Transcription Cost per Hour in 2026: AI, Human and Pay-per-File

As of October 2026, human transcription starts at about $47 to $120 per audio hour, depending on the service, and costs more for fast delivery. AI costs from under $1 to about $12 an hour at listed rates. On TranscribTxt, you can pay once per file: $2 for one recording up to 3 hours (a file up to 500 MB).

Cost per audio hour, compared (checked Oct 31, 2026)

Every price below is converted to one unit: what an hour of audio costs. The 3-hour column is one common case: a single long recording, paid once.

All prices in US dollars as listed on the linked pages on October 31, 2026, with monthly billing for subscriptions; the per-hour and 3-hour columns are our arithmetic. Prices change often, so check before you buy. We are TranscribTxt (RESTART AI LLC) and aren't affiliated with the companies named. Trademarks belong to their owners. Found an error? Write to support@transcribtxt.com and we'll check and fix it.

How do you work out your cost per hour?

Vendors price in different units, so convert before you compare:

• Per minute: multiply by 60. GoTranscript's $1.20 a minute is $72 an hour.
• Per hour: that's the number. Sonix lists $10.
• Per file: divide the price by the file's length. BrassTranscripts' $6.00 file is $6 an hour for a 1-hour recording and $2 an hour for a 3-hour one.
• Pack or subscription: divide the price by the hours you actually use, not the hours included. Otter Pro's $16.99 month is about $0.85 an hour if you use all 1,200 minutes, and $8.50 an hour if you transcribe 2 hours that month.

Three common cases, at the prices in the table:

• One 3-hour recording. $6 at TranscribeBee, $6 at BrassTranscripts for an audio file up to 450 MB, $30 at Sonix pay as you go, $216 for GoTranscript's 5-day human service. transcribe.free's $5 pack covers it and leaves 7 hours of credit. Otter Pro stops at 90 minutes per conversation, so this file needs Business at $30 for a month. On TranscribTxt, the recording (a file up to 500 MB) costs $2.
• Five 2-hour interviews in one week (10 hours). $100 at Sonix pay as you go, $20 at TranscribeBee, $30 at BrassTranscripts (five audio files at $6), or exactly one $5 transcribe.free pack. On TranscribTxt, it's $2 for each recording (a file up to 500 MB), or one $5 Week Pass for all five: up to 25 hours of audio in 7 days.
• 40 hours every month. Sonix Pro is $80 a month for 40 hours, TranscribeBee comes to $80, a $15 transcribe.free pack covers 40 hours, and Otter Business is $30 a month with 6,000 imported minutes. TranscribTxt Pro is $10 a month for up to 100 hours of audio.

Human transcription: $47 to $165 an hour

Human services charge per audio minute, and the delivery time sets the rate. GoTranscript lists $1.20 a minute for a 5-day turnaround and $2.75 for 6 to 12 hours, so the same hour costs $72 or $165. Rev lists $1.99 a minute, delivered in 12 hours or less. Happy Scribe lists human-made transcripts from $2.00 a minute. TranscribeMe starts at $0.79 a minute, and its price depends on the language and options.

You pay for a person who handles crosstalk, accents, names and poor audio better than software, and who takes hours or days to deliver. AI is far quicker, as TranscribTxt's own timing shows. In October 2026, a 145-minute recording took 2 min 45 s once uploaded. For when each one is worth paying for, see AI vs human transcription.

AI transcription: per minute, per hour or per pack

AI services price the same hour in very different ways:

• Sonix lists $10 an hour pay as you go, and a new account gets 30 free minutes. Its Core plan is $25 a month for 5 hours, which is $5 an hour.
• Happy Scribe sells AI minutes by subscription. Extra minutes on its paid plans are $0.20 each, or $12 an hour.
• TranscribeBee lists $2 an hour, billed by the minute, with a $2 minimum per order and no subscription.
• transcribe.free sells one-time packs that never expire: $5 for 600 minutes and $15 for 2,400. That's $0.50 and about $0.38 an hour.
• OpenAI's API lists Whisper at $0.006 a minute and gpt-4o-mini-transcribe at $0.003, so $0.36 and $0.18 an hour. It's built for developers: you write and run the code yourself.

Per-file pricing: one price for a long recording

A per-file price charges for the recording, not its minutes, so each hour gets cheaper as the file gets longer. BrassTranscripts lists $6.00 flat for a file of 16 minutes or more, up to 450 MB, so with a long video you may have to upload just its audio.

On TranscribTxt, a 3-hour recording (a file up to 500 MB) costs US$2 in total, about US$0.67 per audio hour. The US$5 Week Pass comes to US$0.20 per audio hour if you use all 25 hours, and Pro to US$0.10 per audio hour if you use all 100 hours in a month.

You can check the text before you pay per file: while you have a free file left (1 a week without an account, 3 with a free one), the first 30 minutes of a long recording are transcribed free. The per-file price and the Week Pass are paid once and never renew; only Pro is a subscription.

Subscriptions: cheap per hour only if you use the hours

A subscription looks cheapest per hour, but only at full use, and a length cap can rule it out. Otter Pro ($16.99 a month) includes 1,200 minutes and 10 imported files a month, but it stops at 90 minutes per conversation, so a 2-hour lecture needs Business at $30 a month. Happy Scribe Basic is $17 a month for 120 minutes, or $8.50 an hour. For one or two long files a month, paying per file usually costs less. Our Otter.ai pricing guide shows how its plans work out over a year.

When TranscribTxt isn't your best buy

• Your hours are spread over many months. transcribe.free's packs work out to $0.50 an hour or less and never expire, so you don't have to use them within a week or a month.
• You write code and transcribe now and then. OpenAI's API costs $0.18 to $0.36 an hour, and you pay only for the minutes you send.
• You need to know who said what. We don't label speakers.
• You need a checked legal record. Pay for a human service.

To compare every way to pay without a plan, see pay-as-you-go transcription services compared. If your file runs 2 to 3 hours, check each tool's length limit in best transcription software for long recordings. Budgeting a research project? See how much it costs to transcribe an interview.