Same pay-as-you-go idea, longer files welcome, and 30 minutes free every day — no sign-up to try. See how Whipscribe and Brass Transcripts compare, feature by feature, in plain English.
Why people look for an alternative
Brass Transcripts is a straightforward, pay-per-file transcription service. It works, it's honest about pricing, and it doesn't push subscriptions. The moment a lot of people start looking for an alternative is simple: they have a file that's longer than two hours.
A two-and-a-half-hour interview. A half-day workshop recording. A full lecture block. An end-of-quarter town hall. Brass Transcripts caps each file at two hours (per brasstranscripts.com, checked 2026-04-23), so those recordings have to be split first — and the math for a weekly podcaster adds up quickly too. Whipscribe was built to take the whole file and give you back one transcript, at a price that stays predictable whether you transcribe one hour a month or a hundred.
Side-by-side
Everything below is factual and checkable on each site. If a detail changes on either service, write to us at contact@neugence.ai and we'll update the page.
| Feature | Whipscribe | Brass Transcripts |
|---|---|---|
| File-size limit | Large files supported — multi-GB uploads welcome on paid tiers | 250 MB per file (per brasstranscripts.com, checked 2026-04-23) |
| File-duration limit | No 2-hour cap — 3-hour lectures and half-day workshops go through in one upload | 2 hours per file (per brasstranscripts.com, checked 2026-04-23) |
| Free tier | 30 minutes of transcription every day, no credit card, no sign-up | No free tier — all files are paid per brasstranscripts.com (checked 2026-04-23) |
| Pricing model | $1 per hour of audio, pay-as-you-go, credits don't expire | Per-file flat fees: $2.50 for files up to 15 min; $6.00 for 16–120 min (per brasstranscripts.com, checked 2026-04-23) |
| URL input (YouTube, Vimeo, Zoom share links) | Paste a link — we pull the audio for you | Upload-only per brasstranscripts.com (checked 2026-04-23) |
| Bulk uploads | Drop a folder; files process in parallel and land in one place | Per-file upload flow per brasstranscripts.com (checked 2026-04-23); bulk discount starts at 20+ files |
| Speaker labels & timestamps | Speaker diarization plus per-word timestamps | Speaker identification plus timestamps (per brasstranscripts.com, checked 2026-04-23) |
| Export formats | TXT, SRT, VTT, DOCX, JSON | TXT, SRT, VTT, JSON (per brasstranscripts.com, checked 2026-04-23) |
| Languages | 90+ languages via Whisper | 99+ languages via Whisper (per brasstranscripts.com, checked 2026-04-23) |
| Privacy | Self-hosted Whisper on private infrastructure; audio never sent to OpenAI, Google, or third-party transcription services; no training on your data | Auto-deletion policy; no training on user data (per brasstranscripts.com, checked 2026-04-23) |
| Sign-up required to try | No — drop a file on the home page and go | Sign-up required per brasstranscripts.com (checked 2026-04-23) |
Numbers above reflect public pricing and features on brasstranscripts.com on 2026-04-23. Both services use open-source Whisper under the hood, which is why language coverage and speaker-ID behaviour look similar — the differences are in limits, pricing, and the free-to-try surface.
What the price looks like in practice
On Brass Transcripts, a 90-minute file falls in the 16–120 minute tier at $6.00 per file (per brasstranscripts.com, checked 2026-04-23). On Whipscribe, 90 minutes is $1.50 at the $1 per hour rate. Over a year of weekly episodes, that's a difference you can feel without doing any hard math.
If your typical file is 30 minutes or shorter, the gap narrows — Brass's $2.50 per-file rate is close to Whipscribe's $0.50 at $1/hr. The math tilts hardest in Whipscribe's favour on long files, long interviews, and anything over the 2-hour cap.
Who Whipscribe fits best
If any of these describe your workflow, Whipscribe will save you either time (no file-splitting) or money (long files, predictable rate).
Long-form interview shows, 2-host chat formats, and documentary episodes regularly run past 90 minutes. Whipscribe takes the raw recording in one piece — speaker labels, SRT captions, and show-notes-ready transcripts come back together.
Qualitative interviews, oral-history sessions, and field recordings are rarely under an hour, and often over two. Whipscribe handles the whole file and gives you timestamps you can cite down to the word.
Half-day workshops, all-hands recordings, and multi-episode drops at the end of a cycle. Bulk uploads run in parallel; credits don't expire between batches.
Questions people ask first
Whipscribe is $1 per hour of audio, pay-as-you-go, with 30 minutes free every day. Brass Transcripts is $2.50 for files up to 15 minutes and $6.00 for files 16–120 minutes (per brasstranscripts.com, checked 2026-04-23). For a weekly 90-minute podcast that's roughly $1.50 a week on Whipscribe vs roughly $6.00 on Brass.
Yes. A three-hour interview or a half-day workshop goes through in one upload. Brass Transcripts caps each file at two hours (per brasstranscripts.com, checked 2026-04-23), so longer recordings have to be split first.
Yes. Every visitor gets 30 minutes of transcription free every day, no credit card and no sign-up required. Most people try it before paying for anything.
Yes. Paste a YouTube, Vimeo, or direct download URL and Whipscribe pulls the audio for you — no manual download step.
Yes. We run open-source Whisper on private infrastructure — your audio is never sent to OpenAI, Google, or any third-party transcription service, and we never use it to train models. You can delete any file at any time.
MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, MP4, MOV, MKV, and most common audio/video containers. If you can record it, Whipscribe probably takes it.
The first 30 minutes a day are on us. No credit card, no sign-up — just paste a link or drag in a file.
Try Whipscribe →