Lookback
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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.
Live and async user-testing platform for product teams.
Best for product teams running moderated user-research sessions with live observation rooms. Pricing: from $25/mo.
What it is
Lookback is a user-research platform supporting moderated, unmoderated, and async user testing. The product captures the participant's screen, face, and audio; auto-transcribes; and allows observer rooms where stakeholders watch live and tag moments collaboratively. Lookback added AI summary features in 2024. The product has been live since 2014 and is widely used inside product, design, and UX research teams. Pricing is tier-based with a free trial; team pricing supports collaborative observation. The AI layer is one of several recent additions.
Watch out for: Less enterprise than UserTesting; some recent stability concerns reported.
Install / use
lookback.com — Free trial, Freelancer $25/mo, Team $250/mo, Insights contact
What people actually do with Lookback-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 | No |
| Languages supported | None |
| HIPAA eligible | No |
Lookback vs Whipscribe
| Feature | Lookback | Whipscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Products | 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 | — | 99 |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android | Web, API, MCP |
Alternatives to Lookback
Frequently asked about Lookback
How much does Lookback cost?
Lookback is a paid product — published pricing: from $25/mo. Pricing changes; verify on the vendor's own page before budgeting.
Does Lookback work on Mac, Windows and Linux?
Lookback runs on Web, iOS and Android.
How do I get started with Lookback?
There is nothing to install — Lookback is used in the browser. Create an account on the vendor's site and upload or connect your audio.
What are the limitations of Lookback?
Less enterprise than UserTesting; some recent stability concerns reported.
Who is Lookback best for?
Product teams running moderated user-research sessions with live observation rooms.
Is Lookback open source?
No. Lookback is a proprietary product from Lookback Inc.. If you need source you can read and run yourself, the open-source tools in this directory are the place to look.
Who makes Lookback?
Lookback is made by Lookback Inc..
What kind of tool is Lookback?
In this directory Lookback is filed under meetings, research, testing as a product.
What are the alternatives to Lookback?
There is a side-by-side page at /tools/lookback-alternatives comparing Lookback with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.
Can I automate Lookback-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 Lookback?
Lookback 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 Lookback?
$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 Lookback 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 Lookback 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
All transcription tools · By language · By platform · By file format · How-to guides · Transcription services · Transcription API · Pricing
Long recording to get through?
One file up to 10 hours, as an upload or a link: see transcribing a long MP3 or M4A, a podcast episode as text from its link and an SRT subtitle file from any recording.
Looking at paid options?
Before you choose a transcription tool or service: see how the best transcription services compare, cheap transcription services and the real cost per hour and transcription services from $6.