Speech-to-Text (Transcription) Cost Calculator
Estimate AI transcription cost by minutes of audio.
With the default inputs, $900.00/month — 5,000 minutes/day transcribed. Enter your own numbers below to recompute instantly; the full step-by-step math is shown under the worked example.
Results update automatically as you type.
- Rate
- $0.006/min
- Per day
- $30.00
- Per month
- $900.00
Estimate the cost of AI transcription (Whisper / GPT-4o Transcribe). Billing is per minute of audio — about $0.006/min standard or $0.003/min for the mini model. Set your volume to see monthly cost.
How this is calculated
Cost = minutes per day × price per minute × 30. Transcription is billed per minute of audio — about $0.006/min for Whisper and GPT-4o Transcribe, or $0.003/min for the mini model — with no volume discount on the flat rate.
Is this a good result? What to do next
STT is cheap and predictable — cents per hour of audio. The number only becomes significant at very high volume (call centers, media libraries), where the mini model roughly halves it.
Typical planning ranges
- Standard
- ~$0.006/min (~$0.36/hour)
- Mini
- ~$0.003/min
- Volume discount
- none on the flat rate
Ranges are typical planning figures to sanity-check your result, not authoritative benchmarks. Your numbers will vary with use case, volume, and vendor.
How to improve this number
- Use the mini transcription model where accuracy allows.
- Skip silence and non-speech segments before transcribing.
- Batch large libraries overnight.
Common mistakes
- Assuming a volume discount that isn't there.
- Transcribing full audio when only segments are needed.
When to use a different approach
To rank models by price, use the transcription cost comparison. For a full voice bot, use the voice agent cost calculator.
Worked example (defaults)
With the default inputs above, here is the result:
- Rate
- $0.006/min
- Per day
- $30.00
- Per month
- $900.00
Sources & references
Frequently asked questions
How much does transcription cost?+
About $0.006 per minute ($0.36/hour) for Whisper and GPT-4o Transcribe, or $0.003/min for the mini model. There are no volume discounts on the flat rate.
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