AWS Transcribe vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
Ai Transcription Apis pricing comparison · 2026
AWS Transcribe pricing ranges from $0–$6.75/minute, while Google Cloud Speech-to-Text ranges from $0–$0/minute. Google Cloud Speech-to-Text is typically 100% more affordable, though your actual cost depends on tier and team size.
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AWS Transcribe and Google Cloud Speech-to-Text both operate in the ai transcription apis category. This page compares their published pricing.
Plan-by-Plan Pricing
| Plan | AWS Transcribe | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text |
|---|---|---|
| Standard (Tier 1: 0-250K min/month) | Free /minute | Free /minute |
| Volume Discounted (Tier 2-4: 250K+ min/month) | Free /minute | Free /minute |
| Transcribe Medical | Free /minute | Free |
Cost at Scale
Total cost of ownership — licenses, implementation, and hidden costs included.
AWS Transcribe
3 scenarios$1,440/month ($17,280/year)
Small SaaS Voice Feature (1,000 hours/month)
60,000 minutes at $0.024/min (Tier 1). Add ~$300-$600/month for speaker diarization and custom vocabulary add-ons, plus $100-$200/month for supporting AWS services (S3, Lambda, CloudWatch). Total effective cost: $1,840-$2,240/month.
$9,000
Contact Center Analytics (10,000 hours/month)
$10,440/month ($108,000-$125,280/year) -- First 250K min at $0.024/min ($6,000) + next 350K min at $0.015/min ($5,250) = $11,250 base. PII redaction adds $1,440 ($0.0024/min x 600K). With volume blending, effective rate is ~$0.015-$0.017/min. Supporting AWS service costs add $200-$400/month.
$9,000/month ($108,000/year)
Healthcare Transcription Platform (2,000 hours/month)
120,000 minutes at $0.075/min for Medical transcription. No volume discounts apply to Medical tier. Add $200-$500/month for HIPAA-compliant AWS infrastructure (dedicated VPC, encryption, audit logging). Total: ~$9,200-$9,500/month.
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
3 scenarios$120/month ($1,440/year)
Media Company Archive Processing (500 hours/month, batch)
30,000 minutes at $0.004/min via Dynamic Batch. Add $50-$100/month for Cloud Storage and egress fees. Total: $170-$220/month. This is 92% cheaper than AWS Transcribe standard ($720/month) and 67% cheaper than OpenAI Whisper ($180/month) for the same volume.
$192/month ($2,304/year)
Real-Time Captioning Service (200 hours/month)
12,000 minutes at $0.016/min for standard real-time processing. Add $30-$80/month for GCP infrastructure (Cloud Functions, Pub/Sub, Storage). Total: $222-$272/month. First 60 minutes/month free reduces to 11,940 billable minutes ($191/month).
$4,800/month ($57,600/year)
Enterprise Analytics Platform (5,000 hours/month)
300,000 minutes at $0.016/min standard rate. Enterprise volume pricing (contact sales) may reduce to $0.008-$0.012/min ($2,400-$3,600/month). Add $300-$500/month for BigQuery, Storage, and Cloud Functions. Using Dynamic Batch where real-time is not needed reduces to $1,200/month base.
Market Intelligence
AWS Transcribe
- Median annual cost
- $196
- Based on
- 13 deals
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
- Median annual cost
- $300
- Based on
- 15 deals