How big is a 1-hour WAV? About 635 MB at CD quality.
A 1-hour WAV at CD quality (44.1 kHz, 16-bit, stereo) is about 635 MB, at 48 kHz 16-bit stereo about 691 MB, at 48 kHz 24-bit stereo about 1.04 GB, and a 16 kHz mono voice WAV only about 115 MB. Each of those uploads as one file before any purchase (the first-upload line is 2 GB and the file limit is 10 hours or 5 GB), is transcribed in about 2 minutes, and the hour sits on the $6 pack (500 minutes) after the first 20 minutes free.
Working out the size
Why one hour of WAV weighs what it does.
Samples, bits and channels
WAV stores every sample uncompressed. Bytes per second are sample rate times bit depth times channels, divided by eight. At 44,100 × 16 × 2 that is 176,400 bytes a second, and 3,600 seconds make 635,040,000 bytes.
The settings recorders use
48 kHz 16-bit stereo: about 691 MB an hour. 48 kHz 32-bit float stereo: about 1.38 GB. 96 kHz 24-bit stereo: about 2.07 GB, the one setting that crosses the 2 GB line for a first upload. Mono halves each figure.
No need to convert
For transcription an hour of WAV is small enough to send as it is, and the transcript is the same whether it arrives as WAV or MP3. Converting matters only for very long or very high-resolution recordings, covered on the upload page.
What the hour turns into
About two minutes after upload you get the full text with timestamps, a brief with thesis and takeaways, chapters, the names, numbers and dates mentioned, and a chat over the recording.
Big files, small limits
Where an hour of WAV runs into trouble.
✗ Tools sized for voice notes
An uncompressed hour is hundreds of megabytes, and many transcription tools were built for clips a fraction of that size.
- The Whisper API's 25 MB upload limit
- About 2 minutes of CD-quality WAV per 25 MB
- Forced conversion to MP3 first
- Hour-long files cut into chunks
- Lost time stitching transcripts
- Studio sessions refused outright
✓ Built for long, heavy files
A WAV of an hour, or of several, goes up as recorded and comes back as one transcript.
- 635 MB uploads without a pack
- About 2 minutes to text
- One transcript, one running clock
- Chapters and a brief included
- TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON
- Up to 10 hours or 5 GB per file
Sample output
Late in an hour-long studio interview.
This excerpt is illustrative, written for this page, and not taken from a real 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
- AI chat over the whole 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
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
Bulk pack
$24/5,000 min
83 hours of audio — $0.29 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 5,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
One-hour WAV files, answered.
Why is my 1-hour WAV a different size from 635 MB?
Your recorder probably uses another setting: 48 kHz, 24-bit or a mono track all change the figure. Your computer may also count in binary units and show 635 MB as about 606. Some recorders add a small header with markers or metadata.
How long does a 1-hour WAV take to transcribe?
About 2 minutes once uploaded. A 635 MB file usually takes longer to send on a slow connection than to transcribe, so a wired or fast Wi-Fi connection helps.
What does an hour of WAV cost?
Sixty minutes. On a first visit the first 20 minutes are free, and the $6 pack (500 minutes) covers the rest of the hour, leaving more than 400 minutes for later sessions. Credits never expire.
Should I convert the WAV to MP3 first?
Not for an hour. It saves upload time on a slow connection, but the WAV goes up as it is. Conversion starts to matter near 2 GB before a first pack, or 5 GB at any time.
At what length does a WAV stop fitting in one file?
CD-quality stereo reaches 2 GB at a little over 3 hours and 5 GB at about 7.9 hours. A file over 2 GB starts once a pack is on the account, and anything past 5 GB or 10 hours goes up as two files.
Does an hour of WAV with several voices come back with names?
Speakers are identified and named in the summary, key quotes and chapters. The full transcript runs as timestamped text. WAVs are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training.
Related
Related questions about WAV files.
An hour of WAV. Text in about two minutes.
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