AssemblyAI vs Descript 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 | Descript | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Custom | $24/mo |
| Number of plans | 2 | 5 |
| Free plan | ||
| Free trial | — | |
| Pricing model | usage-based | per-seat |
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
Free
- Get started on your creative journey with text-based editing and give our AI tools a spin.
Hobbyist
- 10 media hours / month
- 400 AI credits / month
- Export 1080p, watermark-free
- Access to Underlord, our AI video co-editor
- AI tools including Studio Sound, Remove Filler Words, Create Clips, and more
- AI Speech with custom voice clones and video regenerate
Creator
Popular- 30 media hours / month
- 800 AI credits / month
- Export 4k, watermark-free
- Full access to Underlord, our AI video co-editor and 20+ more AI tools
- Generate video with the latest AI models
- Unlimited access to royalty-free stock media library
- Access to top ups for more media hours and AI credits
Business
- 40 media hours / month
- 1500 AI credits / month
- Team-wide access to Brand Studio
- Translate and dub video in 30+ languages with proofread
- Generate custom avatars from photo upload or text
- Priority support (with SLA)
- Access to top ups for more media hours and AI credits
Enterprise
- Text-based editing: Edit video by editing a doc
- AI credits and media hours: sized to your team
- Brand Studio: shared templates and company-wide guardrails
- AI and data controls: opt-out of training, custom retention
- SOC 2 Type II: SSO, SCIM, and audit logs
- Procurement: custom MSA, legal terms, flexible billing
- Support: dedicated CSM, onboarding, priority response
AssemblyAI vs Descript 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?
- Different approach here. AssemblyAI uses usage-based pricing, while Descript goes with per-seat. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- 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. Descript: Descript sits mid-pack against tools like Adobe Premiere or Riverside — not a budget play, but not enterprise-grade pricing either. They're clearly courting solo creators and small teams who want pro-level editing without a full production suite price tag, while Enterprise exists to mop up agencies and larger media teams.
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