AssemblyAI vs ElevenLabs Scribe on price
For recorded audio, AssemblyAI is cheaper at 100, 1,000 and 10,000 hours a month, ElevenLabs Scribe at 10. AssemblyAI is cheaper for live audio at every volume from 10 to 10,000 hours a month. At 100 hours a month, for recorded audio, AssemblyAI's Universal-2 costs $0.15 an hour against $0.21 for ElevenLabs' Scribe v2, 29% less; for live audio, AssemblyAI's Universal-Streaming costs $0.15 an hour against $0.38 for ElevenLabs' Scribe v2 Realtime, 61% less.
Each side's cheapest option at each volume, at regular pay-as-you-go prices; bold marks the cheaper. Price only: accuracy, languages and latency differ.
Recorded audio (batch)
| Audio a month | AssemblyAI | ElevenLabs Scribe |
|---|---|---|
| 10 hours | $1.50 ($0.15/h) Universal-2 | $1.21 ($0.121/h) Scribe v2 |
| 100 hours | $15 ($0.15/h) Universal-2 | $21.01 ($0.21/h) Scribe v2 |
| 1,000 hours | $150 ($0.15/h) Universal-2 | $219 ($0.219/h) Scribe v2 |
| 10,000 hours | $1,500 ($0.15/h) Universal-2 | $2,199 ($0.22/h) Scribe v2 |
Live audio (streaming)
| Audio a month | AssemblyAI | ElevenLabs Scribe |
|---|---|---|
| 10 hours | $1.50 ($0.15/h) Universal-Streaming | $2.93 ($0.293/h) Scribe v2 Realtime |
| 100 hours | $15 ($0.15/h) Universal-Streaming | $38.03 ($0.38/h) Scribe v2 Realtime |
| 1,000 hours | $150 ($0.15/h) Universal-Streaming | $389 ($0.389/h) Scribe v2 Realtime |
| 10,000 hours | $1,500 ($0.15/h) Universal-Streaming | $3,899 ($0.39/h) Scribe v2 Realtime |
What else changes the bill
| On the bill | AssemblyAI | ElevenLabs Scribe |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier or credit | Sign-up comes with $50 of free credit and no card required; AssemblyAI says that covers up to 185 hours of pre-recorded or 333 hours of streaming transcription. | The Free / pay-as-you-go column of the API price table includes 4 hours 30 minutes of Scribe v2 and 2 hours 30 minutes of Scribe v2 Realtime. |
| Billing | Pre-recorded audio is billed per hour of audio submitted; streaming is billed for the time the connection is open, idle time included. AssemblyAI doesn't state a rounding increment. | ElevenLabs says speech to text is billed per audio minute; it doesn't say how partial minutes are counted. |
| Speaker labels, recorded audio | +$0.02 an hour. | Not listed on the pricing page. |
| Speaker labels, live audio | +$0.12 an hour. | Not listed on the pricing page. |
Every model on each side
AssemblyAI
| Model | Audio | Per minute | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Universal-2 | batch | $0.0025 | $0.15 |
| Universal-3.5 Pro | batch | $0.0035 | $0.21 |
| Sync API | batch | $0.005 | $0.30 |
| Universal-Streaming | streaming | $0.0025 | $0.15 |
| Universal-Streaming Multilingual | streaming | $0.0025 | $0.15 |
| Universal-3.6 Pro Realtime | streaming | $0.0075 | $0.45 |
ElevenLabs Scribe
| Model | Audio | Per minute | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scribe v2 | batch | $0.0037 | $0.22 |
| Scribe v2 Realtime | streaming | $0.0065 | $0.39 |
Full details: AssemblyAI pricing and ElevenLabs speech to text pricing. Compare every vendor in the speech-to-text cost calculator, or see the cheapest speech-to-text API.
Prices on this page were checked against the official pricing pages on .