AI UGC ads

Shops and app teams use this path to ship a vertical actor ad for paid placement on TikTok, YouTube, and YouTube Shorts. The export is a short spoken spot: a checked script, an AI actor from a product link, captions that clear the player chrome, and a disclosure before upload.

Platforms: TikTok · YouTube · Shorts

Paid social is the use case. Prices were checked 2026-10-16 on the linked tool pages and the vendor URLs below. Ad-account media spend was not observed. A comparison in that day's notes says Arcads, Creatify, and MakeUGC do not document an organic posting calendar, so this page does not add one.

Who it is for

You already have a product page and claims you can prove. The working script is about 40 to 80 spoken words, a genre length from a third-party step list, not a Creatify quota. A seconds-per-word rate was not observed. This site lists no script product. Narration with no actor is the faceless channel workflow. A specific person's likeness, with consent, is AI avatar.

Recommended path

Four steps. Product shots stay off the default sum.

1. Script

Write claims the advertiser can prove. Creatify can draft from a product URL, and the feature index includes an AI script writer. Rewrite that draft. A review already on the page does not become the actor's line, and a customer's experience stays out unless a real customer had it. Regenerating the script spends credits. Manual text edits and a re-export are free. What one website script button spends was not observed. API AI Scripts is 1 credit per request, on the API subscription only. Claude and ChatGPT stay outside this directory.

2. Actor ad · Creatify

Creatify is this step because the job is a product link in and a vertical or square actor spot out. HeyGen is a presenter studio. Runway is a shot and an editor. Free, checked 2026-10-16, is 10 credits a month, capped at about 2 video ads or 20 image ads, with a watermark. Standard is the first card with watermark removal, and it names Seedance 2.0 and Kling 3.0 Standard. Pro names Seedance 2.5, Veo 3.1, and Kling 3.0 Pro. A website button's credit integer was not observed. Read the in-app cost before you confirm.

API Starter at docs.creatify.ai/billing is another subscription: $99 a month, 500 credits. URL to Video is 5 credits per 30 seconds. Aurora 2.0 at default 720p is 21 credits for 30 seconds. Those rows do not price the website button. A custom-avatar count on Standard was not observed. Cloning a specific person is AI avatar, and only with consent.

3. Captions and safe zones · CapCut

CapCut burns captions and checks the right and bottom of a vertical frame. A measured pixel inset was not observed. CapCut does not generate the talking actor. Free export rules were not observed. USD, CLP, and yen stickers disagree, so pay checkout. Credits do not buy the subscription.

4. Publish and disclose

Upload only after the policy section has a matching label. This step has no subscription. YouTube Studio's control is on a help page that returned HTTP 200. TikTok Ads Manager clicks and Meta's Business Help self-serve path were not observed. Use the control the ad account shows. Captions or a cover that still fail go to captions and covers. An external voice goes to voice and publish.

Optional product shots

Off the default sum, and only when the actor cannot hold the product. Use Kling or Seedance — notes at Kling and Seedance — or Higgsfield for the product shot, then return to CapCut. Kling Basic withholds commercial use. Runway is one shot in that login. Its product-ad API recipes bill a separate developer wallet at $0.01 a credit. A shared balance with the consumer plan was not observed.

Monthly starter cost

Checked 2026-10-16. Tax sits outside the quote. Assumptions: one English vertical spoken ad, actor from Creatify, captions in CapCut. No monthly ad count, because a website button's credit cost was not observed. API prices apply only on the API subscription. The default sum is Standard, plus CapCut Pro only in the currency on screen. Voice and product shots are extra. HeyGen, Higgsfield, Runway, and MakeUGC replace Creatify. Dreamina replaces a product-shot plan. None of them is added to the $15 floor.

