It's not hard to find AI transcription software—the market is saturated with it. But it is hard to figure out which one to use. Most transcription tools are neck-and-neck in accuracy, so it's the additional features (and cost) that distinguish them.
I spent several weeks testing various AI transcription apps to understand their strengths and weaknesses and figure out who they'd work best for. These are the ones that impressed me the most.
The best transcription services
Rev for overall experience
Descript for editing audio and video using transcripts
Alice for pay-as-you-go affordability
Transcript LOL for teams
Castmagic for repurposing your transcript content using AI
Do you need transcription software?
Before we dig into the qualities that make an excellent transcription service, one thing to remember: you might not actually need a transcription service if it's available as a feature in tools you already use. For example:
Video conferencing apps like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams have a built-in transcription option and have been adding more and more AI meeting features, too.
If you use apps like Loom and Vidyard for screen recording, these apps can caption/transcribe your videos without you ever leaving the app. This might not even have an added cost, depending on your plan.
If you use VEED, Clideo, or similar video editing apps, they often have auto-transcription options to convert your videos to text.
Adding transcripts to your existing software stack is easier than adding another tool to the mix, so check for a built-in video-to-text or audio-to-text option in your existing apps.
Transcription software vs. AI meeting assistants
AI meeting assistants are tools that help you record, transcribe, summarize, and extract insights from your meetings.
Transcription software, on the other hand, helps you transcribe your existing audio or video into text—it's not focused on meetings (though some apps also have meeting features).
For the purposes of this article, I've tested only transcription software. If your aim is to get a transcription of a meeting, analyze customer sentiment over calls, and communicate with team members over internal discussions, check out Zapier's picks for the best AI meeting assistants instead.
What makes the best transcription software?
I do lots of interviews with subject matter experts. If I had to pause and take notes on what I find interesting every time, I wouldn't be able to focus on the conversation. I also use transcription software on podcasts that I'm using for research. That's all to say, I've spent my share of time with transcription services, and I know what separates the great from the terrible.
Here's what you should look for—and what I was keeping my eye out for while I was testing the apps.
Accuracy: I tested these apps with a four-minute clip of a webinar. The audio contained speakers speaking off the cuff, having some back-and-forth, and including some brand names and industry-specific keywords in the conversation (like "Zapier" and "HubSpot").
Speed: You don't want to wait three business days to receive a four-minute audio transcript, especially when using AI-powered transcription services—so I considered turnaround time in my reviews.
AI transcription: Transcription is moving in the AI-only direction at whip speed. Every app I tested has automated transcription available—it's fast, easy, and convenient. Human transcription is great as an add-on feature—especially for industries with plenty of technical jargon—but I didn't test human-only transcription services (nor was it something I looked for as a desirable feature).
Value: While the price for most transcription apps is in the same ballpark, many apps have unique pricing models catering to different needs: some are pay-as-you-go (by the minute or hour), some have a monthly subscription fee, and yet others combine the two. Regardless of the exact cost, I was looking for value for the price.
Editing, collaboration, and summarizing options: It's cumbersome to download a transcript to edit it—especially if you want to collaborate. It's far more convenient to have options to work together as a team if you need to. I looked for apps containing basic editing options within the app—like highlighting, inviting teammates to comment/edit, and adjusting playback speed. I also looked for features like AI summaries or chatting with AI about your transcript—anything that'd make working with a long transcript easier.
You'll also notice I haven't included apps like Gong, Riverside, or Speak. While these apps offer a transcription option, they're primarily meant for other purposes—like revenue intelligence, online recording, or gathering insights from language data.
With that, here are my picks for the best transcription services.
The best transcription software at a glance
| Best for | Standout feature | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
Overall experience | Highlighted "low-confidence" words in the transcript | $0.25/min (or $14.99/user/month for 20 hours) | |
Editing audio and video using a transcript | Edit video and audio quickly by editing the transcript | Free for 1 hour/month; from $19/month/user | |
Affordability | The minutes you purchase never expire | From $9.99/hour (cheaper if you buy more hours in bulk) | |
Teams | Tons of repurposing options to convert your transcript into an article, newsletter, social media post, etc. | $12/month for 10 hours and 2 users | |
Repurposing your transcript content using AI | Create audiograms from your transcript in a few clicks | $39/month for 1 user and 5 hours of transcription (additional minutes at $0.20/min) |
Best transcription service for overall experience
Rev
Rev pros:
Pay-as-you-go option is quite flexible
Removes filler words and highlights words it isn't confident about
Mobile app to record interviews
Rev cons:
You don't get AI features in the pay-as-you-go payment plan
The AI summary can be too long
Rev is one of the most popular transcription apps on the market, and for good reason: its AI transcription is quick and accurate, and the web experience is great. During my testing, it didn't make any mistakes—although I did wish there were more paragraph breaks. The punctuation in the transcript was also impeccable.
