Real Time Captions

by Real Time Captions

Don’t want to sign up for Real Time Captions? 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.

Captioning co-op of independent CART writers in the US.

Web  ·  service · contact sales

TL;DR

Best for customers who want to book named CART writers rather than route through a large agency. Pricing: service · contact sales.

Category
service
Pricing
service · contact sales
Platforms
Web

What it is

Real Time Captions is a small US captioning co-op staffed by independent CART writers, serving universities, conferences and ADA accommodations.

Best for: Customers who want to book named CART writers rather than route through a large agency.
Watch out for: Coverage depends on individual writer availability; not 24/7.

Install / use

Go to Real Time Captions realtimecaptions.com

What people actually do with Real Time Captions-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 Google DriveYouTubeAmazon S3n8nZapierMake.com

Features

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

Real Time Captions vs Whipscribe

FeatureReal Time CaptionsWhipscribe
CategoryserviceTranscription APIs
Pricingservice · 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
StreamingYesNo
Languages—99
PlatformsWebWeb, API, MCP

Alternatives to Real Time Captions

Frequently asked about Real Time Captions

How much does Real Time Captions cost?

Real Time Captions 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 Real Time Captions work on Mac, Windows and Linux?

Real Time Captions 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 Real Time Captions?

There is nothing to install — Real Time Captions is used in the browser. Create an account on the vendor's site and upload or connect your audio.

What are the limitations of Real Time Captions?

Coverage depends on individual writer availability; not 24/7.

Who is Real Time Captions best for?

Customers who want to book named CART writers rather than route through a large agency.

Is Real Time Captions open source?

No. Real Time Captions 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 Real Time Captions desktop app?

No — Real Time Captions is browser-only. There is nothing to install and nothing runs on your machine.

What kind of tool is Real Time Captions?

In this directory Real Time Captions is filed under live caption, event as a service.

What are the alternatives to Real Time Captions?

There is a side-by-side page at /tools/real-time-captions-alternatives comparing Real Time Captions with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.

Can I automate Real Time Captions-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 Real Time Captions?

Real Time Captions 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 Real Time Captions?

$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 Real Time Captions 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.

Rather have it done for you?

Free tools cost setup time. When you want a finished transcript instead: see how the best transcription services compare, the cheapest way to transcribe an hour of audio and our transcription service with prices and turnaround.