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. Subscription prices here are the month-to-month rate, because that is what you pay if you will not commit to a year. Most of these services take 20 to 50 per cent off for annual billing.
Rates reviewed 13 September 2026 . Indicative published pricing in USD; subscription value depends on using the included hours.
A machine transcript of one audio hour costs $0.10 from Soniox and $13 from Happy Scribe. Same job, same kind of output, no human involved either time. Human transcription is a different product and is priced like one, from $43 an hour up.
Method: 40 services, indicative published list pricing in USD, reviewed 2 September 2026. Subscriptions are divided by their stated included hours at 10 audio hours a month, the page's own default, so a plan is only as cheap as the hours you actually use. Free tiers are excluded from the medians because a $0 row would make every group look cheaper than it is billed. Medians rather than averages, so one $80 newsroom plan does not stand in for the typical price. Cite this: "usefulHQ Transcription Cost Study 2026", usefulhq.com/transcription-services/. Figures update as rates are reviewed.
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 free |
$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 free |
$0 | Seconds | Free open transcription | Visit site |
| PocketsphinxCheapest Offline open-source transcription; no per-minute cost. |
Developer API | $0.00/hr | $0.00 free |
$0 | Seconds | Open-source | Visit site |
| Soniox Billed in tokens, which Soniox says works out to about $0.10 an audio hour for files and $0.12 streaming. |
Developer API | $0.10/hr | $0.10 0.17¢/min |
$1 | Seconds | Cheapest file transcription 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 0.22¢/min |
$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 0.25¢/min |
$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 0.25¢/min |
$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 0.30¢/min |
$2 | Seconds | GCP transcription API | Visit site |
| Azure Speech Services Microsoft's transcription API with enterprise support. |
Developer API | $0.18/hr | $0.18 0.30¢/min |
$2 | Seconds | Microsoft API | Visit site |
| ElevenLabs Scribe Published at $0.22 an audio hour and billed in US dollars, the same rate on every tier including pay as you go. Speaker labels for up to 32 voices and files up to 10 hours; the realtime model is $0.39. |
Developer API | $0.22/hr | $0.22 0.37¢/min |
$2 | Seconds | Diarised API transcription | 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 0.43¢/min |
$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 0.45¢/min |
$3 | Seconds | Open model API | Visit site |
| Rev.ai Affordable API with async and real-time options. |
Developer API | $0.33/hr | $0.33 0.55¢/min |
$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 0.60¢/min |
$4 | Seconds | Amazon transcription API | Visit site |
| Gladia Starter pay-as-you-go is $0.61 an audio hour for async, $0.75 real-time; committed volume goes to $0.20. Priced with a dollar sign but billed in euros. |
Developer API | $0.61/hr | $0.61 1.02¢/min |
$6 | Seconds | Speech recognition API | Visit site |
| Tactiq Transcription bot for Zoom meetings with search and export. Pro is $8 a month if you pay for the year. |
AI app | $12/mo · unlimited | $1.20 2.00¢/min |
$12 | Live | Zoom transcription | Visit site |
| Notta Pro includes 1,800 minutes a month, about 30 audio hours. Annual billing drops it to $8.17. |
AI app | $13/mo · 30h incl. | $1.35 2.25¢/min |
$13 | Minutes | Solo interviews & notes | Visit site |
| MeetGeek Same 20 hours a month as Otter Pro for a dollar less. The $9.99 MeetGeek advertises is its annual rate. |
AI app | $16/mo · 20h incl. | $1.60 2.67¢/min |
$16 | Live | 20 hours without an annual tie-in | Visit site |
| Otter.ai Records and transcribes meetings live; 20 hours a month on Pro. |
AI app | $17/mo · 20h incl. | $1.70 2.83¢/min |
$17 | Live | Team meetings | Visit site |
| Fireflies.ai Unlimited meeting transcription on paid tiers with a join-call bot. The $10 Fireflies advertises is its annual rate. |
AI app | $18/mo · 60h incl. | $1.80 3.00¢/min |
$18 | Live | Meeting notetaking | Visit site |
| tl;dv Unlimited meeting recordings with CRM integrations. |
AI app | $18/mo · 60h incl. | $1.80 3.00¢/min |
$18 | Live | Sales & meeting calls | 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 3.29¢/min |
$20 | Live | Meeting coaching | Visit site |
| Fathom Generous free tier; Premium adds unlimited AI summaries and search. Premium is $16 a month if you pay for the year. |
AI app | $20/mo · 60h incl. | $2.00 3.33¢/min |
$20 | Live | Free meeting notes | Visit site |
| Riverside.fm Recording studio and transcriber in one. Standard is $19 a month if you pay for the year. |
AI app | $24/mo · 90h incl. | $2.40 4.00¢/min |
$24 | Live | Podcast recording + transcription | Visit site |
| Avoma Unlimited transcription on Startup; conversation intelligence is a paid add-on. |
AI app | $29/mo · 60h incl. | $2.90 4.83¢/min |
$29 | Live | Sales calls & CRM notes | Visit site |
| Rev (AI) Essentials plan, 5,000 AI minutes a user a month, about 83 hours. $25.49 a month billed annually. Rev no longer sells AI minutes one at a time. |
AI app | $30/mo · 83h incl. | $3.00 5.00¢/min |
$30 | ~5 min | Teams with steady volume | Visit site |
| Otter.ai Teams Shared workspace for a team. Business is $19.99 a month on annual billing. |
AI app | $30/mo · 40h incl. | $3.00 5.00¢/min |
$30 | Live | Team collaboration | Visit site |
| Descript Transcription wrapped inside a full audio and video editor. Creator is $24 a month if you pay for the year. |
AI app | $35/mo · 30h incl. | $3.50 5.83¢/min |
$35 | Minutes | Podcast & video editing | Visit site |
| Trint Professional collaboration, translation and export tools for teams. |
AI app | $80/mo · 30h incl. | $8.00 13.33¢/min |
$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 | $10.00/hr | $10.00 16.67¢/min |
$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 | $10.00/hr | $10.00 16.67¢/min |
$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 | $13.00/hr | $13.00 21.67¢/min |
$130 | Minutes | Subtitles, many languages | Visit site |
| GoTranscript Human transcribers at about $0.72 a minute; strong on difficult audio. |
Human | $43.00/hr | $43.00 71.67¢/min |
$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 | $47.00/hr | $47.00 78.33¢/min |
$470 | ~1 day | Cheap human, one-day turnaround | Visit site |
| Scribie Human transcription at about $0.80 a minute with a review pass. |
Human | $48.00/hr | $48.00 80.00¢/min |
$480 | ~1-2 days | Affordable human | Visit site |
| CastingWords Budget human transcription for audio; slower turnaround, lower cost. |
Human | $54.00/hr | $54.00 90.00¢/min |
$540 | ~2-3 days | Budget human transcription | Visit site |
| GMR Transcription Standard human transcription service at mid-market pricing. |
Human | $72.00/hr | $72.00 $1.20/min |
$720 | ~2 days | General human service | Visit site |
| Happy Scribe (Human) Professional human transcription at about €1.75 a minute. |
Human | $115.00/hr | $115.00 $1.92/min |
$1,150 | ~24 hrs | Human, many languages | Visit site |
| Rev (Human) 99% accurate human transcription at $1.99 a minute, the industry standard. |
Human | $119.00/hr | $119.00 $1.98/min |
$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 1.67¢/min |
≤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.