Baidu Speech

Name: Baidu Speech
Author: Baidu AI Cloud

by Baidu AI Cloud

Baidu AI Cloud's Chinese-first speech recognition family.

TL;DR

Baidu AI Cloud's Chinese-first speech recognition family.

Best for china-only deployments anchored on Baidu's stack (DuerOS, Apollo, smart device). Pricing: free tier + tiered RMB-per-call.

What it is

Baidu Speech (part of Baidu AI Cloud) provides ASR via REST and streaming WebSocket endpoints with a primary focus on Mandarin Chinese. It is commonly used in Baidu's hardware ecosystem (DuerOS smart speakers, Apollo autonomous-driving stacks) and inside Chinese consumer apps. The service offers short-audio recognition (under 60 seconds), real-time streaming, and longer batch recognition. Limited English support exists but most production deployments are Chinese-language. Pricing has a free monthly call quota and tiered overage. Best fit: china-only deployments anchored on baidu's stack (dueros, apollo, smart device). Caveats: chinese-first docs and console; english language quality has historically trailed peers. Pricing as listed: free tier + tiered RMB-per-call. Feature flags from vendor docs: streaming. Directory tags: commercial-api, hyperscaler, regional-asia. Last vendor-page check: 2026-05-12.

Best for: China-only deployments anchored on Baidu's stack (DuerOS, Apollo, smart device).
Watch out for: Chinese-first docs and console; English language quality has historically trailed peers.

Install / use

Baidu Speech REST API: POST /server_api

Features

Speaker diarization	No
Word-level timestamps	No
Streaming / real-time	Yes
Languages supported	None
HIPAA eligible	No

Baidu Speech vs Whipscribe

Feature	Baidu Speech	Whipscribe
Category	Transcription APIs	Transcription APIs
Pricing	free tier + tiered RMB-per-call	free beta
Speaker diarization	—	Yes
Word timestamps	—	Yes
Streaming	Yes	No
Languages	—	99
Platforms	API	Web, API, MCP

Alternatives to Baidu Speech

OpenAI Whisper API

OpenAI

Hosted Whisper large-v3 from OpenAI — $0.006 per minute.

$0.006/min

AssemblyAI

Universal-2 model + diarization, PII redaction, topic detection, summarization.

from $0.37/hr

Deepgram

Nova-2 model, excellent streaming, strong at conversational audio.

from $0.0043/min

Whipscribe is a managed faster-whisper + whisperX service. If you want transcripts without running infrastructure, paste a URL or drop a file in the form below — you'll have a transcript in seconds.