Free transcription software in 2026: what works and what has a catch

"Free" means different things depending on the software. Some tools give you a permanently free tier with real limits. Some give you a trial that expires. Some are free but require technical setup. One is free only if you type everything yourself.

Most of the free web tools we checked cap each file at 30 minutes or less. Here is what each one does with a 2-hour recording, checked in October 2026, followed by seven commonly recommended tools in more detail.

Free limits for long recordings (Oct 2026)

Competitor details were checked on October 20, 2026 from the pages linked in the table and may have changed since. We are TranscribTxt (RESTART AI LLC) and are not affiliated with the companies named. Trademarks belong to their owners. Found an error? Write to support@transcribtxt.com and we will check and fix it.

How to read it. Riverside's free tool transcribed a full 2-hour MP3 in our test. Its page lists MP3, WAV, MP4 and MOV only, and says a free upload with several speakers has all its text assigned to one speaker. Word's Transcribe is included if you already pay for Microsoft 365 (300 minutes of uploads a month, on the web or on Windows), and it labels speakers. TranscribTxt also takes M4A, MKV, WebM and AVI, up to 2 GB: the first 30 minutes are free, and the full file is $5 once, with no subscription. Like Riverside's free tool, it doesn't label speakers.

OpenAI Whisper

Free forever, no account, no limits. The catch: you need to install it yourself.

Whisper is an open-source model released by OpenAI. You download it, run it via command line, and it transcribes audio files on your own hardware. There's no web interface, no file upload — just Python and a terminal.

On a Mac with Apple Silicon or a Windows machine with an Nvidia GPU, it runs fast. On a machine without a GPU, a 1-hour file takes 15-30 minutes instead of 4-5.

Accuracy: 95-97% on clean English audio. The large-v3 model is the most accurate; the base model is faster but less accurate.

The honest take: If you're comfortable with Python, this is the best free option. If you've never used a terminal, it's not worth the setup time.

TranscribTxt

3 files a day, up to 30 minutes each, no setup. Browser-based, works on any device, and your first file doesn't need an account.

Upload your file to the free audio to text converter and download the transcript as TXT or SRT subtitles — both included free. In October 2026, half of the files on our servers were transcribed in 14 seconds or less, and a 145-minute recording took 2 minutes 45 seconds. Times don't include uploading, which depends on your connection. Pro ($10/month or $72/year) removes the daily and 30-minute limits, covers up to 100 hours of audio a month and adds JSON export; a one-time $5 Week Pass gives you Pro for 7 days (up to 25 hours of audio).

It runs OpenAI's Whisper large-v3 turbo — the same model family as the self-hosted Whisper above, without the setup. It doesn't label speakers. The free tier covers regular light use: a few podcast episodes, meetings or interviews a week, as long as each is under 30 minutes (a longer file gets its first 30 minutes free).

TranscribTxt pricing: free for files up to 30 minutes; for longer files, the first 30 minutes are free and the full file is $5, one-time; Pro is $10 a month or $72 a year. See pricing.

The honest take: The easiest no-setup option if your files are under 30 minutes. The daily cap and the 30-minute limit are the main restrictions.

Google Docs voice typing

Free, built in, but it only works with live microphone input.

You open Google Docs, go to Tools → Voice typing, and speak. It transcribes what you say in real time. You cannot upload a recorded file and have it transcribed.

If you want to use this for a recording, you'd have to play the audio through your speakers while holding your microphone up to them — which degrades quality and doesn't work well in anything but a quiet room.

The honest take: Useful for dictation, not for transcribing existing recordings.

oTranscribe

Free manual transcription with audio controls built in.

You upload a file, it plays in your browser, and you type what you hear. It has keyboard shortcuts to pause, rewind 2 seconds, and control playback speed — the essentials for manual transcription. No account required, nothing stored on their servers.

Accuracy is 100% because you're doing the transcribing. Speed is whatever you can type. A 45-minute interview takes 3-4 hours.

The honest take: The right tool if you need exact transcription and automatic tools can't handle your audio. Particularly good for difficult accents, heavy background noise, or highly technical vocabulary.

Otter.ai

300 free minutes per month, 30 minutes per conversation, and 3 audio or video file imports for the life of the account (Otter's pricing page, checked Oct 20, 2026). After 30 minutes it stops recording and you have to start a new session.

Otter's strength is speaker identification — it labels who said what, which AI tools without diarization don't do by default. It also integrates with Zoom and Google Meet to transcribe calls automatically.

The honest take: With 3 file imports for the life of the account, the free tier is built for live meetings, not for transcribing recorded files. The speaker labeling feature is genuinely useful for interview and meeting audio.

Whisper.cpp

A reimplementation of Whisper in C++, which runs faster with less RAM than the Python version. Also free and open source.

Setup is slightly more involved than standard Whisper, but the speed improvement is significant on CPU — about 2-3x faster than the Python version without a GPU. Works well on older machines.

The honest take: For technical users who want Whisper speed without a GPU, this is worth the extra setup step.

Windows built-in dictation

Free, built into Windows 10 and 11. Works with microphone input only, not recorded files. Lower accuracy than Whisper-based tools on accented speech.

The honest take: Fine for quick notes while speaking. Not a transcription tool for recorded audio.

How to choose

Here's a simple decision tree:

Technical setup OK + high volume + no cost: Whisper or Whisper.cpp locally.

No setup, files under 30 minutes (up to 3 a day): TranscribTxt free tier.

One long recording, no setup: Riverside's free tool did a whole 2-hour MP3 for free in our test, but takes MP3, WAV, MP4 and MOV only. TranscribTxt also takes M4A, MKV, WebM and AVI, up to 2 GB: the first 30 minutes are free, and the full file is $5 one-time. Neither labels speakers; Word does, if you already pay for Microsoft 365.

Speaker identification matters: Otter.ai.

Audio is too messy for AI: oTranscribe for manual work.

Dictating while working, not transcribing a recording: Google Docs or Windows dictation.

The main difference between paid and free AI transcription is volume limits and format options (SRT export, timestamps), not accuracy. On clean audio, a free Whisper-based tool and a $30/month enterprise tool produce similar results.