Whisper API pricing per hour and per minute
OpenAI charges $0.18 to $0.36 an hour for recorded audio ($0.003 to $0.006 a minute) across 5 options (the low end, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe, is an estimate, as it bills tokens), and $1.02 an hour for live audio ($0.017 a minute) across 2 options. No free allowance or credit is listed on OpenAI's pricing page. OpenAI's pricing page doesn't say how partial minutes are counted.
Ranked by each vendor's cheapest option at 100 hours a month, OpenAI comes 4th of 12 for recorded audio (tied with Google Cloud and Azure AI Speech) and last of 10 for live audio.
Prices by model
| Model | Audio | Per minute | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| gpt-transcribe | batch | $0.0045 | $0.27 |
| gpt-4o-mini-transcribe Estimate: Billed in tokens ($1.25 per million input tokens, $5.00 per million output tokens); $0.003 a minute is OpenAI's own estimate. | batch | $0.003 | $0.18 |
| Whisper (whisper-1) | batch | $0.006 | $0.36 |
| gpt-4o-transcribe Estimate: Billed in tokens ($2.50 per million input tokens, $10.00 per million output tokens); $0.006 a minute is OpenAI's own estimate. | batch | $0.006 | $0.36 |
| gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize Estimate: Billed in tokens like gpt-4o-transcribe; $0.006 a minute is OpenAI's own estimate. Labels speakers. | batch | $0.006 | $0.36 |
| gpt-live-transcribe | streaming | $0.017 | $1.02 |
| gpt-realtime-whisper | streaming | $0.017 | $1.02 |
What 10, 100, 1,000 and 10,000 hours a month cost
| Model | 10 hours | 100 hours | 1,000 hours | 10,000 hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| gpt-transcribe batch | $2.70 $0.27/h | $27 $0.27/h | $270 $0.27/h | $2,700 $0.27/h |
| gpt-4o-mini-transcribe batch | $1.80 $0.18/h | $18 $0.18/h | $180 $0.18/h | $1,800 $0.18/h |
| Whisper (whisper-1) batch | $3.60 $0.36/h | $36 $0.36/h | $360 $0.36/h | $3,600 $0.36/h |
| gpt-4o-transcribe batch | $3.60 $0.36/h | $36 $0.36/h | $360 $0.36/h | $3,600 $0.36/h |
| gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize batch | $3.60 $0.36/h | $36 $0.36/h | $360 $0.36/h | $3,600 $0.36/h |
| gpt-live-transcribe streaming | $10.20 $1.02/h | $102 $1.02/h | $1,020 $1.02/h | $10,200 $1.02/h |
| gpt-realtime-whisper streaming | $10.20 $1.02/h | $102 $1.02/h | $1,020 $1.02/h | $10,200 $1.02/h |
Regular prices. One-off credits and promotions aren't counted.
Free tier and credits
No free allowance or credit is listed on OpenAI's pricing page.
Billing
- OpenAI's pricing page doesn't say how partial minutes are counted.
- Uploaded files can be up to 25 MB.
Add-ons
| Feature | Audio | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Speaker diarization | batch | No separate price Through the separate gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize model, at the same estimated $0.006 a minute as gpt-4o-transcribe. |
Quick answers
How much does the Whisper API cost per minute?
Whisper (whisper-1) costs $0.006 a minute, which is $0.36 an hour of audio. OpenAI's other transcription models cost $0.003 to $0.017 a minute.
How much does the Whisper API cost per hour?
$0.18 to $0.36 an hour for recorded audio, and $1.02 an hour for live audio, at regular pay-as-you-go prices.
What do 100 hours of audio a month cost on OpenAI?
$18 for recorded audio on gpt-4o-mini-transcribe (an estimate, as it bills tokens), or $102 for live audio on gpt-live-transcribe.
Does OpenAI have a free tier?
No free allowance or credit is listed on OpenAI's pricing page.
Does OpenAI bill per second?
OpenAI's pricing page doesn't say how partial minutes are counted.
Is anything cheaper than OpenAI for recorded audio?
Yes: at 100 hours a month, 3 of the 11 other vendors we price cost less: Groq Whisper Large V3 Turbo at $0.04 an hour, Speechmatics Melia 1 at $0.12 an hour and AssemblyAI Universal-2 at $0.15 an hour.
Is anything cheaper than OpenAI for live audio?
Yes: at 100 hours a month, all 9 other vendors we price cost less. The cheapest is AssemblyAI Universal-Streaming at $0.15 an hour.