I also love Rev's editing features and overall user experience. You can do all the basics, like highlight text, add inline comments, include notes, and do a read-along tracking. The software highlights "low-confidence" words in the transcript (words Rev isn't 100% sure it has right), which makes editing a breeze. You can even add industry-specific words to your own custom dictionary so Rev can pick it up in future recordings.
You can select a few sentences and create a short clip using it—great if you want to repurpose some of the text for things like social media or a meeting. The AI summary and responses are good if you have a long audio and want to ask follow-up questions about the transcription. But it definitely sounds like a robot—it hasn't quite nailed the human-like voice yet. I'd also argue it was too long to qualify as a summary.
Rev's AI features are limited to its subscription-based pricing model (not available in the pay-as-you-go option), which costs $14.99/user/month for the lower tier plan. So if you need transcription regularly, there are more cost-effective options than Rev's subscription model.
You can take more work off your to-do list by connecting Rev to Zapier. Want to share your transcripts with teammates? Send new transcripts automatically as channel messages in Slack. Or set up an automation to place an order on Rev whenever you upload a new recording in Dropbox. Learn more about how to automate Rev, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.
Create Rev transcription orders from new Google Drive files
Rev pricing: 14-day free trial; $0.25/min (or $14.99/user/month for 20 hours of transcription)
Best transcription tool for audio and video editing
Descript
Descript pros:
Seamless podcast and video editing using a transcript
AI Underlord feature does a host of other things (like adding a green screen, improving audio, and repurposing the audio into shareable social media clips)
Descript cons:
Price is a bit steep
Punctuation can be quite off
Descript is my number one choice for editing your audio clips and videos using a transcript. If you cut a sentence in the transcript, it's automatically cut from your uploaded video or audio too. It makes for smooth cuts, even if you don't have video editing chops (like me).
With its AI Underlord, the editing features don't end there:
Audio not crisp enough? Use the Studio sound feature to remove background noise and any echo, and have your voice sound like it was recorded in a professional studio. I loved how immaculate this feature was when I tested it.
Recorded a podcast but forgot to mention something crucial? The Overdub feature clones your voice so you can enter a sentence or two without re-recording the whole thing. You can't enter entirely new paragraphs without anyone noticing—the change in tone and inflection is a bit too obvious—but if it's a phrase or two that you need to edit, Descript is pretty smooth.
Want to repurpose your podcast into shareable social media clips? Video clip maker will create it for you using just your transcript.
Shot a video with multiple people and need to edit it to show whoever's speaking at the right moment? Automatic Multicam will detect who's speaking (automatically) and put their face on the camera at the right time.
You can also ask AI to write YouTube descriptions, show notes, or a social media post. There are quite a few social-media-friendly AI options to make a creator's work easier.
Descript didn't make any mistakes, but the punctuation was quite off and tedious to edit. It doesn't give a ready-to-use transcript. It also kept all the filler words like "um"s and "uh"s in the transcript, which other apps seemed to remove automatically. (Descript's AI Underlord does have a "Remove filler words" feature, but it feels like just an unnecessary additional step.)
Descript is also costlier than the other apps on this list. But then, it does much more than the traditional transcription software. If you're a creator with a podcast and don't want to spend a lot of time editing and refining your audio and/or video, Descript is the easiest, pocket-friendly option.
Descript price: Free for 1 hour/month; $19/user/month for 10 hours (and 20 uses of the AI Underlord)
Best transcription app for pay-as-you-go affordability
Alice
Alice pros:
Supreme accuracy
Also has a voice recorder
Affordable pay-as-you-go option at scale
Alice cons:
The editor doesn't have a lot of features
You can't comment on a transcript
Alice is the transcription tool I turn to most regularly. It costs just $2.99/hour if you buy 100 hours, $4.99/hour if you buy 20 hours, and $9.99/hour if you buy one hour. Even the cheapest tier is much more affordable than most other pay-as-you-go options. And the best part? These hours never expire—unheard of practice in the industry. You could buy 100 hours today and finish them over 1 month or 1 year and still pay the same.
But Alice's merits don't end on price. It was the most accurate transcription software I tested: it made no mistakes, and the punctuation was flawless. Whether it was brand names or a pause, Alice picked up everything right. And all this was done with a two-minute turnaround.
Alice Secure Voice Insights let you chat about your transcript with AI. The summary was decent and the tool answered all questions about the transcript accurately. Alice also takes privacy seriously: your data is yours, and it's never shared. You even have the option to auto-delete your transcripts after a set time. It's perfect for journalists or people dabbling in sensitive niches (like law and medicine).
What Alice could improve is the editing options. Its editor doesn't have the option to add comments or highlight text. It's best for solo users who just need a transcription and maybe don't intend to edit it—like journalists, marketers, or researchers.
If you become a regular user of Alice, I highly recommend using the Alice app (for Mac only). The web app is wonderful, but the user experience on the app miles ahead.
