# How do I transcribe from an Apify Actor or an Apify-based agent?

Use the Actor whipscribe/whipscribe-transcriber from the Apify Store. Give it a list of public links (YouTube, podcast episodes, audio or video files) and your WhipScribe API key; each link comes back as a dataset row with the text, and optionally JSON, SRT and VTT. Without a key the Actor returns a free preview of its sample recording only.

Checked 5 October 2026. HTML version: https://whipscribe.com/agents/apify

## Steps

1. **Open the Actor.** On the Apify Store:

```
https://apify.com/whipscribe/whipscribe-transcriber
```

2. **Try it without a key.** Leave the key empty and run it with the prefilled sample link. You get a free preview of that sample, one link per run.
3. **Add your WhipScribe key.** For your own links and full output, create a key (https://whipscribe.com/agents/api-key) and paste it into the apiKey input. Apify stores it encrypted.
4. **Set the input.** urls is the only required field.

```
{
  "urls": ["https://www.archive.org/download/testmp3testfile/mpthreetest.mp3"],
  "apiKey": "paste-the-key",
  "language": "auto",
  "outputFormats": ["txt", "json", "srt"],
  "waitForCompletion": true,
  "timeoutMinutes": 60,
  "maxConcurrency": 3
}
```

5. **Run it from code or an agent.** Any Apify client or the REST API starts a run; the dataset holds the transcripts.

```
curl -s -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/whipscribe~whipscribe-transcriber/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"urls": ["https://www.archive.org/download/testmp3testfile/mpthreetest.mp3"], "apiKey": "'$WHIPSCRIBE_API_KEY'"}'
```


## Inputs

- urls (required): public links to transcribe.
- apiKey: your WhipScribe key. Empty means preview of the sample only.
- language: auto by default; any ISO 639-1 code.
- outputFormats: txt is always included; add json (timestamped segments), srt, vtt.
- waitForCompletion: on waits for every transcript; off only submits and saves the job ids.
- timeoutMinutes: how long to wait before giving up on unfinished jobs (they keep running at WhipScribe).
- maxConcurrency: links submitted and tracked at once.

## Who pays for what

Transcription comes out of the WhipScribe account behind the key: $4 = 500 min · $8 = 1,000 min · $12 = 2,000 min · $24 = 5,000 min, credits never expire. The key itself needs the $24 pack or Workspace. Apify bills its own platform usage for the run separately. To add WhipScribe credit: https://whipscribe.com/agents/buy-credits.

## What we checked

On 5 October 2026 the Actor was public on the Apify Store under that name and its inputs were the ones listed here. The WhipScribe calls it makes are the ones on https://whipscribe.com/agents/api-key, which we ran end to end the same day.

## Questions

**What is the Actor's full name?**
whipscribe/whipscribe-transcriber. In Apify API paths the slash becomes a tilde: whipscribe~whipscribe-transcriber.

**Does the Actor need a WhipScribe account?**
For your own links and full transcripts, yes: it uses your API key and your credit. Without a key it returns a free preview of the sample recording.

**Which links work?**
Public links: YouTube videos, podcast episode files and direct links to audio or video (mp3, m4a, wav, mp4, mov, ogg, webm, flac).

**Can I chain it after a scraper?**
Yes. Feed the media links another Actor found into urls, and read the transcripts from this Actor's dataset.

## Related

- Overview: https://whipscribe.com/agents/index.md
- Instructions for agents: https://whipscribe.com/agents/instructions.md
- How does an AI agent create a WhipScribe account?: https://whipscribe.com/agents/sign-up.md
- How does an AI agent buy WhipScribe credit?: https://whipscribe.com/agents/buy-credits.md
- How does an AI agent create a WhipScribe API key and keep it topped up?: https://whipscribe.com/agents/api-key.md
- How do I get Claude or Claude Code to transcribe with WhipScribe?: https://whipscribe.com/agents/claude.md
- How do I get ChatGPT to transcribe with WhipScribe?: https://whipscribe.com/agents/chatgpt.md
- How do I get Cursor or a coding agent to use the WhipScribe API?: https://whipscribe.com/agents/cursor.md
- How do I get an n8n, Make or Zapier agent to transcribe with WhipScribe?: https://whipscribe.com/agents/n8n-make-zapier.md
- API docs: https://whipscribe.com/docs
- OpenAPI: https://whipscribe.com/openapi.json
- Pricing: https://whipscribe.com/pricing