Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
Don’t want to wire up the Google Cloud Speech-to-Text 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.
GCP Speech v2 with Chirp 2 foundation model, batch + streaming, 125+ language variants.
Best for gCP-native teams, multilingual coverage, anyone wanting access to Google's Chirp foundation models. Pricing: from $0.016/min (v2 standard) / Chirp tiered.
What it is
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text v2 is the current generation of GCP's managed ASR. It includes the legacy phone-call and video models plus the Chirp and Chirp 2 universal speech models, a 2B-parameter family trained on multilingual data. Features include automatic punctuation, word-level timestamps, speaker diarization, profanity filtering, model adaptation (custom phrase hints and classes), and dynamic batching. V2 introduces recognizer resources that pin model + language. Data-logging opt-in gives a price discount. HIPAA-eligible under a signed GCP BAA. Available across most GCP regions; Chirp/Chirp 2 are limited to a subset.
Watch out for: Chirp 2 region availability is narrower than v1; pricing varies by feature flag (data logging discount, model selection).
Install / use
gcloud ml speech recognize ... # or REST v2
What people actually do with Google Cloud Speech-to-Text-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 | Yes |
| Word-level timestamps | Yes |
| Streaming / real-time | Yes |
| Languages supported | 125 |
| HIPAA eligible | Yes |
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs Whipscribe
| Feature | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text | 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 | 125 | 99 |
| Platforms | API | Web, API, MCP |
Alternatives to Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
Frequently asked about Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
How much does Google Cloud Speech-to-Text cost?
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text is a paid product — published pricing: from $0.016/min (v2 standard) / Chirp tiered. Pricing changes; verify on the vendor's own page before budgeting.
What platforms does Google Cloud Speech-to-Text support?
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text is an API — you call it from whatever you build, on any platform with an HTTP client.
How do I get started with Google Cloud Speech-to-Text?
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text is used through its API: get a key from the vendor, then call it from your own code. There is no desktop app to install.
How many languages does Google Cloud Speech-to-Text support?
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text lists 125 languages. That is the Whisper-family multilingual set, so quality varies by language — English and the large European languages are strongest.
What are the limitations of Google Cloud Speech-to-Text?
Chirp 2 region availability is narrower than v1; pricing varies by feature flag (data logging discount, model selection).
Who is Google Cloud Speech-to-Text best for?
GCP-native teams, multilingual coverage, anyone wanting access to Google's Chirp foundation models.
Is Google Cloud Speech-to-Text open source?
No. Google Cloud Speech-to-Text is a proprietary API. If you need source you can read and run yourself, the open-source tools in this directory are the place to look.
What kind of tool is Google Cloud Speech-to-Text?
In this directory Google Cloud Speech-to-Text is filed under commercial api, hyperscaler as a API.
What are the alternatives to Google Cloud Speech-to-Text?
There is a side-by-side page at /tools/google-speech-to-text-alternatives comparing Google Cloud Speech-to-Text with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.
Can I automate Google Cloud Speech-to-Text-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 Google Cloud Speech-to-Text?
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text 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 Google Cloud Speech-to-Text?
$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 Google Cloud Speech-to-Text 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 Google Cloud Speech-to-Text 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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Long recording to get through?
One file up to 10 hours, as an upload or a link: see how to transcribe an MP3 of any length, a podcast episode as text from its link and the SRT generator.
Comparing tools before you pay?
If you would rather pay a service than run software yourself: see the best transcription services side by side, affordable transcription priced per hour and how our transcription services work.