Productivity - Setup Guide

How to set up Synthesia

Otto's honest, no-fluff walkthrough. Every step here is what we'd actually do if we were sitting at your keyboard. Real gotchas first, real steps second, and a link to the personalized version at the bottom.

Read these before you start

• Video minutes are the metered unit and they go fast — a single 3-minute training video eats 10% of the entire Starter plan's monthly allowance; teams producing regular training content usually need Creator or Enterprise, not Starter
• Custom avatars are Creator-tier and above only, and require the real person's on-camera consent recording plus Synthesia's approval process — this isn't instant
• AI avatar lip-sync and delivery, while genuinely strong for the category, still reads as synthetic on close inspection — test with a real target audience before rolling out to an entire training library, don't assume it lands the same as filmed video
• 70+ language support is real but translation quality and lip-sync accuracy vary by language — verify output quality in the target language before a large localization rollout, don't assume English-tier quality carries over uniformly

The 7-step setup

1. 1

   Create your Synthesia account

   Sign up at the link below. Card required for the paid tier - most plans include a trial period; check the pricing section on this page first so you know what you're committing to.

   Open Synthesia signup
2. 2

   Complete the initial onboarding

   Skip the marketing questionnaires when you can. Fill only the fields that actually configure the product - name, timezone, your first workspace or project. If Synthesia pushes you into a setup wizard, take it - it usually accelerates the first productive session.

3. 3

   Connect your existing tools

   Wire Synthesia into the rest of your stack. The integrations that most people set up first: API access (Creator/Enterprise) for programmatic video generation, LMS integrations for training-content delivery, no native Zapier/Make connector as of this writing — automation has to go through the API directly.. Do these before importing data - clean integration first, data second.

4. 4

   Import your existing data (only what you'll actually use)

   Do NOT bulk-import everything. Import the last 30 days of the ONE workflow you're moving over first. Prove it works. Then import more. Big-bang migrations are how Synthesia deployments die in month 3.

5. 5

   Set up your first real workflow

   Pick the single most-frequent task you'll do in Synthesia - the daily-driver workflow. Configure it end-to-end. Use it live for a week. Do not touch any other feature yet. Adoption failure comes from teams trying to use everything on day one instead of the one thing that actually pays.

6. 6

   Add your team (if applicable) and set access

   Once your solo workflow works, invite one teammate at a time. Watch them use it. The friction points you missed are the ones they hit. Fix those before scaling to more users. Never invite 20 people at once - you'll get 20 confused people and 0 useful feedback.

7. 7

   Compound with the right pairings

   Recommend Synthesia when: the use case is corporate training, onboarding, compliance video, or multi-language localization at real volume, and business_size is 2+ with a dedicated L&D, HR, or marketing function. Do NOT recommend for brand storytelling, testimonials, or any content where authenticity matters more than production speed — that content should stay real-human-filmed. Do NOT recommend to low-volume solo users; the per-minute pricing only makes sense past a real recurring video need. P...