Band	What you pay for	Sticker	What it is not
Trial	Creatify Free, CapCut without Pro, disclosure	Creatify $0. CapCut free rules not observed	A watermark-free ad
Commercial floor	Creatify Standard, monthly	$15 (55 credits)	A $39 Starter. Annual banner shows $12
Floor + USD CapCut Pro	Floor plus the USD Pro card	$34.99 before tax	CLP 29990 or JPY 2,700 added to $15
Optional voice	ElevenLabs Starter	+$6 at renewal	Required when the actor file already speaks
Optional product shots	Kling Standard renewal	+$8.80	Kling Basic at $0

The default is $15, or $34.99 before tax when CapCut shows the USD Pro card. Both optional USD rows on top of that band come to $34.99 + $6 + $8.80 = $49.79 before tax. That figure is arithmetic, not a bundle. ElevenLabs Starter is $1 for the first month, labeled until 18 October 2026, then $6. Kling's $6.99 becomes $8.80. Dreamina's first-month discount ends 23 October 2026. An external-audio control on Creatify's website was not observed.

Why articles still say $39

From September 2026 through 14 October 2026, writeups still showed a web tier named Starter at $39 for 100 credits, and Pro at $99 or from $99. The notes name Relay (updated 13 October 2026), Synthesys (checked 2 October 2026), Futurepedia (updated 09/10/2026), ugcmcp (August 2026), and other comparison articles from the same pass.

On 16 October 2026, https://creatify.ai/pricing matched this site's Creatify page. The web tier is Standard, at $15 and $12, with 55 credits. Web Pro is $55 and $44, with 280 credits. API Starter at $99 for 500 credits, and API Pro at $299 for 2,000 credits, are the API subscription at docs.creatify.ai/billing. They are not web Standard or web Pro. Trust that vendor page, and the tool page, ahead of a comparison article.

Staged alternatives

Actor

Leave Free when the file cannot carry a watermark.

• Creatify Standard. Default URL-to-ad, and the first card with watermark removal. Step up to web Pro for a 10-minute duration cap or 1,500 actors.
• HeyGen Creator. Longer presenter or lip-sync translation, including 175 languages and dialects on paid plans. $29 a month or $24 annual, 600 credits. Free allows up to 3 videos a month, at 1 minute. Those 600 credits are not an ad count.
• Higgsfield Starter. Other URL-to-ad login with a tool page here. The pricing page names UGC and product ads. $19 a month billed annually, 270 credits. Plus is $47 billed annually beside $59, for 1,200 credits. A free-credit number was not observed. A Magic Hour article of 15 May 2026, rechecking the product page on 13 September 2026, calls Marketing Studio a URL-to-ad surface. Whether that surface spends the Starter grant was not observed. Pay checkout.

MakeUGC is not listed on this site yet. https://makeugc.ai/pricing on 2026-10-16 showed monthly Starter $59 (500 credits, 300+ actors), Growth $79 (1,000 credits, 500+ actors), and Pro $149 (2,000–5,000 credits, 1,000+ actors). Quarterly display prices were $41 / $55 / $104. Annual display prices were $29 / $39 / $79. API and MCP sit on every plan and share the credit pool. Homepage $99 is a 24-hour Seedance 2.5 pass. $199 is a 72-hour pass. Neither number is the monthly fee.

Arcads is not listed on this site yet. https://www.arcads.ai/ showed free-trial copy and 1,000+ AI actors. arcads.ai/pricing returned 404. A public dollar price was not observed. A help-center credits article dated 30 July 2026 lists Starter at 8,000 credits and Creator at 16,000, without rollover, and says Pro, Scale, and Business can exceed the grant and can roll over. Third-party dollar guesses are not copied into the starter cost.

Voice

Buy a voice plan only when the actor export is not the track you will run. The contract behind the commercial-license line was not observed.

• ElevenLabs Free. Drafts. 10,000 credits, about 10 minutes on the compare table. The commercial-license line is not on this card.
• ElevenLabs Starter. Commercial-license line and instant cloning. $6 after a first month at $1, labeled until 18 October 2026, for 30,000 credits (about 30 minutes on the compare table).
• ElevenLabs Creator. $22 after a first month at $11, for 121,000 credits (about 121 minutes on the compare table), when Starter minutes or a professional clone are the limit.

