Whisper online nothing to install.
Whisper is the best-known open-source speech model — and getting it running means Python, ffmpeg, model weights, and a GPU you may not have. Here there is nothing to set up. Paste a link or drop a file and read the transcript in your browser.
What you get
What running Whisper yourself doesn't give you.
No setup at all
The pip install is the easy part. It's the CUDA version mismatch, the missing ffmpeg, the 3 GB of model weights, and the CPU run that takes longer than the audio that stop people. None of that exists here — transcription already runs on our own servers.
Nothing to install or configure
Vanilla Whisper returns one undifferentiated wall of text on your own machine. Here the transcript comes back punctuated, in paragraphs, with a timestamp on every line. Speakers are identified and named in the summary, key quotes and chapters.
Finished files, not a JSON blob
The Python package hands you a dict. You get TXT, SRT, VTT, DOCX, and JSON — timed and ready to drop straight into YouTube Studio, Premiere, Resolve, or a Word document.
Your audio isn't training data
Transcribed on our own servers; recordings are never used for training — the same privacy posture that made you consider running it locally in the first place.
Local Whisper vs Whipscribe
The transcript, minus the afternoon.
✗ Running Whisper locally
Free, private, and completely yours — once it works. Budget an afternoon the first time, and a slow run every time after that if you don't have a GPU.
- Python, ffmpeg, and model weights to install
- CPU inference is often slower than real time
- No speaker diarization at all
- Output is a dict — you write the SRT formatter
- Re-run the whole setup on every new machine
✓ Whipscribe in the browser
Nothing to install, with timestamps and exports wrapped around the transcript.
- Nothing to install — it runs in the browser
- Most hours finish in minutes
- A timestamp on every line of every transcript
- TXT, SRT, VTT, DOCX, JSON out of the box
- Works from any machine, including a phone
Sample output
Timestamped. Click-to-seek. Exportable.
Punctuation and timings included. Click any word to jump the audio.
If you would rather run it yourself
Running Whisper yourself: the four usual routes.
Each project's own install line and what it needs, read on 26 Oct 2026.
| Route | Install | What it needs | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| openai-whisper (OpenAI) | pip install -U openai-whisper | Python 3.8+, the ffmpeg command; about 6 GB of VRAM for the default turbo model | pip install whisper installs a different project |
| faster-whisper | pip install faster-whisper | Python 3.9+; for a GPU, cuBLAS and cuDNN 9 for CUDA 12 | turbo downloads from mobiuslabsgmbh, not Systran |
| whisper.cpp | cmake -B build after cloning | A C/C++ toolchain; Metal on Apple silicon, CPU elsewhere | whisper-cli reads 16-bit WAV, so convert first |
| OpenAI API, whisper-1 | An API key and one HTTP call | $0.006 a minute; 25 MB per upload | whisper-1 is removed from the API on 26 Feb 2027 |
Measured on our own servers over the 30 days to 2026-10-27 (turnaround figures): 407 recordings of one to two hours, median length 83 minutes, finished in a median of 3 minutes; 438 recordings of 30 to 60 minutes took a median of 98 seconds. A file of 83 minutes uses 83 of the 300 minutes in the $4 pack.
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 $4 (300 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
$4/300 min
5 hours of audio — $0.80 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 300 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$18/3,000 min
50 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 3,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
Bulk pack
$32/6,000 min
100 hours of audio — $0.32 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 6,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
Running Whisper online, answered.
Is there an official OpenAI Whisper website?
No. OpenAI publishes Whisper as the openai-whisper Python package and as the whisper-1 API model, which leaves the API on 26 Feb 2027. Sites that run Whisper online, this one included, are separate services.
Is this OpenAI Whisper?
It is a hosted transcription service, transcribed on our own servers rather than on your machine or through OpenAI's API. Accuracy is best on clean audio and drops on noisy field recordings or heavy accents.
Why not just run it locally?
You should, if you have a GPU and enjoy the setup — it's free and completely private. Most people trying it discover CPU inference is slower than the audio itself and that they still have to write their own subtitle formatter. Here those problems are already solved.
Do I pick a model size?
No. An hour of audio typically comes back in a few minutes rather than in real time, and you don't pick a model size or a runtime flag — you get the accurate setting.
Do you support languages other than English?
Yes — 99+ languages, auto-detected from the audio. You don't have to tell us which language it is. Accuracy varies by language; the high-resource European languages are excellent.
What does it cost?
One-time minute packs: $4 for 300 minutes, $18 for 3,000, $32 for 6,000. Credits never expire and there's no subscription.
How large a file can I send?
Up to 10 hours or 5 GB per file. The opening minutes are a free preview; a pack from $4 transcribes the rest and opens exports. Files over 500 MB continue on the upload page. You can also paste a YouTube, podcast, or direct media URL and we'll fetch the audio server-side — nothing to download first.
Related
Related tools and pages.
Skip the setup. Transcribe it now.
Try WhipscribeOperated by Neugence Technology Pvt. Ltd. · contact@whipscribe.com · Security · Privacy · Terms
Choosing a transcription service?
Before you pay anyone to transcribe: see transcription services from $4.