Transcribe a 500 MB audio file by counting minutes, not megabytes.
A 500 MB audio file can be under an hour or most of a working day, depending on the format. Drop it in the box below: the first 20 minutes are free, a pack transcribes the rest, and you pay for minutes of audio rather than megabytes. At 128 kbps, 500 MB of MP3 is close to nine hours and comes back in about 17 minutes.
Megabytes to minutes
The same 500 MB can mean forty-seven minutes or nine hours.
MP3 and M4A: many hours
A 128 kbps MP3 uses about 58 MB an hour, so 500 MB is roughly 8 hours 40 minutes. At 192 kbps it is closer to 5 hours 50 minutes. A phone voice recording in M4A, at 30 to 60 MB an hour, can run past 10 hours, which is the per-file length limit.
WAV: under an hour
Uncompressed WAV at 16-bit, 44.1 kHz stereo takes about 635 MB an hour, so a 500 MB WAV is only about 47 minutes long. It is the same size as the long MP3 but holds a tenth of the speech.
Fits right here
The box on this page accepts files up to 500 MB, so a file around that size can go straight in. If yours is a little over, use the upload page, which accepts up to 5 GB.
Free part first
Every first-time visitor gets the first 20 minutes free. A 500 MB WAV is previewed and then finished by a $6 pack. A nine-hour MP3 is previewed the same way, and a pack transcribes the rest from where the preview ended.
Where 500 MB goes wrong
Half a gigabyte is too big for some forms and too vague for most price tags.
✗ Guessing from the file size
File size tells you almost nothing about how much speech is inside, so quotes and limits based on megabytes are guesswork.
- A 25 MB or 100 MB form that refuses it
- A quote that ignores the running time
- Six hours cut into parts for a per-file cap
- Bitrate lowered just to save space
- Unsure whether it holds 1 hour or 9
- Parts named file_1 to file_6 to manage
✓ Pricing by what was said
The file goes up once and the cost is set by its running time, which you can see before paying for anything.
- 500 MB in one upload
- The cost set by minutes of audio
- A free first 20 minutes to check quality
- Nine hours back in about 17 minutes
- Chapters across the whole recording
- One file, not six
Sample output
A day of recorded interviews in one MP3.
An illustrative transcript, not from a real file. A 500 MB MP3 holding a full day of back-to-back interviews comes back as one document you can move through by chapter.
Export
One transcript. Five clean formats.
Every pack exports all five — no format is held back for a higher tier.
Plain text
De-ummed paragraphs. Ready to paste.
SRT captions
Timed to the speech. Every video editor reads this.
WebVTT
HTML5 player + YouTube uploads.
Show notes
Formatted with chapters and pull-quotes.
Machine-readable
Timestamped text for your own tools.
Pricing
Honest pricing, no surprises.
A pack from $6 (500 minutes) opens the full transcript. After that, no subscription and no auto-renew — every tier is a one-time minute pack, and credits never expire. Buy once, use the minutes whenever you need them.
Casual pack
$6/500 min
8 hours of audio — $0.72 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 500 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$12/2,000 min
33 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 2,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
Bulk pack
$24/5,000 min
83 hours of audio — $0.29 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 5,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
500 MB audio, answered.
How many hours is a 500 MB audio file?
It depends on the format. As a 128 kbps MP3 it is about 8 hours 40 minutes; at 192 kbps about 5 hours 50; as CD-quality WAV about 47 minutes. Your media player shows the exact length. On a Mac, Get Info on the file lists the duration; on Windows, the Details tab under Properties does.
What does it cost to transcribe a 500 MB MP3?
At 128 kbps that is about 520 minutes, just over the 500 in the smallest pack, so the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes is the one to buy, leaving about 1,480 minutes after the free 20. At 192 kbps the file is about 350 minutes, inside the $6 pack of 500 minutes.
How long does it take?
Processing runs at about 2 minutes per hour of audio, so 8 hours 40 minutes is typically ready in about 17 minutes.
My 500 MB file is longer than 10 hours. Now what?
That happens with low-bitrate voice recordings. One file can be up to 10 hours, so cut it into two files at a pause and transcribe each one. A free editor such as Audacity can do the cut without re-encoding the whole file at a lower quality.
Which audio formats and languages are accepted?
MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG, GSM and the other common formats, in any of 99 languages detected automatically.
What can I export, and is the audio kept private?
TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON, along with a brief, timestamped chapters and a chat over the text. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training.
Related
By format and length.
Half a gigabyte of audio? Drop it in the box.
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