Product shots

Leave Kling Basic before any paid placement.

• Kling Standard. Commercial use is on the paid card. $6.99 then $8.80, 660 credits. Seconds per membership credit were not observed. The $0.14 API unit does not convert into them.
• Dreamina on Seedance. USD Basic $1.50 then $15 (page estimate: 19 ten-second videos). USD Standard $22 then $36 (48). The first-month discount ends 23 October 2026. Seedance 2.5 from $0.04 a second is a separate floor, and that date is not printed on it. It is not CapCut Pro's first-month line from $0.12 a second (the later CapCut rate was not observed). Commercial use is not a blanket license. Keep yen cards out of this USD sum.
• Runway Standard. $15 monthly or $12 annual, 625 credits, 52 seconds of Gen-4.5 at 12 credits a second. The developer recipe stays on the $0.01 wallet.

Edit and captions

• CapCut without Pro. Cuts and captions. Export rules not observed.
• CapCut Pro. 1,200 credits on the USD and CLP cards (USD 19.99 in one region; yen open JPY 2,700 and 800 credits). Up to 240 seconds of Seedance 2.0 Mini at 720p, or 600 at 480p.
• CapCut Ultra. 8,645 credits on the USD and CLP cards (USD 79 in that USD rendering), up to 1,700 seconds at 720p, when Pro's ceiling is the limit. No second caption app.

Where it fits

• Several paid hooks, each a claim you can prove.
• A product URL or stills already exist, and a person edits the script first.
• You will read Creatify's in-app credit cost before you confirm, and you will reject a broken pack shot.
• Delivery is a vertical or square creative for TikTok, YouTube, or Shorts. One required shape for every ad account was not observed.

Where it does not fit

• Narration and b-roll with no actor: faceless channel workflow.
• A specific person's face or voice without consent: wait for AI avatar.
• The generated person is written as a real buyer, a real review, or a celebrity user.
• You want an organic calendar, a return-on-ad-spend number, or a view or revenue estimate.
• Only captions remain, on footage a person filmed: captions and covers.

Policy

This is not legal advice. It records pages and search returns from 2026-10-16. It does not clear an ad.

An AI actor who reads a brand script and introduces a product is delivering a brand message. A generated person presented as a real customer, describing a use they did not have, is a testimonial. The fake-review rule is about that second job. A realistic picture or voice can still require a platform label. A label does not repair an invented buyer.

The FTC press release of 14 August 2024, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/08/federal-trade-commission-announces-final-rule-banning-fake-reviews-testimonials , was read from a search return that day. A direct fetch returned 404, so this is not a saved HTML file. The return says the final rule bans fake consumer reviews, testimonials, and celebrity testimonials, including a person who does not exist. It names AI-generated fake reviews, and it covers someone who did not have the experience. Effect is 60 days after Federal Register publication. The Q&A of 8 November 2024, https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/consumer-reviews-testimonials-rule-questions-answers , says the rule is effective 21 October 2024 and that staff guidance is not a safe harbor. On 22 December 2025 both https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2025/12/warning-letter-or-ten-businesses-comply-ftcs-consumer-review-rule and https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/12/ftc-warns-10-companies-about-possible-violations-agencys-new-consumer-review-rule state a civil-penalty maximum of $53,088 per violation. Endorsement Guides and Disclosures 101 returned 404 and are not quoted.

YouTube returned HTTP 200 at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/14328491?hl=en . Disclose realistic generative AI at upload when a real person appears to say or do what they did not, real-event footage is altered, a realistic scene that did not occur is generated, or generated music is the subject. The control is YouTube Studio, then Attributes, then AI use, then Yes or No. Photoreal results can get a player label. Disclosure itself does not limit audience or monetization eligibility. YouTube's own tools, C2PA, or an internal detector can label without the toggle. Cloning your own voice for narration is an example that does not require disclosure. A stock actor is not that example. A photoreal actor ad of a product scene that was never filmed is the realistic-scene case on that page.

