The cheapest way to transcribe 10 hours of audio one pack, minutes to spare.
The cheapest paid way to transcribe 10 hours of audio here is the $12 pack (2,000 minutes): 10 hours is 600 minutes, so it leaves 1,400 minutes for later, with no subscription and no expiry. One file can be up to 10 hours or 5 GB, processing runs at about 2 minutes per audio hour, roughly 20 minutes for all ten, and the first 20 minutes are free.
Ten hours, priced
The sum, and what the cheaper-looking routes cost in time.
The arithmetic
Ten hours times 60 is 600 minutes. The $6 pack holds 500, so it falls 100 short, and two of them would cost the same as one $12 pack while holding half its minutes. On the $12 pack the rate works out at $0.36 an audio hour.
Free routes, and their cost in time
Running an open-source speech model on your own computer costs no money, but ten hours of audio can take hours on ordinary hardware and ends with no brief or chapters. The OpenAI Whisper API documents a 25 MB upload limit, so ten hours of 128 kbps MP3, about 576 MB, would go up in two dozen pieces.
One file or several
Ten hours fits as one file right at the length limit, up to 5 GB. If the recording runs a few minutes over, cut it at a pause into two. A set of shorter files works the same way, since the minutes simply add up. Large files go from the upload page.
When more hours are coming
If ten hours is the first of many, the $24 pack (5,000 minutes) brings the rate down to $0.29 an hour and includes API access. Credits never expire, so buying ahead does not cost more later.
Cheap and cheapest
What the low-price routes usually leave out.
✗ Cheap in money, costly in time
Free tiers and per-request APIs look cheap until ten hours have to be cut, queued and stitched back together by hand.
- Free tiers that stop well short of an hour per file
- A 25 MB API limit, so two dozen uploads
- Monthly plans that bill again next month
- Minutes that lapse at the end of a cycle
- Timestamps stitched across pieces
- No brief, chapters or chat
✓ One price, minutes kept
Ten hours on one pack, with what is left still on the account next year.
- 600 minutes on the $12 pack
- 1,400 minutes left over
- No subscription required
- Credits that never expire
- About 20 minutes of processing
- Brief, chapters and exports included
Sample output
From hour nine of a recorded conference day.
This excerpt is illustrative, not a real event. A ten-hour day transcribed as one file keeps a single clock across every session.
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
Ten hours on a budget, answered.
How long does 10 hours of audio take to transcribe?
About 20 minutes of processing at roughly 2 minutes per audio hour. On the public proof page, a 9.31-hour recording finished in 1,033 seconds.
What exactly does 10 hours cost?
Ten hours is 600 minutes. On the $12 pack (2,000 minutes) that leaves 1,400 minutes, enough for about 23 more hours. The $6 pack (500 minutes) covers eight hours and twenty minutes, so on its own it is 100 minutes short.
Can 10 hours go up as one file?
Yes, if it is no more than 10 hours and 5 GB. Before the first pack, uploads are limited to 2 GB, and ten hours of MP3 at 128 kbps is about 576 MB, so it fits.
What if my recording is just over 10 hours?
Split it into two files at a natural pause and upload both. The minutes are counted the same way, and each transcript's clock starts at zero.
Does the free part lower the price?
The first 20 minutes are free for a first-time visitor, which lets you read the start of the transcript before paying. For ten hours, the $12 pack is still the one to buy.
Do languages, exports and privacy cost extra?
No. All 99 languages cost the same, every transcript exports to TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON, and a recording that mixes English and Tagalog is handled. Your audio is transcribed on our own servers and is never used for training.
Related
More on cost and long files.
Ten hours on one pack. 1,400 minutes left over.
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