The short answer
OpenAI Whisper / GPT-4o Transcribe is billed per minute (per-second billed). It has no free tier (None (pay-per-use)). The paid plans we list start at Usage-based (audio token pricing) (gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize).
Plans and prices
| Plan | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| whisper-1 | $0.006 / min | Original hosted Whisper model; billed per second of audio duration, ~$0.36/hour. |
| gpt-4o-transcribe | $0.006 / min (~$6.00 / 1M audio input tokens) | Flagship GPT-4o speech-to-text; lower WER and better multilingual accuracy than Whisper. |
| gpt-4o-mini-transcribe | $0.003 / min (~$3.00 / 1M audio input tokens) | Cost-efficient smaller model, half the price of the flagship. |
| gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize | Usage-based (audio token pricing) | Adds built-in speaker diarization; Transcription API only, returns diarized_json with A:/B: speaker labels. |
How OpenAI Whisper / GPT-4o Transcribe bills you
The pricing model is per minute (per-second billed). Transcription endpoints (whisper-1, gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe) bundled into the broader OpenAI API; simple flat per-minute pricing, no STT-specific free tier. Best suited to: transcription inside the openai model api.
What to watch for on the bill
- Token-based GPT-4o billing can produce less predictable costs on long audio than flat per-minute pricing
The pricing page we read
Source: https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing. Prices change, so confirm there before you commit.
Compare OpenAI Whisper / GPT-4o Transcribe with alternatives
- Deepgram vs OpenAI Whisper / GPT-4o Transcribe pricing
- AssemblyAI vs OpenAI Whisper / GPT-4o Transcribe pricing
- OpenAI Whisper / GPT-4o Transcribe vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text pricing
Other speech-to-text apis: Deepgram, AssemblyAI, Google Cloud Speech-to-Text, Amazon Transcribe, Speechmatics.
Looking at quality rather than price? See the OpenAI Whisper / GPT-4o Transcribe score on APIbenchmarks. Full entry: OpenAI Whisper / GPT-4o Transcribe pricing.