AI Transcription Providers

Choose the right transcription provider for your workflow

Feature
Local Free
Soniox Streaming
Groq Pro
AssemblyAI Real-time
OpenAI Pro
Model faster-whisper base stt-rt-preview Whisper Large v3 Universal Streaming GPT-4o Transcribe
Speed ~1.2s avg Real-time (~200ms) ~0.9s avg Real-time (~300ms) ~1.8s avg
Accuracy Good Very Good Very Good Very Good Excellent
Languages 100+ English 100+ 6 (EN, ES, FR, DE, IT, PT) 100+
Cost Free Included with Pro 30 min/day, then Groq fallback or unlimited with your own key Included with Pro Unlimited $0.15/hr (~$0.0025/min) $0.36/hr (~$0.006/min)
Internet Not required Required Required Required Required
Privacy 100% on-device Audio sent to Soniox Audio sent to Groq Audio sent to AssemblyAI Audio sent to OpenAI
API Key Not needed Not needed Optional for unlimited Not needed Required (free tier available) Required (billing needed)
Plan Free Pro ($69/yr) Pro ($69/yr) Pro ($69/yr) Pro ($69/yr)

What will it cost you?

With Pro ($69/year), Soniox streaming (30 min/day) and Groq cloud are included. Free trial includes 10 min/day Soniox for 3 days. AssemblyAI and OpenAI are available with your own API key (BYOK).

Light User

50 clips/day, ~8 min

  • Local $0/month
  • Soniox (Pro) Included
  • Groq (Pro) Included
  • AssemblyAI ~$0.60/month
  • OpenAI ~$1.44/month

Moderate User

100 clips/day, ~17 min

  • Local $0/month
  • Soniox (Pro) Included
  • Groq (Pro) Included
  • AssemblyAI ~$1.28/month
  • OpenAI ~$3.06/month

Heavy User

200 clips/day, ~33 min

  • Local $0/month
  • Soniox (Pro) Included
  • Groq (Pro) Included
  • AssemblyAI ~$2.48/month
  • OpenAI ~$5.94/month

Get started in 2 minutes

Streaming

Soniox Setup

Text appears as you speak — included with Pro

  1. 1 Open Voiceavel and go to Settings
  2. 2 Navigate to Provider
  3. 3 Select Soniox (Streaming)
  4. 4 That's it! No API key needed.

30 min/day of streaming included with Pro (10 min/day during free trial). Auto-falls back to Groq when the daily cap is reached. Resets at midnight. English only.

Advanced: Use your own Soniox API key
  1. 1. Create an account at soniox.com
  2. 2. Go to your Dashboard → Copy your API key
  3. 3. In Voiceavel: Settings → API Key → paste your key
  4. 4. Daily cap is removed — unlimited streaming

Soniox pricing: $0.10/hr (~$0.0017/min). Your own key = no daily cap, billed directly by Soniox.

Recommended

Groq Setup

Groq transcription is included with your Pro license

  1. 1 Open Voiceavel and go to Settings
  2. 2 Navigate to Provider
  3. 3 Select Cloud (Voiceavel) to use our bundled Groq
  4. 4 That's it! No API key needed.
Advanced: Use your own Groq API key
  1. 1. Create an account at console.groq.com
  2. 2. Go to API Keys → Create API Key
  3. 3. Copy your key (starts with gsk_)
  4. 4. In Voiceavel: Settings → Provider → Groq
  5. 5. Paste your key and enable
Real-time

AssemblyAI Setup

Text appears as you speak (~300ms latency)

  1. 1 Create an account at assemblyai.com
  2. 2 Go to Dashboard → Copy your API key
  3. 3 In Voiceavel: Settings → Provider → AssemblyAI (Real-time)
  4. 4 Settings → API Key → paste your key

$50 free credit included. Streaming supports: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese.

OpenAI Setup

Best accuracy for complex speech

  1. 1 Create an account at platform.openai.com
  2. 2 Add billing (Settings → Billing → Add payment)
  3. 3 Go to API Keys → Create new secret key
  4. 4 Copy your key (starts with sk-)
  5. 5 In Voiceavel: Settings → Provider → OpenAI
  6. 6 Settings → API Key → paste your key
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