How long does 1 hour of audio take to transcribe? about 2 minutes here, about 4 hours by hand.
One hour of audio takes about 2 minutes to transcribe here, plus the time to upload the file, while typing it by hand is commonly put at around 4 hours. Your first recording gets the first 20 minutes free, and a full hour uses 60 of the 500 minutes in the $6 pack, which covers a little over eight such hours.
What the 2 minutes include
An hour of speech, step by step.
The upload comes first
An hour of MP3 at 128 kbps is about 58 MB, which moves in seconds on most connections. An hour of video is larger, and a pasted YouTube, podcast or Drive link needs no upload at all.
Then about two minutes
Most files start within a minute, and an hour of audio is processed in roughly two. Crowded or noisy recordings can take a little longer, and the page shows progress as it goes. You can close the tab and come back later.
By hand, the hour grows
A commonly cited figure for manual transcription is about four hours of typing per audio hour, more with several voices or poor sound. That is half a working day for one hour.
What arrives with it
Along with the text you get a brief with the thesis and takeaways, timestamped chapters and the names and numbers that were said, so the hour is easy to scan. Most people read the brief first and open the full text only for the parts they need.
One hour, two clocks
Half a day of typing, or two minutes.
✗ Typing one hour by hand
The figure most often quoted is about four hours of work per audio hour.
- About 4 hours for clear audio
- Longer for crosstalk or accents
- Constant pausing and rewinding
- Timestamps added by hand
- Proofreading on top of the typing
- Done the next day, if fitted in
✓ One hour here
Processing time for the same hour of audio.
- About 2 minutes of processing
- Usually under a minute in the queue
- Timestamps on every line
- Chapters and a brief included
- 60 minutes from the $6 pack
- Ready while you make a coffee
Sample output
The hour, two minutes after upload.
Sample lines for illustration only, not a real recording, from a one-hour seminar.
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
Questions about one hour of audio.
How long does 1 hour of audio take to transcribe?
About 2 minutes of processing here, plus the upload and usually under a minute in the queue. By hand, it is commonly put at about 4 hours.
What does transcribing one hour cost?
60 of the 500 minutes in the $6 pack, which works out at $0.72 an hour. On the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes the same hour is $0.36.
Can I see some of the hour free?
On your first recording, the first 20 minutes are free. A recording of 20 minutes or less is transcribed in full; for a full hour, the rest follows once a pack is on your account.
Does file size change the time?
Mostly it changes the upload, not the processing. Any file up to 10 hours or 5 GB is accepted, and up to 2 GB before your first pack. An hour of video at 5 Mbps is about 2.25 GB, so it can take longer to send than to transcribe.
Does language affect the speed?
Not noticeably. 99 languages are detected automatically and processed at much the same rate. A recording that switches between English and Tagalog is handled in one pass.
What do I get after the two minutes, and is it private?
A transcript with timestamps in TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT or JSON, plus the brief and chapters. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training, by us or anyone else.
Related
Related pages on timing.
One hour of audio. About two minutes of waiting.
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