Voice API cost calculator
Every month I transcribe of audio.
AssemblyAI and Mistral Voxtral tie for cheapest, at $3.50 a month. Azure would cost 4.8 times as much.
Estimated monthly bill for 1,000 minutes, lowest first. 7 of 7 providers fit.
- 1AssemblyAIUniversal-3.5 Pro (pre-recorded), $0.21/hr$3.50 per monthLowest priceVisit AssemblyAI
Usage $3.50 Monthly total $3.50 Works out to $0.0035 per minute.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- 1Mistral VoxtralVoxtral Mini Transcribe 3, $0.0035/min$3.50 per monthLowest priceVisit Voxtral
Usage $3.50 Monthly total $3.50 Works out to $0.0035 per minute.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- 3ElevenLabsScribe v2 (and v2 Medical), $0.22/hr$3.67 per month+$0.17, 4.8% moreVisit ElevenLabs
Usage $3.67 Monthly total $3.67 Works out to $0.00367 per minute.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- 4DeepgramNova-3 (pre-recorded), $0.0043/min$4.30 per month+$0.80, 22.9% moreVisit Deepgram
Usage $4.30 Monthly total $4.30 Works out to $0.0043 per minute.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- 5OpenAIGPT Transcribe, $0.0045/min$4.50 per month+$1.00, 28.6% moreVisit OpenAI
Usage $4.50 Monthly total $4.50 Works out to $0.0045 per minute.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- 6Google CloudSpeech-to-Text V2 Standard (incl. Chirp), $0.016/min$16.00 per month+$12.50, 357.1% moreVisit Google Cloud
Usage $16.00 Monthly total $16.00 Works out to $0.016 per minute.
Tiers are graduated: each band of usage is billed at its own rate (reached: Up to 500000).
- 7AzureStandard real-time transcription, $1/hr$16.67 per month+$13.17, 376.2% moreVisit Azure
Usage $16.67 Monthly total $16.67 Works out to $0.0167 per minute.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- Prices updated 2026-10-23.
- Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- Free-tier credits are not subtracted.
- How we calculate this
Some “Visit” links are affiliate links: the provider may pay us if you sign up. That never changes the order, which is set by price alone.
Common setups
Typical monthly volumes, with the assumptions written out.
- Podcast transcription520 min
- Call center transcription60,000 min
- Voice agent3,000 min
- Meeting notes transcription2,400 min
- Audiobook narration3M chars
Head to head
Two providers, all three uses, same numbers as the calculator.
Where the numbers come from
Every price comes from the provider’s public pricing page and is checked monthly. The methodology page lists each source, the date it was read, and how tiers, plans and token rates are turned into a monthly bill.