Transcription Pricing Compared (2026): ScribeToAny vs Otter, Rev, Sonix and HappyScribe
What 10 or 30 hours of file transcription a month costs on Otter.ai, Rev, Sonix, HappyScribe and ScribeToAny — cost per hour, free plans and limits (Oct 2026).
Transcription tools love to advertise a monthly price, but the monthly price tells you very little. What matters is how many hours of audio that price covers, and whether the plan lets you upload the files you actually have. Two tools at the same $20 can differ tenfold in what you get.
So instead of comparing sticker prices, this post works out what a real workload costs on five tools: Otter.ai, Rev, Sonix, HappyScribe and ScribeToAny (ours — we'll be upfront about where the others are the better choice). Every number comes from each vendor's public pricing page, last checked on October 17, 2026; links are at the end. Prices change, so treat this as a snapshot and check the vendor's page before you buy.
Updated October 17, 2026: HappyScribe now publishes its prices in US dollars instead of euros, and Sonix added an Advanced plan ($50 a month for 20 hours), which is now its cheapest way to cover the 10-hour workload below. Otter.ai and Rev were unchanged.
One scoping note: this is about transcribing recorded files — interviews, lectures, podcasts, videos. Live meeting bots are a different job, covered under "When another tool is the better choice" below.
To price your own workload instead of the two examples below, use the transcription cost calculator: enter hours, files and your longest recording, and it picks the cheapest plan on each tool.
Cost per hour of audio
Each row is a plan that includes file uploads: its price divided by the hours of transcription it includes each month.
| Tool and plan | Price | Included per month | Cost per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| ScribeToAny Plus | $10/mo · $88/yr | 25 h (1,500 min) | $0.40 · $0.29 yearly |
| ScribeToAny Pro | $20/mo · $120/yr | 50 h (3,000 min) | $0.40 · $0.20 yearly |
| Rev Essentials | $29.99/mo · $305.90/yr | 83 h (5,000 min) | $0.36 · $0.31 yearly |
| Otter.ai Pro | $16.99/mo · $99.96/yr | 20 h (1,200 min), max 10 file imports | $0.85 · $0.42 yearly |
| HappyScribe Business | $89/mo · $708/yr | 100 h (6,000 min) | $0.89 · $0.59 yearly |
| HappyScribe Pro | $29/mo · $228/yr | 10 h (600 min) | $2.90 · $1.90 yearly |
| HappyScribe Basic | $17/mo · $102/yr | 2 h (120 min) | $8.50 · $4.25 yearly |
| Sonix Pro | $80/mo · $880/yr | 40 h | $2.00 · $1.83 yearly |
| Sonix Advanced | $50/mo · $550/yr | 20 h | $2.50 · $2.29 yearly |
| Sonix Core | $25/mo · $275/yr | 5 h | $5.00 · $4.58 yearly |
| Sonix pay-as-you-go | $10 per hour | — | $10.00 |
Extra time costs $0.20 a minute ($12 an hour) on any HappyScribe plan and $10 an hour on any Sonix plan.
Two things stand out. Per hour, Rev Essentials is slightly cheaper than ScribeToAny on monthly billing ($0.36 vs $0.40; on yearly billing ScribeToAny is cheaper) — but it starts at $29.99 and covers English and Spanish only; you need Rev Pro ($59.99/mo) for its 37+ languages. And Otter's 1,200 minutes are capped at 10 imported files a month on Pro, so if your work is uploading recordings rather than recording meetings, the file cap runs out long before the minutes do. HappyScribe and Sonix get much cheaper per hour on their bigger plans, but only if you use most of those hours.
What a real month costs
Cost per hour hides the jumps between plans, so here are two concrete workloads, priced on monthly billing (yearly in brackets).
10 hours of recordings a month
Ten one-hour interviews, or twenty 30-minute lectures.
| Tool | Plan you'd need | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| ScribeToAny | Plus (1,500 min) | $10 ($7.33) |
| Otter.ai | Pro — fits only if it's ≤ 10 files | $16.99 ($8.33) |
| HappyScribe | Pro (600 min) | $29 ($19) |
| Rev | Essentials | $29.99 ($25.49) |
| Sonix | Advanced (20 h) | $50 ($45.83) |
With twenty 30-minute lectures instead of ten interviews, Otter Pro's 10-file cap rules it out and you'd need Otter Business at $30 ($19.99).
