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 31 July 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 |
| Whisper by OpenAI Very cheap OpenAI transcription model via API or local. | Developer API | $0.01/hr | $0.01 | $0 | Seconds | Open model API | Visit site |
| AWS Transcribe Cheapest major cloud provider for batch transcription. | Developer API | $0.02/hr | $0.02 | $0 | Seconds | Amazon transcription API | Visit site |
| Google Cloud Speech-to-Text Enterprise Google transcription API at scale pricing. | Developer API | $0.04/hr | $0.04 | $0 | Seconds | GCP transcription API | Visit site |
| Azure Speech Services Microsoft's transcription API with enterprise support. | Developer API | $0.06/hr | $0.06 | $1 | Seconds | Microsoft API | Visit site |
| Voicemail Transcription (Vonage) Automatic voicemail to text for business lines. | AI app | $0/mo · 0h incl. | $0.08 | $1 | Seconds | Business phone integration | Visit site |
| Kamaal AI AI transcription with support for 40+ languages. | AI pay-as-you-go | $0.08/hr | $0.08 | $1 | Minutes | Multilingual transcription | Visit site |
| IBM Watson Speech IBM transcription with speaker identification. | Developer API | $0.08/hr | $0.08 | $1 | Seconds | Enterprise API | Visit site |
| Typeform Voice Transcription Voice submissions transcribed in surveys. | AI pay-as-you-go | $0.10/hr | $0.10 | $1 | Minutes | Survey tool integration | Visit site |
| Gladia Low-cost transcription API with speaker diarization. | Developer API | $0.10/hr | $0.10 | $1 | Seconds | Speech recognition API | Visit site |
| Microsoft Word Transcription Built into Microsoft Word; transcribes during Copilot interviews. | AI app | $0/mo · 0h incl. | $0.12 | $1 | Live | MS Office integration | Visit site |
| Voiceflow Voice bot builder with integrated transcription. | AI pay-as-you-go | $0.12/hr | $0.12 | $1 | Minutes | Conversational AI + transcription | 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.