Transcription API for studios, podcast networks and creators
Every episode, rough cut and interview turned into captions, show notes, clip lists and a searchable script archive — automatically, per minute, from the moment the file lands.
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 1Episode master, rough cut, interview reel
- Step 2POST /api/v1/transcribe/url · word timestamps
- Step 3SRT · VTT · show notes · chapter marks · quote list
- Step 4Captions published, clips cut, archive searchable
From recording to business result: one POST, one poll, every output format from the same job.
Three things a entertainment & media 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.
The master lands in the studio's Drive folder. SRT and VTT come back from the same job with cues timed to the speech, ready to attach to the upload. Chapters come from the transcript's topic shifts.
A 90-minute interview is scored for self-contained statements — a claim, a number, a story opening — each with exact in and out points. The editor picks from twelve, instead of scrubbing ninety minutes.
Three hundred episodes nobody can search. One batch run and every one is text: find the episode where a guest said the thing, pull the quote, cite the timestamp.
What you can rely on — and what we are not
Every upload carries a rights attestation. Transcribe what you own or have permission to use — the API is scoped that way on purpose.
txt, json, srt, vtt and docx all come from one transcription. Re-submitting per format is the most common way studios pay several times for one episode.
Unreleased material never leaves our servers for a third-party model and is never used for training. Delete the source on your schedule.
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: $KEY" \ -H "Idempotency-Key: entertainment-$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 entertainment & media 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 entertainment & media teams ask
Can it transcribe a YouTube or podcast URL directly?
Yes — POST the URL to /api/v1/transcribe/url and we fetch it. Apple Podcasts and RSS links resolve to the episode audio automatically. Only submit content you own or have rights to.
Do the captions have proper punctuation and speaker changes?
Punctuated sentences with word-level timestamps, yes — that is the difference from platform auto-captions. The caption file carries the words and timing; the summary and key quotes name who spoke.
How fast is an episode back?
About two minutes per hour of audio in the normal queue. Submit, poll the job id, collect — the recipes show it wired to a Drive folder so nobody has to.
What does transcription cost for a entertainment & media 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: 1,497 entertainment queries, 5,057 impressions, position 27.8 — the largest vertical by far, and mostly podcast and creator-tool brand navigation ('podcast cinema critique', 'altered studio', 'adobe podcast enhance'). PostHog: the widget converts on these pages; nothing else does.
Choosing a transcription service?
For teams deciding where recordings go: see our transcription service with prices and turnaround, audio transcription services for interviews and calls and how the best transcription services compare.