30 hours of recordings a month
A research project, a weekly podcast back catalogue, or a course's lectures.
| Tool | Plan you'd need | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| ScribeToAny | Plus + a $5 pack of 300 minutes (yearly: Pro, 3,000 min) | $15 ($10) |
| Rev | Essentials (5,000 min) | $29.99 ($25.49) |
| Otter.ai | Business — Pro stops at 1,200 min and 10 files | $30 ($19.99) |
| Sonix | Pro (40 h) | $80 ($73.33) |
| HappyScribe | Business (6,000 min) | $89 ($59) |
On monthly billing, exactly 30 hours is cheapest as Plus (25 hours) plus a one-time $5 minute pack for the last 5 hours. Much above that, Pro ($20 for 50 hours) is the better buy.
At 30 hours, the gap with Sonix and HappyScribe is several-fold. Rev and Otter Business come closest, at roughly $20–30 a month against ScribeToAny's $10–15 — and Otter Business is a per-user plan built for meetings rather than file uploads.
Free plans: what you can actually do before paying
| Tool | Free allowance | Longest file | Exports on free |
|---|---|---|---|
| ScribeToAny | 100 min every month, 2 files/day | 30 min | All 8: TXT, SRT, VTT, TSV, CSV, JSON, PDF, DOCX |
| Otter.ai | 300 min/month, but 3 file imports in total | 30 min | TXT, MP3 |
| Rev | 45 min/month, English only | not listed | not listed |
| HappyScribe | 10-minute one-time trial | 45 min | TXT, SRT, DOCX; MP4 with watermark |
| Sonix | 30-minute one-time trial | not listed | not listed |
ScribeToAny's free plan is smaller than Otter's on paper, but it renews every month, has no lifetime import cap, and includes speaker labels and every export format — so you can test your real files, in the format you need, before paying anything. No credit card is required.
Limits that change the math
- File length. ScribeToAny paid plans take files up to 6 hours (5 GB). Otter Pro stops at 90 minutes per conversation and HappyScribe Basic at 90 minutes per recording; long recordings would need splitting there.
- Languages. ScribeToAny transcribes about 98 languages on every plan, free included, and can transcribe non-English audio straight into English. Otter supports 6 languages; Rev Essentials 2 (37+ on Pro); Sonix 54+; HappyScribe 150+.
- Parallel work. ScribeToAny paid plans transcribe 6 files at once, with no daily upload limit.
- Translation. Finished ScribeToAny transcripts can be translated into 134+ languages for free (via Google Translate), keeping the original subtitle timings.
When another tool is the better choice
Cheaper isn't better if the tool doesn't do the job. Pick one of the others if:
- You need live meeting notes. Otter joins Zoom, Teams and Google Meet and transcribes in real time. ScribeToAny transcribes recordings you upload; it doesn't join calls.
- You need human-verified transcripts. Rev offers human transcription at $1.99/min with 99%+ accuracy, and legal transcript formats — useful for court and compliance work. ScribeToAny is machine transcription only; see how accurate AI transcription really is for what to expect.
- You need a rare language or professional subtitling. HappyScribe covers 150+ languages, exports 15+ formats on Pro and Business, and sells human proofreading from $2.00/min plus professional subtitling.
- You're a team that lives in a shared workspace. Sonix is built around multi-seat workspaces and AI analysis of transcripts.
- You transcribe more than about 55 hours a month. ScribeToAny Pro includes 3,000 minutes (50 hours); past that you add minute packs, and from roughly 55 hours Rev Essentials ($29.99 for 5,000 minutes, English and Spanish) or Otter Business ($30 for 6,000 imported minutes) costs less. At 80 hours, for example, ScribeToAny is $40 a month against Rev's $29.99.
The short version
If your work is uploading recordings — interviews, lectures, podcasts, videos — and you transcribe somewhere between a few hours and 50 hours a month, ScribeToAny is the lowest-cost way to do it among these five: $10 a month covers 25 hours, $20 covers 50, with 6-hour files, ~98 languages and every export format. You can try it on your own files with the free plan, no card needed.
Sources
Prices and limits as published on each vendor's pricing page on October 17, 2026 (first published September 23, 2026). All prices are in US dollars, as each vendor publishes them. Yearly cost per hour divides the yearly price by 12 months of included time. The monthly costs match what the transcription cost calculator works out for the same workload.
- Otter.ai — otter.ai/pricing
- Rev — rev.com/pricing
- Sonix — sonix.ai/pricing
- HappyScribe — happyscribe.com/pricing
- ScribeToAny — scribetoany.com/pricing
Otter.ai, Rev, Sonix and HappyScribe are trademarks of their respective owners. This comparison is independent and not endorsed by any of them. Spotted a number that's changed? Tell us and we'll update it.