Alice price: Free trial for 1 hour; starts at $9.99/hour (gets cheaper if you buy a lot of hours in bulk)
Best transcription app for teams
Transcript LOL
Transcript LOL pros:
Cost-effective for teams
Pricing plans don't become too expensive as your needs grow
Transcript LOL cons:
Sparse editing features
Transcript LOL is the best choice for creators working with contractors or a small team looking to share a transcription tool. Its pricing is quite friendly for two users ($12/month for 10 hours of transcription and 2 users), and as you move up the pricing tier, the number of users you can add increases proportionately along with the transcription hours. At $29/month, you can onboard five users and transcribe 2,000 minutes.
The AI features are decent—there are quite a few helpful prompts tailored to your script to help you dig deeper. But what I liked better were the repurposing options: you can convert your transcript into new assets, like a blog post, newsletter, or social media posts. The results require a lot of edits, sure, but it's a good starting point for a wide variety of options.
One thing Transcript LOL could improve is its transcript editing features. You can edit a transcript, but you can't bold, italicize, underline, or highlight text. But that's a small price to pay for the cost-effective price as a team.
You can even automate the process of creating a new transcription in Transcript LOL using Zapier. Create recordings automatically in Transcript LOL for new files in Google Drive folder, or if you're repurposing the transcript, do the opposite: upload new Transcript LOL transcripts to Google Drive as files. Here are some pre-made workflows to get you started.
Upload new Transcript LOL transcripts to Google Drive as files
Create recordings in Transcript LOL for new files in Google Drive folder
Transcript LOL price: $12/month for 2 users and 10 hours of transcription
Best transcription app for repurposing your transcript using AI
Castmagic
Castmagic pros:
Best repurposing options
Quick turnaround time
Castmagic cons:
Sparse editing features
Price can ramp up quickly if you need more transcription services
Castmagic is the perfect choice for podcasters and marketers who conduct a lot of interviews, host webinars, and release videos that need to be promoted on social media. It can create those cool-looking audiograms you see all over the internet in one click. Just select the clip you like, and choose the audiogram option.
It's also customizable: you can choose to show the video, the transcript, and alter the appearance (like fonts and size). It's a huge time-saver—especially when you release new podcast episodes every week (for example) and need to keep promoting them. You can also repurpose your transcript into an Instagram Reel script or other social media posts.
Like Transcript LOL, though, you can't bold, italicize, highlight, or underline the transcript. The price is also higher than the other apps on the list—especially if you want to work with a team or contractors.
You can do even more with Castmagic when you use it with Zapier, so you can do things like automatically upload recordings to Castmagic based on activity in the other apps you use most. Here are a few pre-made workflows to get you started.
Create documents from text in Google Docs from new ai contents in Castmagic
Import new Vimeo videos into Castmagic as recording files
Import new Dropbox files to Castmagic as recording files
Castmagic price: $39/month for one user and 5 hours of transcription (additional minutes at $0.20/min).
Other AI transcription services
I tested plenty of transcription apps that didn't make the cut here. Some of them were terrible, but others were perfectly good—they just either didn't have a standout feature or didn't meet some of the criteria (like affordable pricing) I was looking for. If none of the three apps on this list work for you, these are the others I feel good recommending.
Sonix: Sonix is like Rev, and it helps you translate your text in almost 50 languages. Its subscription feature is costlier than Rev, though, and the transcript also made a few more mistakes.
Happy Scribe: Happy Scribe is an excellent transcription tool but not as accurate as Rev, Sonix, or Alice, in my experience. If you have a recurring transcription need, it's a good choice—it doesn't have any pay-as-you-go options. The AI summaries were unusable, though.
Reduct: Reduct is a lot like Descript, but the user experience isn't as smooth and it's more expensive. You can't do everything that Descript can with Reduct, but you can edit your audio/videos using the transcript.
And one tool that didn't meet my requirements here but deserves a shoutout is OpenAI's Whisper. It's not a standard app because you need to connect to it through the OpenAI API, but if you just want to build transcription into your existing workflows, it's an awesome and reliable way to do it.
You can get it all done by integrating Whisper with Zapier. Then you can transcribe—and summarize—your audio files automatically whenever you take certain actions in other apps. Here are some examples.
Create transcripts of audio files with OpenAI's Whisper
Create meeting transcripts and summaries with OpenAI from audio files
Which transcription service should you use?
To be honest, most good transcription apps are indistinguishable when it comes to the transcript itself—many of them use the same technologies to get the job done. So my advice is to evaluate these apps on the additional features that might help you. For example, are you looking for a choice that's the most affordable? Or do you want to edit videos using a transcript? Or do you need something that works well for a recurring need?
All of these transcription apps have a limited free trial, so give them all a spin, and see how they stack up for you.
Related reading:
This article was originally published in May 2018 and has had contributions from Melanie Pinola, Ryan Law, and Matthew Guay. The most recent update was in March 2025.
