Transcription API for recruiting and HR teams
Interviews, screening calls and exit conversations as consistent, searchable records — so every candidate is assessed against what they actually said, and every decision has a transcript behind it.
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.
Investigation, grievance or exit interviews to transcribe without the API? See HR transcription services.
- Step 1Interview or screening call recording
- Step 2POST /api/v1/transcribe · word timestamps
- Step 3Transcript · summary · structured notes
- Step 4Scorecard filled, decision documented
From recording to business result: one POST, one poll, every output format from the same job.
Three things a hr & recruiting 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.
Each recorded interview posts to the API. Interviewers get a transcript and summary within minutes and complete the scorecard from what was said, not from memory an hour later.
Months later, a hiring decision is challenged. The transcript exists, timestamped, with the questions asked and the answers given.
Exit conversations are recorded with consent and summarised. Themes across a quarter's departures surface from the summaries instead of staying in individual notes.
What you can rely on — and what we are not
Record only with the candidate's consent and in line with local employment law. The transcript is a record; it is not an assessment tool and makes no judgement.
Set the retention your policy requires; delete on demand from any file page. Nothing is used to train a model.
Candidate audio is processed on our own servers and never forwarded to a third-party model.
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: $KEY" \ -H "Idempotency-Key: hr-recruiting-$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 hr & recruiting 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 hr & recruiting teams ask
Can it score or rank candidates?
No, and it should not. It produces a transcript and a summary of what was said. Assessment is the interviewer's job; a transcript makes that job fairer and defensible.
Does it work with video interviews?
Yes — any mp4, mov or webm, or a URL. Only the audio track is transcribed.
How do we keep candidate data for the right length of time?
Retention is 30 days on free and 365 on paid, and any file can be deleted on demand. Wire deletion into your ATS's own retention rule if you need it automatic.
What does transcription cost for a hr & recruiting 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: 'hr transcription services' 17 impressions at position 69.8, 'hr transcription service' 12 at 70.1, 'hr transcription' 11 at 59.3. Small, specific, unserved.
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.