Every service quotes its price differently, per minute, per month, per API call, which makes them impossible to compare. So put in how many hours you transcribe a month and this shows the real cost per audio hour for each one, and reveals exactly when a monthly subscription beats paying as you go.
Rates reviewed 29 August 2026 . Indicative published pricing in USD; subscription value depends on using the included hours.
That is about 600 minutes of recordings. Change it and every row re-ranks by your real cost.
| Service | Type | Pricing | $/audio hour | Your monthly cost | Turnaround | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Docs Voice TypingCheapest Built into Google Docs; free but limited to active session. |
AI app | $0/mo · 0h incl. | $0.00 | $0 | Live | Free cloud transcription | Visit site |
| Wit.aiCheapest Free transcription API by Meta; good for MVP stage. |
Developer API | $0.00/hr | $0.00 | $0 | Seconds | Free open transcription | Visit site |
| PocketsphinxCheapest Offline open-source transcription; no per-minute cost. |
Developer API | $0.00/hr | $0.00 | $0 | Seconds | Open-source | Visit site |
| Gladia Low-cost transcription API with speaker diarization. |
Developer API | $0.10/hr | $0.10 | $1 | Seconds | Speech recognition API | Visit site |
| Speechmatics Published rate card: Batch Melia 1 at $0.129 an audio hour, Standard $0.24, Enhanced $0.40. |
Developer API | $0.13/hr | $0.13 | $1 | Seconds | Enterprise speech-to-text API | Visit site |
| AssemblyAI API with speaker labels and summaries, published at $0.15 an audio hour. |
Developer API | $0.15/hr | $0.15 | $2 | Seconds | Developers, rich features | Visit site |
| Adobe Podcast Adobe's all-in-one podcast tool with transcription. |
AI pay-as-you-go | $0.15/hr | $0.15 | $2 | Minutes | Audio editing + transcription | Visit site |
| Google Cloud Speech-to-Text Google bills per minute: $0.003 for dynamic batch, which is $0.18 an audio hour, and $0.016 for standard real-time. |
Developer API | $0.18/hr | $0.18 | $2 | Seconds | GCP transcription API | Visit site |
| Azure Speech Services Microsoft's transcription API with enterprise support. |
Developer API | $0.18/hr | $0.18 | $2 | Seconds | Microsoft API | Visit site |
| Deepgram Speech-to-text API around $0.0043 a minute (Nova); cheapest per hour if you can code. |
Developer API | $0.26/hr | $0.26 | $3 | Seconds | Developers, at scale | Visit site |
| OpenAI gpt-transcribe (Whisper) OpenAI bills transcription per minute, $0.0045, which is $0.27 an audio hour; the mini model is cheaper again. |
Developer API | $0.27/hr | $0.27 | $3 | Seconds | Open model API | Visit site |
| Rev.ai Affordable API with async and real-time options. |
Developer API | $0.33/hr | $0.33 | $3 | Seconds | Speech-to-text API | Visit site |
| AWS Transcribe AWS bills per minute, $0.006 for batch, which is $0.36 an audio hour before volume tiers. |
Developer API | $0.36/hr | $0.36 | $4 | Seconds | Amazon transcription API | Visit site |
| Notta Pro plan includes ~30 audio hours a month; superb value if you use them. |
AI app | $8/mo · 30h incl. | $0.82 | $8 | Minutes | Solo interviews & notes | Visit site |
| MeetGeek Pro buys the same 20 hours a month as Otter Pro for about 40 per cent less. |
AI app | $10/mo · 20h incl. | $1.00 | $10 | Live | Cheapest 20-hour plan | Visit site |
| Fireflies.ai Unlimited meeting transcription on paid tiers with a join-call bot. |
AI app | $10/mo · 60h incl. | $1.00 | $10 | Live | Meeting notetaking | Visit site |
| Limecall Phone recording and transcription combined. |
AI app | $12/mo · 30h incl. | $1.20 | $12 | Live | Call recording + transcription | Visit site |
| Fathom Generous free tier; Premium adds unlimited AI summaries and search. |
AI app | $15/mo · 60h incl. | $1.50 | $15 | Live | Free meeting notes | Visit site |
| Cirrus Insight Records and transcribes sales calls inside Gmail and Salesforce. |
AI app | $15/mo · 20h incl. | $1.50 | $15 | Live | Sales focused | Visit site |
| Otter.ai Records and transcribes meetings live; 20 hours a month on Pro. |
AI app | $17/mo · 20h incl. | $1.70 | $17 | Live | Team meetings | Visit site |
| tl;dv Unlimited meeting recordings with CRM integrations. |
AI app | $18/mo · 60h incl. | $1.80 | $18 | Live | Sales & meeting calls | Visit site |
| Tactiq Transcription bot for Zoom meetings with search and export. |
AI app | $19/mo · 9999h incl. | $1.90 | $19 | Live | Zoom transcription | Visit site |
| Read.ai Unlimited meetings on Pro, but uploaded files are capped at 100 minutes a month. |
