Speech-to-text APIs · Comparison

Amazon Transcribe vs AssemblyAI

2 products compared side by side: what you pay for with each one first, then the five access facts, entry prices, recorded plan limits and the bottom line of each review. The evidence note under the table says how each product was checked.

Side by side

Amazon Transcribe vs AssemblyAI: value, access facts, plan limits and bottom lines
Metric	Amazon Transcribe	AssemblyAI
What you're paying for	Built-in reachTranscription inside your AWS account at $0.006 a minute for batch, with speaker labels, custom vocabulary and language identification in the rate.	Compliance includedA transcription API whose BAA, training opt-out and retention controls are self-serve on paid accounts, with diarized batch audio from $0.17 an hour.
Overall score	7.0	8.4Best
Free option	Free trial	Free trial
Card to start	–Not measured	No card needed
Getting access	Self-serve	Self-serve
Starter priceCheapest paid plan	$0.006/min	$0.15/hr
Pricing model	Usage-based	Usage-based
Pricing page	Public prices	Public prices
Billing unit	Per second, no minimum; two channels at no extra charge	Per second of pre-recorded audio; streaming by session time, idle included; multichannel per channel
Free credit	60 minutes a month for 12 months	$50 at sign-up, no card, does not expire
Streaming rate	$0.01/min ($0.60/h)	Universal-Streaming $0.15/h; Universal-3.6 Pro Realtime $0.45/h
Diarization	Included in batch and streaming, up to 30 speakers	Batch +$0.02/h; streaming +$0.12/h (beta in the docs)
Languages	About 90 languages across 113 language rows (our count)	99 on Universal-2; 18 on Universal-3.5 Pro
Training on your audio	By default; opt out with an AWS Organizations policy	By default; paid accounts opt out online, free accounts cannot
HIPAA BAA	Accepted in AWS Artifact	Signed online at no cost on paid plans
EU processing	Six EU regions for batch, four for streaming	EU endpoint for batch and streaming, same price as US
Self-hosted	Not offered	Streaming only, $20,000 upfront commitment
SOC 2 / ISO 27001	SOC 1, 2 and 3 and ISO 27001 (AWS Artifact)	SOC 2 Type 2; ISO 27001:2022
Console SSO	IAM Identity Center, no extra charge	SAML/OIDC add-on, $199/month per connection
Bottom line	From its public pages, Amazon Transcribe is the simple choice inside AWS: flat per-minute rates with the main features included and self-serve compliance paperwork. Voice inputs are used to improve the service unless your organization opts out.	From its public pages, AssemblyAI combines the lowest 500-hour price here with compliance controls you switch on yourself: a BAA, a training opt-out and retention as short as an hour. A few add-on prices differ between its pages.

Evidence: Amazon Transcribe: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; AssemblyAI: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.

When to pick each

In the words of each review, with the date its facts were checked.

From our Amazon Transcribe review
Checked Oct 16, 2026
Pick Amazon Transcribe when
You already run on AWS and want IAM, CloudTrail and S3 integration with no extra vendor account.
Pick AssemblyAI when
You want a lower 500-hour price ($85 a month, computed), retention you set yourself and a $50 credit.

Entry price

Baseline: each product's cheapest paid plan, per month. Included usage differs, so read the line under each price.

Amazon Transcribe
Standard batch
$0.006/min
Flat, US East; billed per second
- Diarization, custom vocabulary and language identification included
- Up to two channels included
- SRT and WebVTT subtitles
AssemblyAI
Universal-2, pre-recorded
$0.15/hr
Billed per second; 99 languages
- Diarization +$0.02/h
- Keyterm prompting included (pricing page)
- PII redaction +$0.08/h
- Word timestamps and confidence included

Prices as listed on each pricing page, in USD per month, excluding tax. Observed: Amazon Transcribe 2026-10-16, AssemblyAI 2026-10-16.

Which one fits

If you need to start today without a sales call: AssemblyAISelf-serve sign-up, no card needed; the highest score of the 2 self-serve products here (8.4/10).
If you want to try it without entering a card: AssemblyAIFree trial, no card needed; scored 8.4/10.
Highest overall score: AssemblyAI8.4/10 (Excellent). The review shows the score breakdown and the run behind it.

Picked by fixed rules from the table above, not by hand. How we score

Full reviews

Add a product

Search by product name or by what it does, such as “email” or “feature flags”. 2 more fit in this comparison.