9 Best AI Transcription Software of 2026

Happy Scribe ranks first because it covers both halves of the job this list is about: files you already have and conversations you are about to record. Uploaded audio and video draw from a yearly pool of AI minutes, 1,440 on Basic, 7,200 on Pro and 72,000 on Business, while the Notetaker, mobile app and web recorder are unlimited on every plan and do not consume those minutes. Transcription and translation cover 150+ languages, and the editor supports real-time collaboration, comments, style guides and glossaries. For quotes that must be exact, the same workspace sells human proofreading from $2.00 per minute. The Pro plan at $19 per month billed annually includes 3 seats and removes the per-recording length limit, which makes it cheap for a small newsroom or research team. Downsides: the free plan only includes 10 one-time upload minutes, Basic is a single seat with 90 minute recordings, and SSO sits on Enterprise.

Otter.ai is the strongest option here for live conversations. It joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, transcribes in real time with speaker identification, and lets you chat with the AI within and across meetings. The mobile apps record in-person interviews, and Pro adds team vocabulary and taggable speakers so recurring names come out right. Pro costs $8.33 per user per month billed annually and includes 1,200 in-app recording minutes. The catch for media teams is file uploads: Pro allows 10 audio or video imports per month and the free plan only 3 in total, so a backlog of recorded interviews needs the Business plan at $19.99 per user, which lifts imports to unlimited and meeting length to 4 hours. Business also adds admin activity logs and usage analytics. Enterprise brings SSO, SCIM, the Otter API and an HIPAA add-on. Pick Otter.ai when most of your audio starts as a call, not a file.

TurboScribe takes a different approach from the rest of this list: there are no minute pools to track. The Unlimited plan costs $10 per month billed yearly, or $20 billed monthly, and transcribes as much audio and video as one person uploads, with files up to 10 hours or 5 GB and 50 files at a time. It is powered by Whisper, supports 98+ spoken languages, labels speakers, and can translate transcripts into 134+ languages. A restore option cleans up noisy recordings, and you choose between faster and more accurate transcription modes. Exports cover DOCX, PDF, TXT and subtitle formats. The free plan handles 3 files a day up to 30 minutes each, enough to test real interviews. What you give up is collaboration and capture: the plan is for one person, there is no shared workspace on the pricing page, and there is no meeting bot or live transcription, so it suits teams that already have their recordings.

Fireflies.ai is built for meetings, but it earns a spot on a transcription list because it also accepts uploaded audio and video and transcribes in 100+ languages on every plan. The free plan offers unlimited transcription with limited AI summaries and 400 minutes of storage per team, which is enough to try it on a few interviews. Pro at $10 per seat per month billed annually raises storage to 8,000 minutes per seat, unlocks unlimited AI summaries, video recording and downloads of transcripts and recordings. Business at $19 adds a multi-language mode for calls that switch languages, conversation intelligence and unlimited storage. The AskFred assistant answers questions across your meeting history, and API access is listed from the free tier. Storage limits are the main thing to watch: teams that keep long interview archives will hit the Pro cap and need Business, and HIPAA readiness requires Enterprise.

Sonix is a classic file transcription service that fits teams with uneven workloads. Pay As You Go costs $10 per hour of audio with no subscription, so a team that transcribes a few interviews a quarter never pays for idle minutes. Subscriptions start with Core at $25 per month or $275 per year for 5 hours a month, Advanced at $50 for 20 hours, and Pro at $80 for 40 hours, with extra hours billed at $10. Transcription and translation cover 54+ languages, and the in-browser editor adds speaker labels, timestamps, version history, a custom dictionary and speaker voiceprints. Exports are a strength: DOCX, PDF and TXT, SRT and VTT subtitles, burned-in captions, shareable links and an embeddable player. API access, Zapier and webhooks help teams that automate. The drawbacks are price per seat, since every subscription includes 1 user and each extra seat adds $25 per month, and the lack of a permanent free plan.

Notta is the cheapest verified paid option on this list. Pro costs $8.17 per month billed annually ($97.99 a year) and includes 1,800 transcription minutes a month, recordings up to 5 hours, 100 file uploads and 100 AI summaries, plus transcript export, translation and custom vocabulary. Business at $16.67 per seat per month billed annually removes the transcription minute cap, raises uploads to 200 a month and adds web meeting video recording, usage reports and CRM and Zapier integration. Notta also sells add-ons for translation and bilingual transcription, and offers a 7-day Business trial and a 50% education discount. The free plan is mostly a demo: 120 minutes a month but only 3 minutes per conversation, and no export. Enterprise features such as SAML SSO and audit logs start from 51 seats, which leaves mid-sized teams with fewer admin controls than Otter.ai or Fireflies.ai.

Descript is the pick when the transcript is a means to an edit. Every recording you import or record is transcribed, and cutting words from the text cuts them from the audio or video. Transcription supports 25 languages, detects 8+ speakers and handles multitrack recordings where each speaker has a separate track, which suits podcast and interview production. Plans are metered by media hours: Free includes 60 minutes a month, Hobbyist at $16 per person per month billed annually includes 10 hours and 400 AI credits, Creator at $24 includes 30 hours, and Business at $50 includes 40 hours plus translation and dubbing in 30+ languages. AI tools such as Studio Sound and Remove Filler Words clean up interviews before publishing. As a pure transcription tool it is pricier than Happy Scribe or TurboScribe, with fewer languages, and teams that only need text will pay for editing features they never use.

Trint was started by a former war correspondent and is still aimed at newsrooms and media producers. It transcribes recorded audio and video in 40+ languages, translates into 50+, and offers live transcription on web and mobile with a feed colleagues can follow in real time, including automatic language detection for multilingual events. Story Builder lets you pull key quotes from transcripts and reorder them into a rough cut, then export articles to DOCX or edits to EDL or XML for a video editor. Sharing works with people who do not have a Trint account, with granular permissions. For compliance, Trint offers a choice of EU or US data storage, holds ISO 27001 certification and states that files are not used to train algorithms. The weak point for buyers is price transparency: we could not find a public price list, so plans go through a sales conversation, which is why the value score is lower.

Rev is the only tool here that puts human transcribers and AI side by side at a published per-minute price. Human transcription costs $1.99 per minute with 99%+ accuracy guaranteed in 12 hours or less, with rush, timestamp and verbatim options, and human captions are FCC and ADA compliant. The subscription side has moved toward legal and investigative work: Essentials at $25.49 per seat per month billed annually includes 5,000 AI transcription minutes per user, English and Spanish, workflow templates and 10% off human services, while Pro at $47.99 adds 37+ languages, image analysis and a Clio integration. A mobile app records interviews in the field. For general media or research teams the plans are expensive compared with Happy Scribe or Notta, and the free tier is English only with 45 minutes a month. Choose Rev when you need certified-quality transcripts and are happy to pay per minute for them.