The short answer
Gladia is billed per hour (usage-based). It has a free tier: 10 hrs/mo. The paid plans we list start at from $0.20/hr async, $0.25/hr real-time (Growth (Commitment)).
Plans and prices
| Plan | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 (10 hrs/month) | Up to 10 hours of transcription per month free; access to core features to evaluate the API. |
| Starter (Pay-as-you-go) | $0.61/hr async, $0.75/hr real-time | 30 concurrent real-time / 25 concurrent async requests; language detection, diarization, 100+ languages, GDPR/HIPAA/SOC 2 Type 2. |
| Growth (Commitment) | from $0.20/hr async, $0.25/hr real-time | Everything in Starter plus volume-based discounts (up to ~67% off Starter), flexible concurrency, model-training opt-out. |
| Enterprise | Custom (annual) | Unlimited concurrency, custom/dedicated models, custom hosting, zero data retention, SLAs, dedicated Slack + account manager, premium support. |
How Gladia bills you
The pricing model is per hour (usage-based). European audio-infrastructure challenger wrapping Whisper-grade accuracy with all features (diarization, translation, code-switching) included at every tier. Best suited to: all-inclusive stt for voice products.
What to watch for on the bill
- Real-time tuning rough edges, e.g. a 5-second minimum endpointing window that makes live dictation feel slow
- Enterprise/high-volume pricing requires a custom quote and is less transparent than the self-serve tiers
The pricing page we read
Source: https://www.gladia.io/pricing. Prices change, so confirm there before you commit.
Compare Gladia with alternatives
Other speech-to-text apis: Deepgram, AssemblyAI, OpenAI Whisper / GPT-4o Transcribe, Google Cloud Speech-to-Text, Amazon Transcribe.
Looking at quality rather than price? See the Gladia score on APIbenchmarks. Full entry: Gladia pricing.