Meta's February 2025 post returned HTTP 200: https://about.fb.com/news/2025/02/gen-ai-transparency-metas-ads-products/ . "About this ad" will include "AI info" for Meta's own generative tools, and Meta is starting to detect third-party AI with industry-standard signals. Photorealistic people from Meta's own tools are labeled beside Sponsored. Minor edits without a photorealistic person go unlabeled on that post. The Business Help self-disclosure path, for some regions and for political and social-issue ads, returned HTTP 400 and existed only as a search summary. Those clicks are not observed.

TikTok's 19 September 2023 newsroom post, read in full for this page's research, requires a label on realistic AI images, audio, and video. The ads-policy help page was only a title in that pass. A search summary says significantly modified or fully generated assets need an AIGC label or a clear statement, that a missing disclosure can be rejected, and that a public figure's likeness without permission in a misleading context is prohibited. The Ads Manager checkbox path was only in that summary. The clicks are not observed.

Clone only a person who has agreed. An Arcads homepage answer on actor consent was not saved, so it is not quoted. Statutes that appeared only inside comparison articles were not observed as primary text and are not restated as rules.

Pitfalls

A $39 price treated as live. The web card on 2026-10-16 is Standard at $15 or $12. API Starter at $99 is another subscription. Comparison articles were still printing $39 for 100 credits.

Kling Basic on a live ad. Basic withholds commercial use. A cutaway you will place comes from a paid Kling card, Dreamina under its terms, consumer Runway, or credits inside paid CapCut or Creatify.

The actor written as a customer. A generated person who describes buying the product is testifying to an experience they did not have. Size, material, and price, stated as the brand, are a different sentence.

No label on a realistic file. YouTube's Studio path, TikTok's realistic-AI label, and Meta's February 2025 labels are above. Ads Manager clicks and Meta Business Help clicks were not observed. Use the control the ad account shows.

API math, or a warped pack shot. Five API credits per 30 seconds do not turn 55 web credits into an ad count. Do not place a file whose product is bent. Cut in a product shot instead.

Next workflow

Narration without an actor stays on the faceless channel workflow. A consented likeness moves to AI avatar. Type, safe zones, and covers that still fail are captions and covers. An external voice or the license line is voice and publish. Optional b-roll is Kling or Seedance.

FAQ

How much is Creatify, in one number?

$15 a month for web Standard, or $12 on the annual banner, for 55 credits, checked 2026-10-16. The $39 article tier, the $99 API Starter, and API Pro at $299 are separated in the cost section above. Website credits per button were not observed.

Why is there no Arcads dollar price?

arcads.ai/pricing returned 404, and a public dollar price was not observed. The 30 July 2026 article names credit grants, not dollars. Arcads is not listed on this site yet. MakeUGC is the same gap. Its $99 and $199 homepage figures are Seedance 2.5 day passes, not the monthly sticker quoted above.

Is an AI actor reading our script a fake review?

Provable product facts in a brand script are a brand message. A generated person presented as a real customer, describing an experience they did not have, is the testimonial case in Policy, including the August 2024 search return on AI-generated fake reviews. This is not legal advice.

Can the free plan run as a live ad?

Creatify Free is about 2 watermarked videos a month. Watermark removal starts on Standard. CapCut's free export rules were not observed, and Kling Basic withholds commercial use. A placement on this path starts at Standard, with a disclosure.

Is MakeUGC's $99 the monthly plan?

No. Monthly Starter on 2026-10-16 is $59. Homepage $99 is a 24-hour Seedance 2.5 pass, and $199 is 72 hours. Neither pass is an extra line on the $15 floor.