Bhashini
Don’t want to wire up the Bhashini API? Drop the file here.
The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free: a recording up to 20 minutes transcribes in full, a longer one is previewed, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export, and credits never expire.
Government of India's national language platform — public ASR APIs for 22 official languages.
Best for public-sector and accessibility projects that need Indian-language speech as a national-utility API. Pricing: free for non-commercial; commercial tiers TBD.
What it is
Bhashini is the Indian government's flagship language-technology mission, aggregating models from AI4Bharat, IIT Bombay, IIIT Hyderabad and others behind a unified API gateway (ULCA). The speech-to-text endpoints cover the 22 scheduled languages and are positioned as digital public infrastructure. Strong fit for civic-tech, accessibility, and any project where a sovereign Indian model is a hard requirement. Best fit when the buyer is public-sector and accessibility projects that need indian-language speech as a national-utility api. The honest caveat: service availability and slas depend on a government platform; quality varies by language. Developer-grade API with self-serve signup; validate accuracy on representative audio for the target dialect before committing volume.
Watch out for: Service availability and SLAs depend on a government platform; quality varies by language.
Install / use
bhashini.gov.in — register on the ULCA platform
What people actually do with Bhashini-style transcription
The tool is the means. These are the jobs — each one priced at published rates, each one wired up on its own page.
Features
| Speaker diarization | No |
| Word-level timestamps | No |
| Streaming / real-time | Yes |
| Languages supported | 22 |
| HIPAA eligible | No |
Bhashini vs Whipscribe
| Feature | Bhashini | Whipscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Transcription APIs | Transcription APIs |
| Pricing | Not verified | $6–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · first 20 minutes free |
| Speaker identification | Not verified | Named in the summary, key quotes and chapters |
| Word timestamps | Not verified | Yes |
| Streaming | Not verified | No |
| Languages | 22 | 99 |
| Platforms | Web, Android, iOS | Web, API, MCP |
Alternatives to Bhashini
Frequently asked about Bhashini
Is Bhashini free?
Yes. Bhashini is free (free for non-commercial; commercial tiers TBD).
Does Bhashini work on Mac, Windows and Linux?
Bhashini runs on Web, Android and iOS.
How do I get started with Bhashini?
There is nothing to install — Bhashini is used in the browser. Create an account on the vendor's site and upload or connect your audio.
How many languages does Bhashini support?
Bhashini lists 22 languages.
What are the limitations of Bhashini?
Service availability and SLAs depend on a government platform; quality varies by language.
Who is Bhashini best for?
Public-sector and accessibility projects that need Indian-language speech as a national-utility API.
Is Bhashini open source?
No. Bhashini is a proprietary API from Government of India (Digital India Bhashini Division). If you need source you can read and run yourself, the open-source tools in this directory are the place to look.
Who makes Bhashini?
Bhashini is made by Government of India (Digital India Bhashini Division).
What kind of tool is Bhashini?
In this directory Bhashini is filed under regional india, api, government as a API.
What are the alternatives to Bhashini?
There is a side-by-side page at /tools/bhashini-alternatives comparing Bhashini with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.
Can I automate Bhashini-style transcription without running it myself?
Yes. If what you want is transcripts rather than the tool itself, Whipscribe does the same job as a hosted API: submit a file or URL, poll a job id, pull the result as txt, json, srt, vtt or docx. $0.012 a minute — about $0.72 an audio hour — bought as credits that never expire. The automation recipes on this site show it wired to Drive folders, Zoom recordings, S3 buckets and no-code platforms.
How is Whipscribe different from Bhashini?
Bhashini is another vendor's product; Whipscribe is a per-minute transcription service. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and never used for training, and every job returns five formats plus an AI summary, quotes and topics. The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export.
What does transcription cost if I use Whipscribe instead of Bhashini?
$0.012 a minute — about $0.72 an audio hour — bought as credits that never expire. There is no subscription and no monthly minimum: a 3-hour recording is about $2.16, a thousand-hour archive is about $720 once. The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export, so you can see what your recording holds before paying anything.
Where is the Bhashini category heading?
Three things are moving across the whole speech-to-text market right now: summaries, action items and speaker insights generated on top of the transcript rather than sold separately; private, secured deployment where the audio never leaves a boundary you control; and agent access — transcription exposed as a tool that Claude, Cursor or a workflow runner can call directly. Whipscribe ships all three today: per-job insights, our own servers, and an MCP server.
Whipscribe is a hosted transcription 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.
Transcribe your recordings
Using Bhashini today? Send your next recording here and compare the transcript. Transcribe any language, any recording · Transcription services from $0.29 an hour · Transcribe from any meeting or recording platform · How to transcribe, step by step
Explore
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Have the recording already?
Skip the setup and send the file or the link: see how to transcribe an MP3 of any length, transcribing a podcast episode and the SRT generator.
Comparing tools before you pay?
If you would rather pay a service than run software yourself: see an honest roundup of the best transcription services, cheap transcription services and the real cost per hour and how our transcription services work.