Azure pricing
Azure AI Speech is Microsoft’s speech service, available through the Azure portal with the same billing, security and region controls as the rest of Azure.
Transcription is billed per hour of audio. Real-time and batch transcription have different rates, and speaker labels are a separate per-hour add-on on the real-time path. Text to speech is billed per million characters, with Neural voices as the standard choice and higher-fidelity voices at a premium.
Azure fits teams that already run on Microsoft’s cloud or need specific regions and compliance options. Commitment tiers and free monthly allowances exist but are not part of the figures in the calculator.
Some “Sign up” links are affiliate links and may earn a commission. Rankings are computed from price only and never take affiliate status into account.
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).
- 7AzureThis pageStandard 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 2026-10-30.
- 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.
Pricing by model
Standard real-time transcription pricing
Speech to text. Streaming speech to text for live audio, billed per second of audio sent. Diarization is available as a paid add-on.
| Monthly usage | Price per hour |
|---|---|
| Any volume | $1.00 |
Standard real-time transcription, billed per second and shown per hour. Diarization is a separate enhanced add-on feature. Free tier (F0) of 5 audio hours per month and commitment tiers (for example 2,000 hours per month) are not modelled.
Source: azure.microsoft.com
Standard batch transcription pricing
Speech to text. Asynchronous transcription of stored audio files through the batch REST API at a lower hourly rate.
| Monthly usage | Price per hour |
|---|---|
| Any volume | $0.18 |
Standard batch transcription (requires Speech to text REST API v3.2 or later). Whether the diarization add-on applies to batch is not stated on the page, so no diarization add-on is modelled for this model.
Source: azure.microsoft.com
Fast transcription pricing
Speech to text. Synchronous file transcription that returns results faster than real time; also used for LLM speech transcription.
| Monthly usage | Price per hour |
|---|---|
| Any volume | $0.36 |
Fast transcription (synchronous file transcription, requires REST API 2024-11-15 or later). LLM speech transcription shares this price and SKU. No diarization add-on is modelled for this model.
Source: azure.microsoft.com
MAI Transcribe-2 pricing
Speech to text. Microsoft MAI transcription model offered at a limited-time introductory rate.
| Monthly usage | Price per hour |
|---|---|
| Any volume | $0.1 |
Limited-time promo rate, valid until 2026-12-31 per the pricing page footnote; the price may change afterwards. No diarization add-on is modelled for this model.
Source: azure.microsoft.com
Neural voices (standard) pricing
Text to speech. Standard neural text to speech voices including Neural HD Flash, real-time and batch, billed per character.
| Monthly usage | Price per 1M characters |
|---|---|
| Any volume | $15.00 |
Standard voice: Neural / Neural HD Flash, real-time and batch, billed per character. Free tier of 0.5M characters per month is not modelled.
Source: azure.microsoft.com
Neural HD voices pricing
Text to speech. Higher-fidelity Neural HD voices, real-time and batch, billed per character at a higher rate.
| Monthly usage | Price per 1M characters |
|---|---|
| Any volume | $22.00 |
Standard voice: Neural HD, real-time and batch, billed per character.
Source: azure.microsoft.com
Features
| Feature | Azure |
|---|---|
| Speaker labels | Extra cost |
| Languages | Not published |
| Self-hosting | Yes |
| EU data residency | Yes |
| Realtime voice | No |
Frequently asked questions
- How much does Azure speech-to-text cost per month for 1,000 minutes?
- About $16.67 a month using $1/hr (prices updated 2026-10-30). Free-tier credits are not subtracted.
- How much does Azure text-to-speech cost per month for 1,000,000 characters?
- About $15.00 a month using $15/1M chars (prices updated 2026-10-30). Free-tier credits are not subtracted.
- Where does the Azure pricing on this page come from?
- From the provider’s own public pricing page, last checked on 2026-10-30. The methodology page lists every source and rule.