AssemblyAI pricing: per-hour speech-to-text, streaming and add-ons
Checked Nov 6, 2026 on AssemblyAI’s official pages (sources below). Prices change often: confirm with the provider before you buy.
AssemblyAI sells speech-to-text models for pre-recorded files and live streams, speech-understanding add-ons, an LLM gateway and, since 2026, a text-to-speech API. Transcription bills per hour of audio, pay as you go, with custom rates on contract.
Figures below are quoted from assemblyai.com/pricing, checked Nov 6, 2026. The free tier needs no card and includes up to 185 hours of pre-recorded and 333 hours of streaming transcription, per the page’s FAQ.
Speech-to-text models (pay as you go)
- Pre-recorded
- ModelUniversal-3.5 Pro (18 languages)
- Price$0.21 / hr
- Pre-recorded
- ModelUniversal-2 (99 languages)
- Price$0.15 / hr
- Realtime
- ModelUniversal-3.6 Pro Realtime (32 languages)
- Price$0.45 / hr
- Realtime
- ModelUniversal-Streaming (English)
- Price$0.15 / hr
- Realtime
- ModelUniversal-Streaming Multilingual
- Price$0.15 / hr
- Sync (single call, up to 20 min)
- ModelUniversal-3.5 Pro
- Price$0.30 / hr
- Dictation API
- ModelBuilt on Universal-3.5 Pro
- Price$0.62 / hr, all features included
Common add-ons (per hour of audio)
- Speaker diarization
- Pre-recorded$0.02
- Realtime$0.12
- Keyterms prompting
- Pre-recorded$0.05 on Universal-3.5 Pro; included on Universal-2
- RealtimeIncluded on 3.6 Pro Realtime; $0.04 on Universal-Streaming
- Medical mode
- Pre-recorded$0.15
- Realtime$0.15
- PII text redaction
- Pre-recorded$0.08 (Guardrails)
- Realtime$0.12
- Summarization
- Pre-recorded$0.02 low effort; $0.07 medium
- Realtime—
Text-to-speech: AssemblyAI-TTS-1 at $15 per 1M characters, billed on input characters; cloned voices and EU processing cost the same.
Estimating a bill
Add the model rate and every add-on you enable, per hour of audio. For example, Universal-2 ($0.15/hr) with speaker diarization ($0.02/hr) is $0.17 per hour of pre-recorded audio at list price. Streaming concurrency scales automatically at no extra fee per AssemblyAI’s FAQ. For a per-minute view against Deepgram see Deepgram vs AssemblyAI.
AssemblyAI pricing FAQ
How much does AssemblyAI cost per hour?
On assemblyai.com/pricing (Nov 6, 2026): Universal-2 pre-recorded $0.15/hr, Universal-3.5 Pro $0.21/hr, Universal-Streaming $0.15/hr and Universal-3.6 Pro Realtime $0.45/hr, pay as you go.
Does AssemblyAI have a free tier?
Yes. Its pricing FAQ says you can start with no credit card, and the free tier includes up to 185 hours of pre-recorded and up to 333 hours of streaming transcription.
What does speaker diarization cost on AssemblyAI?
$0.02 per hour on pre-recorded audio and $0.12 per hour on realtime streams.
Sources (official pages, read Nov 6, 2026)
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