Pay-as-you-go transcription: buy hours once
Plenty of people don’t transcribe every week. If your work comes in bursts, a conference one month and nothing the next, buy a pack of hours and use them over a year. Nothing renews, and there’s no plan to remember to cancel.
Transcribe a recording
Launching November 2026
The three hour packs
| Pack | Price | Cost per hour of audio |
|---|---|---|
| 5 hours | $5 | $1 an hour |
| 20 hours | $15 | $0.75 an hour |
| 60 hours | $35 | about $0.58 an hour on the 60-hour pack |
Pack time counts the length of each recording, so a 25-minute interview uses 25 minutes of your balance. Hours expire 12 months after you buy the pack. Buy a second pack while the first still has time and each keeps its own expiry date.
Cost per hour across services
Services price machine transcription in different ways, including packs, per-minute rates and extra hours on subscriptions. Their prices below come from each company’s own pricing page; follow the link for the current figure.
| Service | Rate as published | Per hour of audio | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Textspert 60-hour pack | $35 for 60 hours | about $0.58 on the 60-hour pack | Textspert pricing |
| Rev AI transcription | $0.25 a minute | $15 | rev.com/services/ai-transcription |
| Sonix Core subscription | $25 a month for 5 hours; $10 per extra hour | $10 per extra hour, plus the plan | sonix.ai/pricing |
| Happy Scribe extra credits | $0.20 a minute, on paid plans only | $12, plus the plan | happyscribe.com/pricing |
Say you have 40 hours of interviews this spring. Two 20-hour packs cost $30, or one 60-hour pack costs $35 and leaves 20 hours for autumn.
The gap comes from how the work is done. We run open speech models on our own GPU servers instead of paying another company per minute, and that saving is what lets a pack cost a fraction of a per-minute rate.
What pack hours include, and what they leave out
- No daily file limit: Free’s 3-files-a-day cap doesn’t apply while you have pack hours.
- Files of up to 10 hours and 5 GB each, and up to 50 uploads at a time.
- Paid priority in the queue, ahead of Free files.
- AI summaries, chapters and action items with no daily cap.
- Speaker labels, the editor and every export format, same as every plan.
Packs don’t include translation, Transcribe to English, chat with a transcript or bulk ZIP export. Those come with Unlimited, $20 a month or $10 a month billed yearly, with fair use up to 720 hours a month.
When a subscription costs less
Do the sum on a normal month. Below about 17 hours of audio a month, packs come out cheaper than yearly Unlimited. Above that, Unlimited wins on price and adds translation and chat.
Add up last quarter
Total what you transcribed over three months and divide by three.
Check for spikes
One heavy month and two quiet ones favors packs, because unused hours carry over for a year.
Count the extras
Translation or chat every week means the subscription, the only option that has them.
Start small
If you’re unsure, the 5-hour pack is a cheap test. Move to a bigger pack or a plan later.
Billing with no surprises
- The Free plan never asks for a card, so nothing gets charged by accident.
- A pack is a single charge. It never renews and there’s nothing to cancel.
- If a pack purchase is refunded, its unused hours go with it.
- A subscription can be canceled any time, and you keep access until the end of the period you paid for.
Every limit, including fair use and the 4-speaker cap, is on the pricing page. To try the editor before spending anything, start with free transcription.
Pay-as-you-go questions
Do pack hours expire?
Yes, 12 months after you buy the pack. Each pack keeps its own date.
Is there a per-minute price?
No. You buy hours in packs, and each recording uses its own length from the balance.
What happens to the Free plan’s limits when I have hours?
Pack hours replace them. With hours on your account, files can run 10 hours and the 3-a-day limit goes away.
Do packs include translation?
No. Translation and Transcribe to English are part of Unlimited.
Will a pack charge me again next month?
No. A pack is paid once. Buy another only when you want more hours.
Are pack transcripts lower quality than a subscription’s?
No. Every plan uses the same speech models and settings. The private transcription page explains how we keep files private.
Before you buy hours
- PricingFree, subscriptions, and one-time hour packs.
- Free transcription3 files a day, up to 60 minutes each, with speaker labels and every export format.
- CompareTextspert next to TurboScribe, Otter, Rev, Descript and more, with sources.
- Private transcriptionYour files, sharing and deletion stay in your control.
Compare plans on the pricing page, or read our short privacy promises.
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Launching November 2026. Be first to hear when Textspert opens.
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