Modal (ASR endpoints)

by Modal Labs

Don’t want to wire up the Modal 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.

Modal's serverless GPU platform commonly used to host Whisper / faster-whisper as an API.

API  ·  per-second GPU compute

TL;DR

Best for teams self-hosting Whisper / faster-whisper / WhisperX who want serverless GPU without managing K8s. Pricing: per-second GPU compute (see Modal pricing).

Category
Transcription APIs
Pricing
per-second GPU compute (see Modal pricing)
Platforms
API

What it is

Modal Labs offers serverless GPU infrastructure used widely to host open-source ASR models (Whisper, faster-whisper, WhisperX, Pyannote diarization) behind a custom HTTP endpoint. You author Python code that loads a model and Modal handles scaling, cold-start, and billing per second. Not an ASR API itself, but a popular pick for teams that want the open-source stack with managed scaling. Pricing is per-second compute by GPU class. Best fit: teams self-hosting whisper / faster-whisper / whisperx who want serverless gpu without managing k8s. Caveats: not a turnkey asr api — you bring your own model code and pay for compute, not transcription minutes. Pricing as listed: per-second GPU compute (see Modal pricing). Directory tags: commercial-api, model-host. Last vendor-page check: 2026-05-12.

Best for: Teams self-hosting Whisper / faster-whisper / WhisperX who want serverless GPU without managing K8s.
Watch out for: Not a turnkey ASR API — you bring your own model code and pay for compute, not transcription minutes.

Install / use

pip install modal && modal deploy whisper_app.py

What people actually do with Modal (ASR endpoints)-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.

Wire it into Amazon S3n8nMake.comGoogle DriveZapierSlack

Features

Speaker diarizationNo
Word-level timestampsNo
Streaming / real-timeNo
Languages supportedNone
HIPAA eligibleNo

Modal (ASR endpoints) vs Whipscribe

FeatureModal (ASR endpoints)Whipscribe
CategoryTranscription APIsTranscription APIs
PricingNot verified$6–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · first 20 minutes free
Speaker identificationNot verifiedNamed in the summary, key quotes and chapters
Word timestampsNot verifiedYes
StreamingNot verifiedNo
Languages—99
PlatformsAPIWeb, API, MCP

Alternatives to Modal (ASR endpoints)

Frequently asked about Modal (ASR endpoints)

How much does Modal (ASR endpoints) cost?

Modal (ASR endpoints) is a paid product — published pricing: per-second GPU compute (see Modal pricing). Pricing changes; verify on the vendor's own page before budgeting.

What platforms does Modal (ASR endpoints) support?

Modal (ASR endpoints) is an API — you call it from whatever you build, on any platform with an HTTP client.

What are the limitations of Modal (ASR endpoints)?

Not a turnkey ASR API — you bring your own model code and pay for compute, not transcription minutes.

Who is Modal (ASR endpoints) best for?

Teams self-hosting Whisper / faster-whisper / WhisperX who want serverless GPU without managing K8s.

Is Modal (ASR endpoints) open source?

No. Modal (ASR endpoints) is a proprietary API from Modal Labs. If you need source you can read and run yourself, the open-source tools in this directory are the place to look.

Who makes Modal (ASR endpoints)?

Modal (ASR endpoints) is made by Modal Labs.

What kind of tool is Modal (ASR endpoints)?

In this directory Modal (ASR endpoints) is filed under commercial api, model host as a API.

What are the alternatives to Modal (ASR endpoints)?

There is a side-by-side page at /tools/modal-asr-alternatives comparing Modal (ASR endpoints) with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.

Can I automate Modal (ASR endpoints)-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 Modal (ASR endpoints)?

Modal (ASR endpoints) 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 Modal (ASR endpoints)?

$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 Modal (ASR endpoints) 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

Explore

Long recording to get through?

One file up to 10 hours, as an upload or a link: see transcribing a long MP3 or M4A, how to transcribe a podcast and an SRT subtitle file from any recording.

Rather have it done for you?

Free tools cost setup time. When you want a finished transcript instead: see the best transcription services side by side, cheap transcription services and the real cost per hour and how our transcription services work.