Transcribe a long Substack podcast episode and put the text under the post.
A Substack podcast episode is transcribed from its RSS feed link or from the audio file you attached to the post, and a 100-minute episode is text in about 3 to 4 minutes. The first 20 minutes are free, and five 100-minute episodes fit one $6 pack of 500 minutes.
Podcast posts on Substack
Your readers came for writing. Give the episode a written version too.
The feed or the file
A Substack publication with a podcast offers a feed for listening apps, and a public episode can be fetched from it with nothing to download. For a paid-only episode, upload the audio you attached when writing the post; paid subscribers' feeds are personal to them.
A transcript to sit beside the post
Readers who skim rather than listen want the conversation in text. Paste the DOCX or TXT into the post under the player, or open the post with the brief and chapters.
The 100-minute episode
100 minutes is the length we see most among long uploads, and it takes about 3 to 4 minutes to process. On the $6 pack it leaves 400 minutes, which is four more episodes of the same length.
Interviews with the guest named
Host and guest are identified and named in the summary, key quotes and chapters, which is what a newsletter needs when it pulls a quote into the email. The names, numbers and dates said come back as a list to check before you publish.
Why newsletter podcasts lose readers
An audio post asks a reader to become a listener. Many will not.
✗ A player and nothing else
The post is an audio embed with three lines of description under it.
- Readers who skip anything with a play button
- Quotes in the email typed out by hand
- Search engines with no words to index
- Guest claims published unchecked
- Paid episodes with no text for subscribers
- Past episodes buried in the archive
✓ A post people can read
The episode arrives as text, a brief and chapters you can paste straight into the post.
- About 3 to 4 minutes for 100 minutes
- The first 20 minutes free on a first episode
- A brief to lead the post
- Guest named in the summary and quotes
- Five 100-minute episodes on the $6 pack
- TXT and DOCX ready to paste
Sample
A newsletter podcast interview, about an hour in.
This sample is illustrative: it was written for this page and comes from no real Substack. The timestamps belong to a 100-minute episode.
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
Substack podcasts, the common questions.
How long does a 100-minute Substack episode take?
About 3 to 4 minutes, at roughly 2 minutes per hour of audio. A feed link skips the upload, so the clock starts as soon as the episode is fetched.
What does a weekly Substack podcast cost to transcribe?
100 minutes uses a fifth of the $6 pack of 500 and leaves 400. Four months of weekly episodes, 17 of them, is 1,700 minutes on the $12 pack of 2,000. A year of weekly 100-minute episodes is 5,200 minutes: the $24 pack of 5,000 plus a $6 pack.
Should I paste the feed or upload the file?
For a public episode the feed link is quickest, since there is nothing to download. For a paid-only episode, upload the audio you attached to the post. If the episode is also on YouTube, that link works as well.
How big is the file, and is there any need to split it?
A 100-minute MP3 at 128 kbps is about 96 MB (128,000 × 6,000 seconds ÷ 8). One file can hold up to 10 hours or 5 GB, and uploads before the first pack go up to 2 GB, so a newsletter episode goes in whole.
Can it transcribe episodes in other languages?
Yes, from 99 languages detected automatically, among them Spanish, Japanese and Swedish. An episode that switches language is detected on its main language and the switches are handled. Music under the intro is left out.
What are the exports, and is a paid episode kept private?
Exports are TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON for every episode. A paid episode uploaded here is transcribed on our own servers and is never used for training, and it is not published anywhere.
Related
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