Transcription API for course and training businesses
Lectures, workshops and screen recordings turned into captions, lesson text, searchable notes and module outlines — automatically, so a recording backlog becomes course material instead of staying on a drive.
So far: 1,073 recordings and 67,528 minutes through the API since April 2026, across 20 keys, 13 of them held by developers outside the team.
- Step 1Lecture, workshop or screen recording
- Step 2POST /api/v1/transcribe/url · word timestamps
- Step 3SRT · VTT · lesson text · chapter boundaries
- Step 4Captioned lesson, module outline, searchable notes
From recording to business result: one POST, one poll, every output format from the same job.
Three things a education & training business actually does with it
Each priced at the published rate — $6 per 500 minutes — $0.72 an audio hour, $0.29 on the 5,000-minute pack — as credits that never expire.
A captioning obligation is per-item and continuous — the wrong shape for a person. Each new recording is captioned on arrival; SRT and VTT from one job.
A three-hour screen-recorded teaching session becomes a timestamped transcript, then a module outline with lesson boundaries drawn from where the narration changes topic.
Transcripts attached to each recording make a term's lectures searchable. A student finds the ten minutes on the topic they missed instead of scrubbing a two-hour video.
What you can rely on — and what we are not
Transcribe recordings you own or have permission to use. Recorded participants should know they are recorded.
Auto-detected, or set explicitly — set it when you know it; auto-detect on a short clip is the common cause of a wrong-language transcript.
Course material is processed on our own servers, never sent to a third-party model, never used for training.
The whole integration
Two calls. No SDK to learn, no model to host, no GPU to rent.
# submit — returns a job id immediately curl -X POST https://whipscribe.com/api/v1/transcribe/url \ -H "X-API-Key: $KEY" \ -H "Idempotency-Key: education-training-$RECORDING_ID" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"url":"https://example.com/recording.mp3","word_timestamps":true}' → 202 {"job_id":"a1b2…","status":"queued"} # poll, then collect — every format from the one job curl "https://whipscribe.com/api/v1/jobs/$JOB" -H "X-API-Key: $KEY" curl "https://whipscribe.com/api/v1/jobs/$JOB/result?format=docx" -H "X-API-Key: $KEY" curl "https://whipscribe.com/api/v1/jobs/$JOB/insights" -H "X-API-Key: $KEY" # summary · quotes · topics
Wire it into what you already use
What it replaces or sits beside
Vendors education & training teams compare us with — each has a side-by-side page.
Try it on a real recording before you build anything
Drop a file from your own business. a pack from $6 (500 minutes) opens the full transcript — that is how to check accuracy on your audio before writing code.
Questions education & training teams ask
Can it handle multi-GB screen recordings?
Yes. Hand us a URL and we fetch it — do not stream a multi-GB file through a no-code platform. Files go up to several GB with coherent timestamps because they are never chunked.
Do we get chapter markers?
The transcript carries word-level timestamps; chapter boundaries come from topic shifts and each takes the timestamp of its first word. The course-modules recipe shows the whole flow.
Is there an education discount?
No separate tier — but there are no seats either. $0.29–$0.72 an audio hour as credits that do not expire, and the first 20 minutes of any recording in the web app are free.
What does transcription cost for a education & training business?
$6 per 500 minutes — $0.72 an audio hour, $0.29 on the 5,000-minute pack — as credits that never expire. The first 20 minutes of any recording are free; a pack transcribes the rest and opens every export. There are no seats and no monthly minimum: a 3-hour recording is about $2.16 of a $6 pack, two hundred half-hour calls about $36 (a $24 pack and a $12 pack), a thousand-hour archive about $288 once.
Is there a free tier on the API?
No recurring free tier. Without a key you can run 3 sample transcriptions a day, and each returns a preview. In the web app every recording gets a free preview, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) opens the full transcript — which is how to check accuracy on your own audio before paying more.
How do we get an API key?
API keys come with the 5,000-minute pack ($24) or Workspace ($19/month). Then sign in and create the key at /apis/keys — no email, no sales call. Up to 10 active keys per account; rotate and revoke yourself.
How do results come back?
Submit, store the job id, poll GET /api/v1/jobs/{id} until done, then pull txt, json, srt, vtt or docx from the same job. Self-serve keys collect by polling; signed webhooks are an Enterprise feature.
Where is our audio processed?
On servers we operate, in a private, secured cloud. It is never forwarded to OpenAI or any third-party model, and never used for training.
How long is audio kept?
30 days on the free plan, 365 on paid, and any file can be deleted on demand from its page. Wire deletion into your own retention rule if you need it automatic.
Does it label who is speaking?
Yes, in the summary, key quotes and chapters: WhipScribe names the speakers there; every segment carries word-level timestamps, so you can align it with your own speaker data.
What languages does it handle?
99+ languages, auto-detected, or set explicitly. Set it when you know it — auto-detect on a short or noisy clip is the most common cause of a wrong-language transcript.
Can we automate it with tools we already use?
Yes — Zapier, Make, n8n, Airtable, Drive, Dropbox, S3, Zoom, Slack, Notion. Each integration page carries the platform's real step timeout and the submit-then-poll shape that survives it.
What about very long or very large recordings?
Files go up to 10 hours or 5 GB each and are submitted whole, so timestamps stay coherent — nothing is chunked. Hand us a URL and let us fetch it rather than streaming it through a no-code platform.
Do we get a summary as well as the transcript?
Yes. GET /api/v1/jobs/{id}/insights returns a summary, key quotes, topics and speakers for the same job, at no extra charge.
Can we try it before building anything?
Yes — the widget on this page. Drop a real recording from your business; a pack from $6 (500 minutes) opens the full transcript, and you will know whether the accuracy is there before writing a line of code.
Demand behind this page — GSC 90d: 'otter.ai student discount', 'webinar' queries, plus 'course', 'lecture' and 'training' intent across the site. PostHog: /use-cases/academia and /use-cases/education exist and neither mentions an API.
Choosing a transcription service?
For teams deciding where recordings go: see how our transcription services work, audio transcription services for interviews and calls and the best transcription services side by side.