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 | 4 |
| 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
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
- Advanced Security and SSO / SCIM
- Granular brand controls
- Custom AI credits
- Custom media minutes
- Custom legal terms
- Custom AI Controls
- Flexible licensing model
- Flexible billing
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 in the mid-market of AI video/podcast editors — more expensive than basic tools like Audacity or CapCut but well below enterprise video platforms like Camtasia or Riverside's higher tiers. They're clearly targeting prosumer creators and small media teams, not competing on price but on the AI-native editing angle.
Keep tabs on both.
We'll monitor pricing changes for AssemblyAI and Descript and let you know when something moves.