Transcribe a long MP3 in one upload, start to finish.
You have an MP3 that runs for hours and want the words out of it. A three-hour MP3 is roughly 170 to 260 MB, which goes up here as one file, and three hours of audio is usually transcribed in about six minutes. Your first 20 minutes are free, and a pack from $6 transcribes the rest from where the preview stopped.
Why long MP3s are easy
MP3 is the smallest long file you can hand us.
Bitrate decides the size
An MP3 at 128 kbps uses about 58 MB per hour, so three hours lands near 174 MB. At 192 kbps the same three hours is closer to 260 MB, and at 320 kbps the file grows by about 144 MB an hour. Even a 10-hour MP3 at 320 kbps stays under 1.5 GB, well inside the 5 GB ceiling.
Upload it as it is
There is no reason to lower the bitrate, cut out silence or convert to another format before sending. The audio is read at whatever quality it was saved in, and a higher bitrate only makes the upload a little slower. MP3s larger than the box on this page accepts carry on from the upload page.
Six minutes for three hours
Processing runs at about 2 minutes per hour of audio, so a three-hour episode is usually ready in about six minutes and a five-hour archive tape in about ten. Most of the waiting on a long MP3 is the upload itself, which on a home connection takes a minute or two for a file of this size.
One document back
The transcript comes back as a single file with the clock running from the opening second to the last. Alongside it you get a brief with the thesis and takeaways, chapters with timestamps, the names, numbers and dates that were said, and a chat that answers questions about the recording.
Before / after
What a long MP3 used to cost you in effort.
✗ Tools built for short clips
Plenty of services were sized for a voicemail or a 30-minute call. A long MP3 hits a cap, and the work of making it fit becomes yours.
- A size limit far below a three-hour episode
- Advice to drop the bitrate to squeeze it in
- An audio editor opened just to cut the file into parts
- Separate transcripts with clocks that restart
- No structure, only a wall of text hours long
- No look at the result until after you have paid
✓ One MP3, one run
The file goes up untouched and returns as one transcript, with the parts that help you use it.
- Up to 10 hours or 5 GB in a single MP3
- The original bitrate kept, nothing re-encoded
- One timeline from 00:00:00 to the final word
- Speakers identified and named in the summary and key quotes
- The first 20 minutes free before you buy anything
- Three hours fits a $6 pack with 320 minutes to spare
Sample output
Three hours of MP3, one running clock.
Illustrative only, not taken from a real recording. It shows how lines from early, middle and late in a long MP3 keep their true position on one timeline.
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
Long MP3 questions.
How long does a three-hour MP3 take to transcribe?
About six minutes once the upload has finished, at roughly 2 minutes per hour of audio. A short queue can add under a minute. You can close the tab and come back to the finished transcript.
What does a three-hour MP3 cost?
Three hours is 180 minutes. If it is your first recording, the first 20 minutes are free and you can read the preview before paying. The $6 pack (500 minutes) covers the whole file and leaves at least 320 minutes for the next one, and those minutes never expire.
How big can the MP3 be?
Up to 5 GB and up to 10 hours, whichever you reach first. For MP3 the 10-hour limit always comes first, since ten hours at 320 kbps is about 1.4 GB. Before your first pack, uploads can be up to 2 GB, and every MP3 under 10 hours fits inside that.
My MP3 is longer than 10 hours. What now?
Cut it into two files at a natural pause, such as the break between sessions, and upload both. The second transcript's clock starts at zero, so add the length of the first part when you quote a time from it.
Which languages work?
Speech in 99 languages, detected automatically from the audio. You do not pick a language before uploading the MP3.
What can I export, and who handles my audio?
TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON, all from the same run. Your MP3 is transcribed on our own servers and is never used for training.
Related
Related pages.
Your MP3 is already the right size. Send it as it is.
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