SoundHound
Don’t want to wire up the SoundHound 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.
SoundHound Houndify — multilingual voice AI platform with embedded and cloud ASR.
Best for voice interfaces in cars, restaurants, and consumer electronics where ASR plus intent matters. Pricing: tiered · contact sales for enterprise pricing.
What it is
SoundHound is a US-listed company with significant European engineering and customers; it ships the Houndify platform for embedding voice assistants into cars, drive-thru ordering, and home devices. Recognition is offered both as a cloud API and as an on-device engine for offline use. Languages supported span English, major European languages, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean. Best fit when the buyer is voice interfaces in cars, restaurants, and consumer electronics where asr plus intent matters. The honest caveat: sweet spot is voice-assistant style intents; bulk transcription is a secondary use case. Procurement is via direct sales rather than a developer signup, so plan for a discovery call and a written proposal before the first transcript runs.
Watch out for: Sweet spot is voice-assistant style intents; bulk transcription is a secondary use case.
Install / use
soundhound.com — Houndify developer portal
What people actually do with SoundHound-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 | 25 |
| HIPAA eligible | No |
SoundHound vs Whipscribe
| Feature | SoundHound | 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 | 25 | 99 |
| Platforms | Web, Linux, Embedded | Web, API, MCP |
Alternatives to SoundHound
Frequently asked about SoundHound
How much does SoundHound cost?
SoundHound 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 SoundHound work on Mac, Windows and Linux?
SoundHound runs on Web, Linux and Embedded.
How do I get started with SoundHound?
There is nothing to install — SoundHound is used in the browser. Create an account on the vendor's site and upload or connect your audio.
How many languages does SoundHound support?
SoundHound lists 25 languages.
What are the limitations of SoundHound?
Sweet spot is voice-assistant style intents; bulk transcription is a secondary use case.
Who is SoundHound best for?
Voice interfaces in cars, restaurants, and consumer electronics where ASR plus intent matters.
Is SoundHound open source?
No. SoundHound is a proprietary API from SoundHound AI. If you need source you can read and run yourself, the open-source tools in this directory are the place to look.
Who makes SoundHound?
SoundHound is made by SoundHound AI.
What kind of tool is SoundHound?
In this directory SoundHound is filed under regional europe, api as a API.
What are the alternatives to SoundHound?
There is a side-by-side page at /tools/soundhound-alternatives comparing SoundHound with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.
Can I automate SoundHound-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 SoundHound?
SoundHound 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 SoundHound?
$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 SoundHound 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 SoundHound 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
Have the recording already?
Skip the setup and send the file or the link: see how to transcribe an MP3 of any length, transcribing a podcast episode and the SRT file generator.
Comparing tools before you pay?
If you would rather pay a service than run software yourself: see an honest roundup of the best transcription services, affordable transcription priced per hour and transcription services from $6.