How much does it cost to transcribe a podcast back catalogue? Count episodes, not months.
For a typical archive of 150 hour-long episodes, two $24 packs: that is 9,000 minutes against 10,000 bought, leaving 1,000, while a younger show with forty 45-minute episodes (1,800 minutes) needs only the $12 pack. Every episode is its own file of up to 10 hours or 5 GB, podcast and RSS links need no upload, processing runs at about 2 minutes per audio hour, and the first 20 minutes are free.
An archive, priced
Three archive sizes, worked out.
Small, middle and large
Forty 45-minute episodes come to 1,800 minutes: the $12 pack, with 200 to spare. About three years of weekly hour-long shows, call it 150 episodes, come to 9,000 minutes: two $24 packs, 1,000 to spare. A 300-episode archive at 75 minutes each is 22,500 minutes, which five $24 packs cover with 2,500 left.
Feeds and files
Paste an episode's link or the show's RSS feed, and video episodes on YouTube or Vimeo go in by link as well. Masters on a hard drive go up as files: an hour of 128 kbps MP3 is about 58 MB, so even a long interview episode sits far below the 2 GB first-upload limit. Batches of files go from the upload page.
What each episode gains
Each transcript arrives with a brief, chapters with timestamps, the names, numbers and dates said on air, the questions the episode answers and a chat across the text. Hosts and guests are identified and named in the summary, key quotes and chapters, which is most of what show notes need.
How long the backlog takes
At about 2 minutes per audio hour, 150 hours is roughly five hours of processing in total. Work through the archive a season at a time; nothing has to be finished in one sitting, because the credits stay on the account.
Back catalogues
Why old episodes usually stay untranscribed.
✗ Priced per month
Most transcription plans are built for this week's episode, not three years of them.
- Monthly hours far below an archive
- Uploads one episode at a time
- Minutes that vanish at renewal
- Caps shorter than a long episode
- Guest names typed in by hand
- No chapters for show notes
✓ Priced per minute, once
The archive becomes a fixed sum you can work out before you start.
- 9,000 minutes on two $24 packs
- Links from the feed, no downloads
- Episodes up to 10 hours each
- Chapters with timestamps
- SRT and VTT for video episodes
- Credits kept between seasons
Sample output
From episode 87 of an interview show.
Invented lines for illustration, not a real podcast. Every episode starts its clock at zero.
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
Podcast archives, answered.
Do I pay per episode?
No. You buy a pack of minutes and each episode uses its own length. A 38-minute episode uses 38 minutes, a three-hour special uses 180, and whatever remains waits for the next batch. Packs are one-time: $6 for 500 minutes, $12 for 2,000, $24 for 5,000.
How do I try it on the archive first?
Paste one episode, ideally a typical one rather than the best-sounding. For a first-time visitor the first 20 minutes are free: an episode up to 20 minutes transcribes completely, and a longer one shows a preview before a pack transcribes the remainder from that point.
What if some episodes are huge files?
One file can be 10 hours or 5 GB, whichever comes first. Uploads up to 2 GB work before the first pack; a bigger video master starts once a pack is on the account, or you can export its audio track, which is much smaller.
Is there a subscription for a show that keeps publishing?
None is needed: packs never expire, so buy another when the balance runs low. A team that records every week and wants a shared space can look at the $19/month Workspace.
Will music beds and ads be in the text?
Music and sound effects are not transcribed; the spoken words are. Ads read by a host are speech, so they appear, and the chapters make them easy to find and skip when you write show notes.
Which languages and exports?
All 99 supported languages are detected automatically, including episodes that switch language partway. Exports are TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON. Episodes are transcribed on our own servers, and nothing you upload is ever used for training.
Related
More for podcast archives.
Your back catalogue, priced by the minute.
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