Descript Review for Ads: What Credits Cost, 2.6 on Trustpilot

What a Descript credit buys depends on who spends it

"Burned through 800 credits just trying to clean up filler pauses on a short reel," reads a Trustpilot review dated October 3. We can't check that run, and the review doesn't say which tool spent them. But Descript's own help center explains why a bill is hard to predict when its AI co-editor, Underlord, does the work. "There's no fixed price per action," it says, "but your Usage tab shows exactly what each run cost."

On November 3, 2026, we could open seven of the reviews that rank for this search. None of them puts a dollar price on a credit or mentions Trustpilot. This one does both.

We didn't test Descript for this post. We read its pricing page, help center and changelog the same day, from Spain, and noted each rating with its review count and date. The one run shown here is ours, made in Novoads.

What Descript does for an ad maker

Editing spoken footage from the transcript

Descript's homepage calls it "an AI video and audio editor that lets you edit by editing text." Its video ad maker page has you "Record fresh footage or your screen, compose a script, or simply drag in the media files you want." We think that suits ads where someone's talking, like a founder speaking to camera, a customer clip or a cut from a podcast.

The cleanup tools are the part we'd expect an ad maker to use most.

• Studio Sound reduces "background noise, echo, and other distractions" in a voice recording.
• Remove Filler Words cuts the filler words from your recording.
• Eye Contact "uses AI to redirect your gaze to the lens."
• Green Screen "cuts the background out of a video."

Underlord, the AI co-editor

Underlord is how you edit in Descript with a prompt. Its help page describes an AI co-editor that can "edit video, add captions, translate content, and search the web for current facts." The same page says it's "still in beta," so expect this section to age. Descript's credits page says Underlord "routes each request to the model best suited for the task," and its help page adds that "Premium models are available on paid plans."

Generated video and avatars

Descript can also generate media inside a project. Its help center says "Describe an image or video in words and Descript generates it, straight into your project." The model table there, read November 3, includes Kling v3.0 Pro, MiniMax H3 Max Turbo, Seedance 2.0 and Veo 3.1 for video. The changelog roundup posted October 13 says "Generate video now defaults to MiniMax H3 Max Turbo on paid plans" and "Free plans stay on PixVerse V4.5." Seedance 2.0 reached "all users" there on April 16, so it's in Descript as well as in Novoads.

Two more tools come close to an ad maker's job. AI Video Maker takes "a prompt, a rough script, or existing footage" and generates "a whole editable video," with an optional avatar. And an avatar, in Descript's words, is "an AI presenter that speaks your script on camera, putting a face on your video without filming anyone."

We'd call Descript an editor first. The homepage's pitch for generation is "Fill in the gaps with generated video, voice audio, music, and images that blend seamlessly with your footage," and that's how we'd use it. For other tools that edit spoken footage, our Captions AI review covers a close neighbor, and our OpusClip review covers cutting long recordings into shorts.

Descript's plans and what a credit costs in dollars

Descript's pricing page opens on annual billing, so check which price you're reading. On November 3, $24 a month meant either Creator billed annually or Hobbyist billed monthly.

Plan	Billed monthly	Billed annually	AI credits per editor	Media hours	Local export
Free	$0	$0	100, one time	1 a month	720p
Hobbyist	$24	$16	400 a month	10 a month	1080p
Creator	$35	$24	800 a month	30 a month	4K
Business	$65	$50	1,500 a month	40 a month	4K

Prices are per person per month in USD, and Enterprise gets a custom price through sales. Descript says "Media minutes track how much you transcribe and record, and AI Credits are spent on generative AI features."

Descript advertises "Saving up to 35% over monthly plan." By our arithmetic, its rounded prices save less, from 33.3% on Hobbyist to 23.1% on Business. Hobbyist includes one person. Creator scales to a team of 3 and Business to a team of 5, billed separately.

What an included credit costs

Divide each plan's price by its monthly credits and you get the cost of an included credit. That's our arithmetic, and it assumes you spend them all, because Descript says "Unused AI Credits don't roll over month to month."

Plan	Per credit, billed monthly	Per credit, billed annually
Hobbyist	$0.060	$0.040
Creator	$0.044	$0.030
Business	$0.043	$0.033

What top-ups cost

You buy top-ups in packs, and only on Creator and Business.

AI credits	Price	Per credit
350	$35	$0.10
1,000	$80	$0.08
4,000	$200	$0.05

Extra media hours come in packs too, from $5.00 an hour for the smallest to $3.00 an hour for the largest. By our arithmetic, the smallest credit pack costs more than twice as much per credit as an included Creator credit on monthly billing, so we'd get the plan size right before counting on top-ups.