AI app | $20/mo · 60h incl. | $1.98 | $20 | Live | Meeting coaching | Visit site |
| Riverside.fm Built-in recording and AI transcription; works as recording studio and transcriber. |
AI app | $20/mo · 90h incl. | $2.00 | $20 | Live | Podcast recording + transcription | Visit site |
| Otter.ai Teams Shared transcription workspace for multiple team members and projects. |
AI app | $20/mo · 40h incl. | $2.00 | $20 | Live | Team collaboration | Visit site |
| Descript Transcription wrapped inside a full audio and video editor. |
AI app | $24/mo · 30h incl. | $2.40 | $24 | Minutes | Podcast & video editing | Visit site |
| Avoma Unlimited transcription on Startup; conversation intelligence is a paid add-on. |
AI app | $29/mo · 60h incl. | $2.90 | $29 | Live | Sales calls & CRM notes | Visit site |
| Trint Professional collaboration, translation and export tools for teams. |
AI app | $80/mo · 30h incl. | $8.00 | $80 | Minutes | Newsrooms & teams | Visit site |
| Sonix Automated AI at about $10 an audio hour with strong export and subtitle tools. |
AI pay-as-you-go | $10/hr | $10 | $100 | Minutes | Media files & subtitles | Visit site |
| Sonix (Enterprise) Batch AI transcription at $10 per audio hour for large media files. |
AI pay-as-you-go | $10/hr | $10 | $100 | Minutes | Media files & subtitles | Visit site |
| Happy Scribe AI at ~€0.20 a minute; also offers human transcription in 60+ languages. |
AI pay-as-you-go | $13/hr | $13 | $130 | Minutes | Subtitles, many languages | Visit site |
| Rev (AI) Automated transcription at $0.25 a minute, no subscription needed. |
AI pay-as-you-go | $15/hr | $15 | $150 | ~5 min | Occasional media files | Visit site |
| Temi Fast machine transcription at $0.25 a minute with a light editor. |
AI pay-as-you-go | $15/hr | $15 | $150 | ~5 min | Quick rough drafts | Visit site |
| GoTranscript Human transcribers at about $0.72 a minute; strong on difficult audio. |
Human | $43/hr | $43 | $430 | ~12 hrs | Budget human accuracy | Visit site |
| TranscribeMe Human-edited from about $0.79 a minute; the 99% verbatim tiers are quote-only. |
Human | $47/hr | $47 | $470 | ~1 day | Cheap human, one-day turnaround | Visit site |
| Scribie Human transcription at about $0.80 a minute with a review pass. |
Human | $48/hr | $48 | $480 | ~1-2 days | Affordable human | Visit site |
| CastingWords Budget human transcription for audio; slower turnaround, lower cost. |
Human | $54/hr | $54 | $540 | ~2-3 days | Budget human transcription | Visit site |
| GMR Transcription Standard human transcription service at mid-market pricing. |
Human | $72/hr | $72 | $720 | ~2 days | General human service | Visit site |
| Happy Scribe (Human) Professional human transcription at about €1.75 a minute. |
Human | $115/hr | $115 | $1,150 | ~24 hrs | Human, many languages | Visit site |
| Rev (Human) 99% accurate human transcription at $1.99 a minute, the industry standard. |
Human | $119/hr | $119 | $1,190 | ~12 hrs | Premium human accuracy | Visit site |
| Transkriptor Lite is $9.99 a month for 300 minutes of transcription, which is five audio hours. |
AI app | $10/mo · 5h incl. | $1.00 | ≤5h/mo | Minutes | Cheap monthly with a stated allowance | Visit site |
AI runs from near-free to about $15 per audio hour depending on app versus pay-as-you-go. Human transcription is roughly $40 to $120 per hour. Developer APIs are cheapest per hour but need coding to use.
Only if you use the included hours. A $17 plan with 20 hours is under a dollar an hour if you fill it, but $17 an hour if you do one. Enter your real monthly hours above to see the honest ranking.
AI is now 85 to 95 percent accurate on clear audio and far cheaper, so it is the default for meetings and drafts. Human still wins for legal, medical, strong accents, poor audio or anything published verbatim.
Yes, several tools have free tiers. Fathom and Otter offer generous free meeting transcription, and Notta and Fireflies include free monthly minutes. They cap your hours, so heavier use pushes you onto a paid plan.
For ready-to-use apps, Notta and the meeting tools like Fireflies and Fathom give the lowest cost per hour once you use their included time. Speech-to-text APIs like Deepgram are cheaper still per hour but require coding. For human transcription, GoTranscript and Scribie undercut the premium services. Sort by cost per hour to see the current order.
Every service above charges the same rate whether the recording is clean or not, and the accuracy you get back depends almost entirely on what recorded it. These track what the usual microphones cost used.