NCI (National Captioning Institute)
Don’t want to sign up for NCI? 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.
Non-profit pioneer of US closed captioning, founded by PBS, NBC, CBS and ABC in 1979.
Best for broadcasters who value the historical pedigree and accessibility-first orientation. Pricing: service · contact sales.
What it is
NCI created the first US closed captioning service in 1980 and is still operating as a non-profit, supplying live and offline captioning for broadcast and streaming. Pioneered many of the captioning conventions still used today.
Watch out for: Smaller footprint than VITAC today; primarily project-based contracts.
Install / use
ncicap.org — contact
What people actually do with NCI (National Captioning Institute)-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 | None |
| HIPAA eligible | No |
NCI (National Captioning Institute) vs Whipscribe
| Feature | NCI (National Captioning Institute) | Whipscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Category | service | Transcription APIs |
| Pricing | service · contact sales | $6–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · first 20 minutes free |
| Speaker identification | — | Named in the summary, key quotes and chapters |
| Word timestamps | — | Yes |
| Streaming | Yes | No |
| Languages | — | 99 |
| Platforms | Web | Web, API, MCP |
Alternatives to NCI (National Captioning Institute)
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Frequently asked about NCI (National Captioning Institute)
How much does NCI (National Captioning Institute) cost?
NCI (National Captioning Institute) does not publish a self-serve price — it is quoted by the vendor on contact. Expect an enterprise-style agreement rather than a card-and-go signup.
Does NCI (National Captioning Institute) work on Mac, Windows and Linux?
NCI (National Captioning Institute) runs in the browser, so it works on any desktop OS with a modern browser, and on phones and tablets.
How do I get started with NCI (National Captioning Institute)?
There is nothing to install — NCI (National Captioning Institute) is used in the browser. Create an account on the vendor's site and upload or connect your audio.
What are the limitations of NCI (National Captioning Institute)?
Smaller footprint than VITAC today; primarily project-based contracts.
Who is NCI (National Captioning Institute) best for?
Broadcasters who value the historical pedigree and accessibility-first orientation.
Is NCI (National Captioning Institute) open source?
No. NCI (National Captioning Institute) is a proprietary service. If you need source you can read and run yourself, the open-source tools in this directory are the place to look.
Is there a NCI (National Captioning Institute) desktop app?
No — NCI (National Captioning Institute) is browser-only. There is nothing to install and nothing runs on your machine.
What kind of tool is NCI (National Captioning Institute)?
In this directory NCI (National Captioning Institute) is filed under broadcast, compliance as a service.
What are the alternatives to NCI (National Captioning Institute)?
There is a side-by-side page at /tools/nci-caption-alternatives comparing NCI (National Captioning Institute) with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.
Can I automate NCI (National Captioning Institute)-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 NCI (National Captioning Institute)?
NCI (National Captioning Institute) 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 NCI (National Captioning Institute)?
$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 NCI (National Captioning Institute) 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
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Need the subtitle file itself?
Upload the recording or paste a link and download SRT or VTT: see the SRT generator, YouTube to SRT and the subtitle 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, the cheapest way to transcribe an hour of audio and transcription services from $6.