---
tool: "AssemblyAI"
slug: "assemblyai"
category: "Voice Agents & Speech/Audio"
pricing_model: "Per Usage"
pricing_transparency: "Public"
entry_price_monthly: 0
entry_price_annual: 0
annual_discount_pct: 0
native_currency: "USD"
free_plan_available: false
free_trial_days: null
enterprise_pricing_available: false
number_of_plans: 6
key_limit_metric: null
last_checked_date: "2026-09-20"
last_manually_verified: null
verification_status: "Pending Review"
vendor_pricing_page: "https://assemblyai.com/pricing"
vendor_website: "https://assemblyai.com"
source: https://saaspricehub.io/tools/assemblyai
---

# 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.

## Current entry price

**$0/month** billed monthly. **$0/month** billed annually.

## All tiers

| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Key limit |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Pay-as-you-go: Universal-2 (async) | $0 | $0 | $0.15/hr, $50 free credit to start |
| Pay-as-you-go: Universal-3.5 Pro (async) | $0 | $0 | $0.21/hr |
| Streaming (Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime) | $0 | $0 | $0.45/hr |
| Sync API | $0 | $0 | $0.45/hr |
| Voice Agent API | $0 | $0 | $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 | — | — | — |

## Pricing model

- **Model:** Per Usage
- **Key limit metric:** Not specified
- **Free plan:** No
- **Free trial:** No separate trial
- **Enterprise pricing:** Not offered
- **Native currency:** USD

## Verification

- **Last automated check:** 2026-09-20
- **Last manual verification:** Not manually verified
- **Verification status:** Pending Review
- **Source:** https://assemblyai.com/pricing

## Recommendation

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.

## Alternative to consider

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

## Vendor context

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.

---

*Pricing data maintained by SaaS Price Hub. Human-readable page: [https://saaspricehub.io/tools/assemblyai](https://saaspricehub.io/tools/assemblyai). All prices in USD unless otherwise noted. This file is machine-readable and updated within 24 hours of any tracked price change.*