Where Descript's own pages disagree

Descript describes the Free plan differently from page to page. The pricing page gives it 100 one-time AI credits and marks watermark-free export as not included, and the export help page says "Exports from a Free drive will include a Descript watermark in the bottom-right corner." But the Free card on Descript's video ad maker page says "100 AI credits / month" and "Export 720p, watermark-free." We read all of those on November 3, and we'd go by the pricing and export help pages.

The same thing happens with generation. The Creator card lists "Generate video with the latest AI models" and the Business card lists "Generate custom avatars from photo upload or text." Yet the page's comparison table marks both features Limited on Free and included on Hobbyist, Creator and Business, and the models help page says "Model availability depends on your plan." If you're buying a plan for one particular model, we'd ask Descript first whether the plan includes it.

Where Descript's AI credits go

Tools you apply by hand

Descript's credits help page sorts spending into two kinds, and the by-hand kind is the predictable one. When you apply a tool yourself, "Cost scales with the size of the job. Run the same input twice and you'll be charged the same amount both times."

What moves that cost depends on the tool.

• "Longer audio, longer text-to-speech output, or more filler words removed = more credits used."
• Generative tools show a coin stack on each model, where "more coins = higher cost."
• Some tools have a ceiling. Descript says "Studio Sound and Remove Filler Words have a max cost of 30 credits per file/tool application."
• Others bill by length. A September 17 changelog roundup says "Smoothing is priced by the second now: 0.5 AI credits per second of regenerated audio, 1.0 per second of video, instead of a flat charge per cut."

Underlord, which has no fixed price per action

Underlord is the other kind. Descript's page calls it non-deterministic, with a cost that depends on the model that runs, what that model costs and how much work the task takes. It says "two requests that look alike can cost different credit amounts." Then comes the line we quoted at the top of this post, "There's no fixed price per action, but your Usage tab shows exactly what each run cost."

Descript's other pages fill in what that means for a budget.

• The Usage tab reports what a run cost after it runs. We found nothing in the help center, or in the changelog through October 13, that gives a cost figure before a run.
• Descript admits as much, writing "We know this makes it harder to estimate credit costs than a flat rate."
• Each chat message "still uses a few AI credits," and Descript gives no number for that.
• When Underlord runs a tool, "you'll be charged for both the agent brain and the tool itself."
• A skill spends credits "the same way any Underlord request does."
• "Imports and Underlord edits started from the Descript API or Descript MCP use the same media minutes and AI credits as work you do in the app."
• The API reference says "Cost tiers are coarse buckets," with exact pricing reported per job.

Two numbers on these pages are easy to read too much into. The 30-credit cap is in the section on applying tools by hand, and the page doesn't say it holds when Underlord runs those tools. And Descript's August 5 changelog says "The per-turn credit ceiling for the thinking step doubled from 100 to 200." That's a ceiling on one step of a turn. It doesn't set the price of an action, and it doesn't cover the tools Underlord runs.

We read all this as a budget risk on the smaller plans, because you only find out your own rate by spending. If a month's credits are tight, we'd apply Studio Sound and Remove Filler Words by hand and try Underlord on a short file first.

Avatars, at February's rates

Descript's changelog of February 10, 2026, put Kling v2 at about 67 credits a minute at 720p. Kling v2 Pro came in at about 138 credits a minute at 1080p. Those are February's rates and may have changed. The help center now lists Kling Avatar v2 and Kling Avatar v2 Pro, and it says only that "cost varies by model."

Descript charges credits "based on your total length of spoken audio, not just the parts where the avatar is visible," and it charges again each time you regenerate. So it advises you to "finalize your script and speaker labels before you generate." Its troubleshooting page also warns that "hands may sit in awkward positions or move unnaturally." Our AI avatar video generator guide covers how presenters fit into ads across the wider field.

Generated clips, where we found no price

We found no credit price per generated clip on the Descript pages we read (the pricing page, help center and changelog included), and no clip lengths in seconds. The help center only says "Higher-end models and longer videos usually consume more credits." So we can't give you a Descript price for a generated clip, and we won't guess one.

What users say on Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra

Site	Score	Reviews	As of
Trustpilot	2.6	292	November 3, 2026
G2	4.6	927	October 12, 2026 copy
Capterra	4.7	182	April 15, 2026 copy

We couldn't read G2's or Capterra's live pages on November 3, so those rows come from Internet Archive copies made on the dates shown. Capterra's copy carried the note "Last updated March 13th, 2026."

The split on Trustpilot is wide, with 37% five-star and 43% one-star reviews. The page counts 85 reviews in the last 12 months. Credits were the complaint we kept seeing in the recent ones we read.