OpenAI against the market: recorded audio
| # | Vendor and option | Per month | Per hour | Per minute |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Groq Whisper Large V3 Turbo | $4 | $0.04 | $0.0007 |
| 2 | Speechmatics Melia 1 | $12 | $0.12 | $0.002 |
| 3 | AssemblyAI Universal-2 | $15 | $0.15 | $0.0025 |
| 4 | OpenAI gpt-4o-mini-transcribe | $18 | $0.18 | $0.003 |
| 4 | Google Cloud V2 dynamic batch | $18 | $0.18 | $0.003 |
| 4 | Azure AI Speech Batch transcription | $18 | $0.18 | $0.003 |
| 7 | Rev AI Reverb (English) | $20 | $0.20 | $0.0033 |
| 8 | ElevenLabs Scribe v2 | $21.01 | $0.21 | $0.0035 |
| 9 | Deepgram Nova-3 Monolingual | $25.80 | $0.258 | $0.0043 |
| 10 | Gemini API Gemini 3.5 Transcribe | $30.60 | $0.306 | $0.0051 |
| 11 | Amazon Transcribe Standard | $36 | $0.36 | $0.006 |
| 12 | Gladia Starter (async) | $61 | $0.61 | $0.0102 |
OpenAI against the market: live audio
| # | Vendor and option | Per month | Per hour | Per minute |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AssemblyAI Universal-Streaming | $15 | $0.15 | $0.0025 |
| 2 | Speechmatics Linden 1 (voice agents) | $20 | $0.20 | $0.0033 |
| 3 | ElevenLabs Scribe v2 Realtime | $38.03 | $0.38 | $0.0063 |
| 4 | Deepgram Nova-3 Monolingual | $46.20 | $0.462 | $0.0077 |
| 5 | Gemini API Gemini 3.5 Transcribe Live | $53.55 | $0.536 | $0.0089 |
| 6 | Amazon Transcribe Standard | $60 | $0.60 | $0.01 |
| 7 | Gladia Starter (real-time) | $75 | $0.75 | $0.0125 |
| 8 | Google Cloud V1 with data logging | $95.04 | $0.95 | $0.0158 |
| 9 | Azure AI Speech Real-time transcription | $100 | $1 | $0.0167 |
| 10 | OpenAI gpt-live-transcribe | $102 | $1.02 | $0.017 |
Price your own monthly hours with the speech-to-text cost calculator, or see the cheapest speech-to-text API.
Head to head: Deepgram vs Whisper API, AssemblyAI vs Whisper API, AWS Transcribe vs Whisper API, Google Speech-to-Text vs Whisper API, Azure Speech to Text vs Whisper API, Groq Whisper vs OpenAI Whisper, ElevenLabs Scribe vs Whisper API.
Generating speech instead? See OpenAI text-to-speech pricing.
Sources
Read on 6 October 2026:
- developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing.md (plain HTTP; OpenAI's Markdown version of its pricing page, which lists every transcription model)
- developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing (plain HTTP; the HTML page's default view omits Whisper and gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize)
- developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/whisper-1.md (plain HTTP)
- developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/gpt-transcribe.md (plain HTTP)
- developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/gpt-live-transcribe.md (plain HTTP)
- developers.openai.com/api/docs/guides/speech-to-text.md (plain HTTP)
Show the quoted text
Transcription models Prices per 1M tokens unless noted. ### Grouped Pricing Table data | Model | Use case | Input | Output | Estimated cost |
developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing.md
| gpt-transcribe | Transcription | - | - | $0.0045 / minute |
developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing.md
### Transcription audio duration | Metric | Price | Unit | | --- | ---: | --- | | Price | $0.0045 | minute |
developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/gpt-transcribe.md
| gpt-4o-transcribe | Transcription | $2.50 | $10.00 | $0.006 / minute |
developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing.md
| gpt-4o-mini-transcribe | Transcription | $1.25 | $5.00 | $0.003 / minute |
developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing.md
| gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize | Transcription + diarization | $2.50 | $10.00 | $0.006 / minute |
developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing.md
| Whisper | Transcription | - | - | $0.006 / minute |
developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing.md
| Cost | $0.006 | minute |
developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/whisper-1.md
| gpt-live-transcribe | Live transcription | - | - | $0.017 / minute |
developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing.md
| Price | $0.017 | minute |
developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/gpt-live-transcribe.md
| gpt-realtime-whisper | Live transcription | - | - | $0.017 / minute |
developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing.md
Files can be up to 25 MB.
developers.openai.com/api/docs/guides/speech-to-text.md
Prices on this page were checked against the official pricing pages on .