Does AssemblyAI have a free tier or trial?

Yes. AssemblyAI has a Pay-as-you-go: Universal-2 (async) tier — $0.15/hr, $50 free credit to start. Usage beyond that cap is billed at the standard per usage rate.

Is AssemblyAI priced per seat or per usage?

AssemblyAI is priced per usage. There is no fixed seat fee — you are billed per credit consumed.

How does AssemblyAI pricing compare to alternatives?

See side-by-side comparisons with Real-time voice agents and Fireflies or Otter on saaspricehub.io. Note that AssemblyAI bills on usage, so total cost depends on volume rather than seat count — normalise both tools to your expected monthly usage before comparing.

Has AssemblyAI changed its pricing recently?

No pricing changes recorded in the last 6 months of tracking.

Back to Voice Agents & Speech/Audio

Voice Agents & Speech/AudioPublicPrices verified September 20, 2026

AssemblyAI

AssemblyAI · Voice Agents & Speech/Audio

Speech AI platform for developers — long-form audio transcription, speaker diarization, and Universal-2 speech understanding models. Usage-based pricing: Best model at $0.37/hr audio, Nano tier at $0.12/hr. Pay-as-you-go with $50 free credit. Popular with podcast platforms, meeting recorders, and companies building on top of long-form audio.

In other words, AssemblyAI is worth it for developers processing long-form audio at scale — podcasts, recorded meetings, call recordings. The per-hour pricing works out cheaper than Deepgram for batch transcription (as opposed to real-time streaming). Universal-2 model quality is competitive with Whisper Large-V3. Downside: not the fastest for real-time streaming (Deepgram wins there), and text-to-speech is not their focus.

📈 See price history Visit website

Pricing summary

Starting price

$0 / month

No monthly fees

Pricing model

Per Usage

Pay as you go

Key limit

Varies by plan

Depends on tier

Additional fees

Varies

2026-09-20 auto-check: MODEL LINEUP RESTRUCTURED — flagged for human review rather than auto-verified. Our record listed 'Best model $0.37/hr, Nano $0.12/hr'. Neither of those model names appears in current vendor pricing. As of July 2026 the lineup is Universal-2 async at $0.15/hr and Universal-3.5 Pro async at $0.21/hr, with Streaming and Sync API both $0.45/hr and a flat $4.50/hr Voice Agent API. The 'Nano' budget model appears to have been retired. Rates sourced from the vendor's own pages (assemblyai.com/pricing, assemblyai.com/blog/speech-to-text-api-pricing, assemblyai.com/docs/faq/how-does-pricing-work) plus costbench.com. Tier text updated because vendor-primary sourcing is strong, but Verification Status set to Pending Review because this is a lineup change, not a like-for-like price match — a human should confirm Nano's retirement and whether the old $0.37/hr 'Best' model maps to Universal-3.5 Pro. Entry Price Monthly stays $0 (pure usage-based), so the age-based delta threshold did not trigger. NO snapshot rows written: there is no publicly-priced monthly subscription tier to plot.

Free trial

Not applicable

Pricing verified for United States.View full pricing details on AssemblyAI's website

Machine-readable pricing: pricing.md ↓

See all tracked changes →

Alternatives to consider

Real-time voice agents? Deepgram or Vapi. Text-to-speech-first? ElevenLabs. Just need meeting summaries? Fireflies or Otter.

All plans

See a plain-English answer to “How much does AssemblyAI cost?” →

Plan	Monthly	Annual	Key limit
Pay-as-you-go: Universal-2 (async)	Free	Free	$0.15/hr, $50 free credit to start
Pay-as-you-go: Universal-3.5 Pro (async)	Free	Free	$0.21/hr
Streaming (Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime)	Free	Free	$0.45/hr
Sync API	Free	Free	$0.45/hr
Voice Agent API	Free	Free	$4.50/hr flat
Enterprise	Custom	Custom	volume pricing, dedicated support, private deployment
Add-ons: speaker diarization +$0.02/hr async, keyterms prompting +$0.05/hr, Medical Mode +$0.15/hr	—	—	—

All tier prices verified September 20, 2026 · View source →

View price history →

Price history

Price tracking is just getting started for AssemblyAI. Full history will build as we log changes. See what we have so far →

Common questions about AssemblyAI

Is AssemblyAI worth it?: AssemblyAI is worth it for developers processing long-form audio at scale — podcasts, recorded meetings, call recordings. The per-hour pricing works out cheaper than Deepgram for batch transcription (as opposed to real-time streaming).
What are the pricing tiers of AssemblyAI?: AssemblyAI has 7 plans: Pay-as-you-go: Universal-2 (async) (free), Pay-as-you-go: Universal-3.5 Pro (async) (free), Streaming (Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime) (free), Sync API (free), Voice Agent API (free), Enterprise (custom), Add-ons: speaker diarization +$0.02/hr async, keyterms prompting +$0.05/hr, Medical Mode +$0.15/hr (free).
How is AssemblyAI priced — per usage or subscription?: AssemblyAI is priced per usage. You pay for what you consume, not per seat.

Frequently asked questions

About AssemblyAI pricing.

Speech AI platform for developers — long-form audio transcription, speaker diarization, and Universal-2 speech understanding models. Usage-based pricing: Best model at $0.37/hr audio, Nano tier at $0.12/hr. Pay-as-you-go with $50 free credit. Popular with podcast platforms, meeting recorders, and companies building on top of long-form audio. Real all-in cost may be higher depending on downstream models, telephony, or storage — see the full pricing breakdown on this page.