom replica trainings per month, Growth includes 7, and beyond that each additional custom replica is a one-time flat fee of $65 on Starter and $40 on Growth. A custom replica is a hyperrealistic AI clone generated from about a two-minute video, including a custom voice model.

For most solo builders and small agencies, the included trainings are plenty — you rarely need more than a handful of branded faces. The cost creeps in if you sell Tavus agents as a service and spin up a fresh custom replica per client. At $65 each on Starter, ten client replicas in a month adds $650 before a single conversation happens. If you productize this, Growth's $40 rate and 7 included trainings pay for themselves fast.

How does Tavus pricing compare to voice-only agents?

Tavus pricing sits at the premium end because you are paying for real-time video, not just audio. Voice-only platforms like Vapi and Retell typically land around $0.05 to $0.10 per minute all-in for a basic agent, while Tavus conversational video runs $0.32 to $0.37 per overage minute plus the monthly access fee. You are paying roughly 4x to 7x per minute for a talking face on screen.

That premium is worth it only when the face is the point. For an appointment reminder, an outbound sales dialer, or a phone IVR replacement, a voice agent does the job for a fraction of the cost. For a website "video concierge," an interactive product demo, a training simulator, or a branded avatar that needs eye contact and expression, Tavus's video layer is what a voice tool cannot deliver. Match the medium to the use case before you match the budget.

Frequently asked questions

Does Tavus have a free plan?
Yes. The Tavus free plan costs $0 and includes 25 minutes of AI conversational video, 5 minutes of AI video generation, access to 25 stock replicas, and support for 30-plus languages. It has no upfront payment and is meant for testing the API before you move to a paid tier.

How much does Tavus cost per minute?
Once you use up your included conversational video minutes, Tavus charges $0.37 per minute on the Starter plan and $0.32 per minute on the Growth plan, rounded to the nearest 6 seconds. Every conversation also carries a 30-second minimum charge, so very short sessions still cost you a partial minute.

What is the 30-second minimum charge on Tavus?
Tavus bills each conversational video session for at least 30 seconds, even if the caller drops after a few words. For high-volume, short-interaction use cases this floor adds up quickly, because a 10-second hang-up still costs you half a minute of metered time.

How much does a Tavus custom replica cost?
Starter includes 3 custom replica trainings per month and Growth includes 7. Beyond that quota, each extra custom replica is a one-time flat fee of $65 on Starter and $40 on Growth. The free plan includes no custom replica trainings, only 25 stock replicas.

Is Tavus more expensive than voice-only agents?
Generally yes. Voice-only platforms like Vapi or Retell bill roughly $0.05 to $0.10 per minute all-in for a basic agent, while Tavus conversational video runs $0.32 to $0.37 per overage minute plus a monthly access fee. You pay the premium for a real-time talking face, not just a voice.

Does the Tavus monthly fee include unlimited minutes?
No. The $59 Starter and $397 Growth fees are access fees that include a fixed pool of conversational video minutes (100 and 1,250 respectively). Usage past that pool is billed per minute on top of the monthly fee, so your real bill scales with call volume.

Bottom Line

Tavus is the strongest real-time conversational video AI on the market in 2026, and the free tier is a fair way to prototype. But do not budget off the $59 sticker. The monthly fee is an access fee; conversational video is metered at $0.32 to $0.37 per minute with a 30-second floor on every session, so your true cost tracks call volume. Buy Tavus if you need a talking, seeing avatar and have modeled your minutes. Skip it if a voice-only agent would do the same job for a fifth of the cost.

Sources

About the author — Sandeep Singh. Sandeep builds and tests AI tools and automations daily, and runs DailyFix to show solopreneurs which ones actually save time.

Sandeep Singh Founder & Editor, DailyFix

Sandeep Singh is the founder and editor of DailyFix. He served in the Border Security Force for five years before moving into software, where he now builds and tests AI automations for solopreneurs and small teams — mostly in n8n, Make, and Zapier, plus voice agents on Vapi and Synthflow. He runs DailyFix on the same principle he uses in his own work: no tool goes into a post unless he'd actually put it into a client build. Every review, prompt and workflow on the site is tested end-to-end on real projects before it's written up. Alongside DailyFix, Sandeep ships SwiftSite Studio. Recent focus: AI receptionists for contractors, and turning ranking-audit output into repeatable, one-person publishing systems. Reach him on GitHub.

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