AssemblyAI vs Deepgram Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| AssemblyAI | Deepgram | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Custom | Custom |
| Number of plans | 2 | 3 |
| Free plan | ||
| Free trial | ||
| Pricing model | usage-based | usage-based |
Pay as you go
- Universal-3.5 Pro ($0.21/hr)
- Universal-2 ($0.15/hr)
- Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime ($0.45/hr)
- Universal-Streaming ($0.15/hr)
- Universal-Streaming Multilingual ($0.15/hr)
- Sync API ($0.45/hr)
- Voice Agent API ($4.50/hr)
- Speaker Diarization ($0.02/hr pre-recorded, $0.12/hr realtime)
- Medical Mode ($0.15/hr)
- Keyterms Prompting
- Prompting ($0.05/hr)
- Speaker Identification ($0.02/hr)
- Translation ($0.06/hr)
- Custom Formatting ($0.03/hr)
- Entity Detection ($0.08/hr)
- Sentiment Analysis ($0.02/hr)
- Auto Chapters ($0.08/hr)
- Key Phrases ($0.01/hr)
- Topic Detection ($0.15/hr)
- Summarization ($0.03/hr)
- Profanity Filtering ($0.01/hr)
- PII Audio Redaction ($0.05/hr)
- PII Text Redaction ($0.08/hr)
- Content Moderation ($0.15/hr)
- LLM Gateway
- No minimum commitments
- No credit card required to start
Custom
- Custom rate limits
- Enhanced concurrency
- Enterprise-grade flexibility
- Volume-based pricing
- Custom starting concurrency limits
Pay As You Go
- All endpoint in public models
- Up to 50 for the REST API
- Up to 150 for the WSS API
- Up to 5 for Deepgram Whisper Cloud
- Up to 45 for the REST API + WSS API
- Up to 45 for the WSS API
- Up to 10 for the REST API
- Community & Discord
- Standard Uptime
Growth
Popular- All endpoints in public models
- Up to 50 for the REST API
- Up to 225 for the WSS API
- Up to 5 for Deepgram Whisper Cloud
- Up to 60 for the REST API + WSS API
- Up to 60 for the WSS API
- Up to 10 for the REST API
- Community & Discord
- Standard Uptime
Enterprise
AssemblyAI vs Deepgram FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- One or both use custom pricing, so it depends on your specific needs.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Both offer free plans, so you can try each without paying. Start with whichever fits your workflow better and upgrade when you hit the limits.
- How do they charge?
- Both use a usage-based model, so the comparison is straightforward — it comes down to features and limits at each price point.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. AssemblyAI: They're positioning as the developer-friendly, API-first alternative to Deepgram and Rev AI — competitive on price at scale but differentiated by the breadth of AI features (LLM Gateway, multichannel, etc.). The AWS Marketplace listing signals they're actively chasing enterprise procurement budgets. Deepgram: Deepgram sits mid-to-premium against raw cloud STT APIs (Google, AWS) but undercuts them on accuracy-per-dollar for real-time and high-volume transcription, which is their actual wedge. They're chasing developers who'd otherwise roll their own pipeline with a cheaper-but-worse model, not enterprises comparing five-figure contracts.
Still deciding? See the best AssemblyAI alternatives or the best Deepgram alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
Keep tabs on both.
We'll monitor pricing changes for AssemblyAI and Deepgram and let you know when something moves. See how competitor pricing monitoring works.