What 3 hours of transcription costs worked out to the minute.
Transcribing 3 hours of audio uses 180 minutes, so the $6 pack (500 minutes) covers it and leaves at least 320 minutes for later. Packs are one-time purchases that never expire: $6 for 500 minutes, $12 for 2,000 and $24 for 5,000, which works out between $0.72 and $0.29 an audio hour. Your first 20 minutes are free, so you can read the start of the transcript before paying.
The arithmetic
Minutes in, dollars out.
Hours times 60
Every pack is counted in audio minutes, so the cost of a recording is its length in minutes. One hour is 60, three hours is 180 and ten hours is 600. File size, format and video resolution do not change the count.
Pick the smallest pack that fits
Up to 500 minutes, roughly 8 hours, the $6 pack is enough. Between 500 and 2,000 minutes, about 8 to 33 hours, the $12 pack is the cheaper buy. Above that the $24 pack covers up to 5,000 minutes, about 83 hours, and twenty hours on the $12 pack costs less than three $6 packs would.
Leftover minutes keep
A 3-hour recording leaves at least 320 minutes on a $6 pack, and those minutes stay on the account with no expiry date. The next interview, lecture or meeting draws from them, so nothing you paid for goes to waste.
Compare by the hour
Per audio hour, the $6 pack costs $0.72, the $12 pack $0.36 and the $24 pack $0.29. By the minute, that is $0.012 on the smallest pack and $0.0048 on the largest. A long file of any size starts from the upload page.
Cost by length
What common lengths cost, and what is left over.
✗ Pricing you cannot work out in advance
Long recordings are where unclear pricing hurts most, because the bill grows with every hour.
- A monthly subscription billed whether you record or not
- Minutes that vanish at the end of the month
- A separate fee for each file on top of the minutes
- Long files charged at a higher tier
- Video priced by size instead of by speech
- The total shown only at checkout
✓ One table, one pack
Each row counts the whole recording and names the pack you would buy. Your first recording's free 20 minutes can leave you a little more.
- 1 hour = 60 minutes: $6 pack, 440 minutes left
- 2 hours = 120 minutes: $6 pack, 380 minutes left
- 3 hours = 180 minutes: $6 pack, 320 minutes left
- 5 hours = 300 minutes: $6 pack, 200 minutes left
- 8 hours = 480 minutes: $6 pack, 20 minutes left
- 10 hours = 600 minutes: $12 pack, 1,400 minutes left
Sample output
What 180 minutes buys you.
Illustrative output from an invented three-hour recording, not a real file. The cost is the same for any three hours, whatever is said in them.
Export
One transcript. Five clean formats.
Every pack exports all five — no format is held back for a higher tier.
Plain text
De-ummed paragraphs. Ready to paste.
SRT captions
Timed to the speech. Every video editor reads this.
WebVTT
HTML5 player + YouTube uploads.
Show notes
Formatted with chapters and pull-quotes.
Machine-readable
Timestamped text for your own tools.
Pricing
Honest pricing, no surprises.
A pack from $6 (500 minutes) opens the full transcript. After that, no subscription and no auto-renew — every tier is a one-time minute pack, and credits never expire. Buy once, use the minutes whenever you need them.
Casual pack
$6/500 min
8 hours of audio — $0.72 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 500 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$12/2,000 min
33 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 2,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
Bulk pack
$24/5,000 min
83 hours of audio — $0.29 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 5,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
Cost questions, answered with numbers.
How much does it cost to transcribe 3 hours of audio?
Three hours is 180 minutes, and one $6 pack (500 minutes) covers it. That leaves at least 320 minutes on the account, enough for another five hours. If it is your first recording, the first 20 minutes are free, so you see part of the transcript before you pay.
What do 20, 50 and 80 hours cost?
Twenty hours is 1,200 minutes, on the $12 pack (2,000 minutes) with 800 left. Fifty hours is 3,000 minutes and eighty hours is 4,800, and the $24 pack (5,000 minutes) covers either, with 2,000 or 200 minutes left. The $24 pack works out at $0.29 an hour and includes API access.
Does a long recording take longer once paid?
Processing runs at about 2 minutes per hour of audio, so three hours is ready in about six minutes, whichever pack you choose.
Does a bigger file cost more?
No. A 4 GB video and a 170 MB MP3 of the same three hours both use 180 minutes. Files can be up to 5 GB and 10 hours, and anything over 2 GB starts once a pack is on your account.
What about a recording longer than 10 hours?
Upload it as two files, and the minutes simply add up. An 11-hour recording is two files totalling 660 minutes, which the $12 pack covers with 1,340 to spare.
Does the language or the export change the price?
No. All 99 languages are detected automatically and cost the same per minute, and TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON come with every transcript. Audio is transcribed on our own servers and never used for training.
Related
Related pages.
Three hours, one $6 pack. Minutes left for the next one.
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