The honest comparison
A human transcription service charges $60–$90 per audio hour and takes 3–5 business days. That price buys certified accuracy on terrible audio and legal attestation — and for a small class of work it's worth every cent. For everything else — interviews, meetings, lectures, podcasts, dictation, archives — modern AI transcription with speaker labels gets you 95%+ of the quality the same hour for about $0.36. Our recommendation, and how our own customers work: AI-first for the whole batch, human only for the files that truly need certification. We review the reputable human vendors, with current pricing, at human transcription services.
Built for batches
Bulk upload
Drop a folder of recordings; each file becomes its own transcript with a summary. A 50-file backlog is one $12 pack.
Speaker labels included
Diarization on every file at no extra fee — interviews and multi-speaker meetings come back readable.
Every export format
TXT, DOCX for editing, SRT/VTT for captions, JSON for pipelines. No format paywall.
Searchable archive
Transcripts live in a searchable library — find the minute a topic was mentioned across every recording.
Questions buyers ask
How fast is turnaround?
About a minute of processing per half hour of audio — a 10-hour batch is typically done within the hour, not in 3-5 business days. Every file returns with speaker labels, timestamps, and TXT/DOCX/SRT/VTT exports.
What does it cost?
One-time credit packs: $8 for 1,000 minutes, $12 for 2,000 minutes, $24 for 5,000 — about 29-48¢ per audio hour. No per-seat subscription, no monthly minimum, and the credits never expire between projects.
Is my audio confidential?
Audio is processed on our own GPU servers — never sent to OpenAI, Google, AWS or any third-party AI cloud — and is never used to train any model. Transcripts delete on request, hard-deleted from storage within 24 hours.
When should I use a human service instead?
When you need certified transcripts for court, guaranteed 99%+ accuracy on poor audio, or full verbatim with every false start — that's worth a human's 100x price. Our human-services directory reviews the reputable vendors with current pricing. For everything else, AI-first then spot-check is the honest recommendation.
Related: Interview transcription · Academic transcription · Podcast transcription · Legal transcription · Human transcription directory · Bulk transcription