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Arcads is a UGC ad studio for performance marketers: 1,000+ AI actors, the newest video models and an ad workflow, with prices shown only inside the app. ShortFast makes UGC-style and faceless short videos for organic channels, with public prices from $19 and automatic daily posting.
Arcads and ShortFast both put AI actors in short vertical videos that look like user-generated content. They are aimed at different budgets and goals. Arcads is a creative studio for paid ads: a large actor library, emotion control, actors holding your product, and the latest video models, so a performance team can test dozens of hooks before putting money behind the winners. ShortFast is an organic channel engine: UGC-style and faceless videos, posted to your own TikTok, Reels and Shorts accounts every day.
Arcads is the better pick if you run paid social and need ad creative at volume, if you want 1,000+ actors to choose from or your own custom avatar, or if you need the ads in many languages: its FAQ lists 74 for talking actors. ShortFast is the better pick if you want to grow organic accounts, want UGC-style videos and faceless videos from the same plan, want posting handled for you, or want to know the price before you sign up.
That last point is real. Arcads shows no pricing page; plans are chosen inside the app after a 3-day trial that holds a card and charges unless you cancel. ShortFast lists Starter at $19, Pro at $39 and Advanced at $99 a month, with a 3-day trial for $1.
Side by side
| Dimension | ShortFast | Arcads |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Organic short-form channels: UGC-style and faceless videos posted daily. | Paid social: creating, editing and launching UGC video ads. |
| People on screen | 5 AI presenters, or a portrait you upload, for UGC-style videos; most styles are faceless. | 1,000+ AI actors, or your own AI avatar. Actors can hold a product. |
| Faceless video | 27 styles: licensed stock footage, AI video, or AI images such as stick figures, anime or claymation. | Not its focus. Image and video models (Seedance, Kling, Seedream, Nano Banana, GPT Image) are available for ad scenes. |
| Languages | 40+ narration voices. | Talking actors in 74 languages per its FAQ (its homepage says 30+); video translation in 176 language options. |
| Publishing | Automatic posting to TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts on a schedule. | No scheduled posting to your social accounts found on its site. |
| Pricing (checked Oct 22, 2026) | Starter $19, Pro $39, Advanced $99 a month. 20% off yearly. | Not public: no pricing page; plans (Starter, Creator, Pro) are shown inside the app. |
| Trial | 3 days for $1 on monthly plans. | 3 days with 1,000 credits; a card is held and Starter is charged unless you cancel. |
| Refunds | At ShortFast's discretion, per its terms; the $1 three-day trial lets you test first. | Full refund within 30 days if no credits were used; a one-time 24-hour refund; none once credits are used. |
| Developer access | REST API, webhooks and an MCP server, on the same plan credits. | MCP server on every plan (plus Arcads Light MCP); public API from the Pro plan, per its help center. |
Arcads changes its product and pricing independently of us. Check their site for current details before deciding, and tell us if anything here is out of date.
Arcads is designed around the paid-ads loop: write a script, pick from more than 1,000 AI actors, direct their emotion, have them hold the product, generate many hook variations, and send the winners to your ad accounts. The actor library, custom avatars and talking actors in 74 languages all serve that loop, and so does the choice of current video models such as Seedance and Kling. For a DTC brand spending on Meta or TikTok ads every week, that focus is worth paying for.
ShortFast is designed around organic accounts. It makes UGC-style videos with AI actors for product content and faceless videos in 27 styles for everything else, then posts them to TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts on a schedule. A small brand can run a product account with UGC-style videos and an educational account in a cartoon explainer or documentary style from the same plan, without anyone uploading anything.
Whichever you use, label it. TikTok and YouTube require creators to disclose realistic AI-generated people, and TikTok's ad policies have their own rules for AI-generated endorsements. An AI actor recommending a product should never be presented as a real customer review.
Arcads does not publish its prices. Its site has no pricing page, and its help center names the Starter, Creator, Pro, Scale and Business plans without figures; you see the prices inside the app. The trial lasts three days with 1,000 credits, holds a card and charges the Starter plan unless you cancel. Its refund policy is clearer: a full refund within 30 days if no credits were used in the period, a one-time 24-hour change-of-mind refund, and nothing once credits are used or because you dislike the output. Third-party articles quote plan prices, but they disagree with each other, so we do not repeat them here.
ShortFast's prices are on its homepage: Starter $19 a month with 1,000 credits, Pro $39 with 5,000 and Advanced $99 with 10,000, with 20% off billed yearly and a $1 three-day trial. A UGC-style video with an AI presenter typically uses about 260 credits, while a faceless short uses about 12 to 25, so Starter is enough to test the format and Pro or Advanced to post UGC-style videos regularly.
Both tools can be driven from code. Arcads documents an external API that covers products, scripts, generation and videos, and an MCP server for Claude Desktop and similar clients; its help center puts the MCP server on every plan and the public API on Pro and above. ShortFast offers a REST API, signed webhooks for every render and publish event, and an MCP server for Claude, Cursor and other agents on every plan, all drawing on the same credits as the app. An agency that manages organic accounts for clients can create videos, schedule them and get a webhook when each one goes live.
FAQ
Keep going
How ShortFast makes UGC-style videos with AI actors.
Learn moreUse caseProduct videos on a schedule, without a shoot.
Learn moreComparisonAvatars and translation versus faceless daily shorts.
Learn moreUse caseMany client accounts, one plan, an API.
Learn moreDevelopersGenerate, schedule and publish from code.
Learn moreThree days of full access. If Arcads suits you better, that's a useful thing to find out cheaply.