Transcription without a subscription for recordings that arrive when they arrive.
You can transcribe without a subscription: WhipScribe sells one-time packs of $6 for 500 minutes, $12 for 2,000 minutes and $24 for 5,000 minutes, the credits never expire, and nothing renews. Each file can be up to 10 hours or 5 GB (2 GB before the first pack) and takes about 2 minutes per audio hour; the first 20 minutes are free, and a quarterly 5-hour meeting uses 300 of the 500 minutes in the $6 pack.
Who a subscription does not suit
Most long recordings do not arrive on a monthly schedule.
Irregular recordings, regular fees
An annual meeting, a thesis interview round, a conference once a season: these come in bursts. A monthly plan charges through the gaps between them; a pack simply waits on the account until the next burst. A doctoral student with a dozen two-hour interviews, 1,440 minutes, buys one $12 pack at the start and is not charged again when fieldwork pauses for a semester.
A year of quarterly meetings
Four 5-hour meetings are 1,200 minutes in total. One $12 pack of 2,000 minutes covers the whole year and leaves 800 minutes, enough for another three such meetings or a pile of shorter ones. Each meeting comes back in about 10 minutes, with chapters by agenda item and the motions, figures and dates pulled out for the minutes.
Where a monthly plan does fit
A team that records several long sessions every week may prefer the $19-a-month Workspace. For everyone else, packs are the simpler choice: nothing to cancel, no renewal date, no minutes lost at the end of the month.
Long files without a size hunt
One file up to 10 hours or 5 GB goes in whole, and YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, Kick, Google Drive and podcast links can be pasted instead of uploaded. Big files use the upload page; one over 2 GB starts after the first pack.
Two ways to pay over a year
Twelve renewals versus one purchase.
✗ A subscription for occasional work
Billed every month to transcribe a handful of recordings.
- Fees in months with nothing to transcribe
- Unused minutes reset each cycle
- A long file that hits a monthly cap
- Remembering to cancel after the project
- A higher tier for one busy month
- Annual lock-in offered as the discount
✓ A pack for occasional work
Bought once and drawn down as recordings arrive.
- One payment, from $6
- Credits that never expire
- A 5-hour meeting uses 300 minutes
- A year of quarterly meetings on one $12 pack
- Nothing renews, nothing to cancel
- Same exports and brief on every file
Sample output
A once-a-quarter meeting, transcribed on demand.
Illustrative only, not a real recording: four lines from a long quarterly members' meeting.
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
Questions about transcription without a subscription.
Do I need a subscription to transcribe long recordings?
No. Buy a one-time pack: $6 for 500 minutes, $12 for 2,000 minutes or $24 for 5,000 minutes. The credits never expire, and nothing is billed again.
What if I only have one long recording?
Start with 20 free minutes. After that, one file up to 500 minutes, a little over eight hours, fits the $6 pack. A 9- or 10-hour file needs the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes.
Can I start small and buy more later?
Yes. Start with the $6 pack, and if a backlog appears, add the $12 or $24 pack on top. Minutes from every pack sit together on the account and none of them expire.
What happens to unused minutes?
They stay on your account with no expiry date. Minutes bought for one project carry over to the next one, however far away it is.
How fast and how large?
About 2 minutes per audio hour, so a 5-hour meeting takes around 10 minutes. Each file can be up to 10 hours or 5 GB, and before your first pack, uploads can be up to 2 GB.
Is my recording kept private?
Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training. You can delete a recording and its transcript whenever you want.
Related
More on paying for long recordings.
No plan, no renewal, just the minutes your recordings need.
Transcribe my recordingOperated by Neugence Technology Pvt. Ltd. · contact@whipscribe.com · Security · Privacy · Terms