Kagi vs AssemblyAI Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| Kagi | AssemblyAI | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $5/mo | Custom |
| Number of plans | 4 | 2 |
| Free plan | ||
| Free trial | ||
| Pricing model | flat-rate | usage-based |
Trial
- Explore Kagi Search and Assistant with privacy-first tech
- Enough to feel the difference
- Upgrade anytime
Starter
- Enough searches to get you going
- Kagi Assistant with Quick mode and plenty of interactions
Professional
- Unlimited Kagi Search
- Kagi Assistant with Quick mode and a larger monthly usage allowance
Ultimate
- Kagi Assistant with Research mode and flagship models
- Highest level support for Kagi's mission
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
Kagi vs AssemblyAI 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. Kagi uses flat-rate pricing, while AssemblyAI goes with usage-based. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Kagi: Kagi is a premium play in a category where the dominant competitors are literally free (Google, Bing). They're not competing on price — they're betting on a segment of privacy-conscious, quality-obsessed users willing to pay for an ad-free experience. $10/mo positions them as 'less than Netflix' to justify the switch. 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.
Keep tabs on both.
We'll monitor pricing changes for Kagi and AssemblyAI and let you know when something moves.