• September 6: "The AI bot wastes the credits on edits that aren't what I asked for."
• September 19: "I purchased the Creator membership with 800 credits, only to successfully complete 1 video."
• October 29: "If you want to edit the videos with AI it could cost you $200-$400 to edit a video."

We can't check those runs, and they're a handful of reviews out of 292.

The October 12 copy of G2's page reads much warmer.

• It shows five stars on 766 of its 927 reviews.
• Its most-used positive tags are easy editing, at 278 mentions, and ease of use, at 268.
• Its negative tags start with the learning curve, at 81, and include slow performance, at 66.

Descript's homepage shows 4.6 from 837 reviews, a lower count than that copy of G2's own page.

Be careful with older write-ups, because Descript's plans have changed. Its help center says media minutes and AI credits "replace the previous system of transcription hours and separate allocations for individual AI tools."

We read Trustpilot's 2.6 and G2's 4.6 as two different conversations. G2's tags are mostly about editing, and the Trustpilot reviews quoted above are about credits. That's our reading of the reviews we opened, and it doesn't tell you how often a bill goes wrong.

Descript's billing rules

Descript's help center lays out a few rules you'll run into after paying, and we'd read them before picking a plan.

• Top-ups are "only available on Creator and Business plans," so you can't buy them on Hobbyist.
• Top-up credits "expire 12 months after purchase," and they only get used once your monthly allowance runs out.
• "Top Up purchases are non-refundable."
• Plan refunds are "Available within 48 hours of the invoice date." Editor seat refunds have a 7-day window.
• Outside the US, Descript says its fees "do not include taxes of any kind."
• A September 17 roundup says "Now the price shows up in your currency" at checkout, while "Plan changes and upcoming invoices still show USD."

Canceling comes up in the Trustpilot reviews we read, too. One dated September 25 says "it is extremely difficult to cancel your subscription." Descript's October 13 changelog lists a fix for "mobile cancellations that looked complete but didn't take effect." We didn't test canceling for this post, so we can't tell you how it goes today.

A talking actor in Novoads, priced next to Descript's avatar

Descript sells an AI presenter and so do we, which makes this the one place a straight price comparison works. Ours is a talking actor, a library actor who speaks your script at 720p. We bill it per started minute, and the voice is included.

Made in Novoads with Talking actor · a 13-second ad for an oatmeal dog shampoo at 720p, read word for word through our MCP connector · one started minute, 200 credits · rendered 2026-10-09

By Descript's own numbers, its avatar costs less than our talking actor, and a short one can cost a lot less. We bill the whole started minute, so a 13-second ad costs the same as a 60-second ad. A 61-second ad counts as two minutes, or 400 credits. The dollars below are our arithmetic.

Presenter video at 720p	30 seconds	60 seconds
Descript avatar, credits at February's rate	about 33.5	about 67
Those credits at Hobbyist's $0.06, billed monthly	$2.01	$4.02
Novoads talking actor, credits	200	200
Those credits at Plus's $0.049	$9.80	$9.80
Those credits at Starter's $0.075	$15.00	$15.00

Descript's rates are from February and may have changed. Its avatar lip-syncs to audio "recorded or AI-generated," and its credits page lists AI speech as a separate credit feature. We found no credit rate for AI speech, so a generated voice may add to the Descript rows. We didn't run Descript's avatar, so we can't say how the two compare on looks.

At 480p ours costs 100 credits. That's $7.50 on Starter and $4.90 on Plus. For a third set of presenter numbers, our HeyGen pricing breakdown prices a 30-second ad, and our UGC ad examples walk through what the actor could say.

In Novoads, a generated clip's credits are set by its model, length and resolution. Seedance 2.0 is in both products, and we found no credit price for it on Descript's pages.

Seedance 2.0 at 720p in Novoads	Credits	On Starter	On Plus
5 seconds	23	$1.73	$1.13
15 seconds	68	$5.10	$3.33

Our plans with Monthly selected on 2026-11-03, each card showing its monthly credits.

Every Novoads plan is paid from the first month, and you'll find the full list on our pricing page.

• Starter is $15 a month for 200 credits, which buys one talking-actor ad of up to a minute at 720p.
• Plus is $49 a month for 1,000 credits, which buys five.
• Ultra starts at $129 a month for 3,000 credits, which buys 15.

Which one to start with

Start with Descript if you already have spoken footage and want to cut it by editing text, clean up the sound and add a generated shot here and there. That's the job its pages describe best, and a short presenter clip there can cost less than ours.

Start with Novoads if you have no footage and no presenter, and you want a library actor reading your script with the voice in the price, or a generated clip with a set credit count. Our guide to UGC tools by job compares both with the rest of the market.

If you're leaning toward Descript, run one Underlord edit on a short file first, then open the Usage tab and see what that edit cost.