Fact · Speech recognition
0.15US dollars per hour of audio
AssemblyAI lists its Universal-2 speech-to-text model at $0.15 per hour of audio on pay as you go.
Checked against its source on October 17, 2026
In the source's own words
“Universal-2 Our highly accurate speech-to-text model trained on over 12.5 million hours of audio data. Supports 99 languages. Exceptional accuracy at a lower price. $0.15 /hr”
AssemblyAI pricing, AssemblyAI, 2026, Models section, Universal-2 card.
Open the original- What it measures
- The card describes Universal-2 as supporting 99 languages, which is the vendor's own count.
- What it does not show
- Vendor list price, read on 2026-10-17. Add-on features are priced separately.
Source
Used to calculate
- A rented GPU server that costs about 383.98 US dollars a month would have to transcribe about 2,560 hours of audio a month to cost the same as AssemblyAI's Universal-2 rate of 0.15 dollars per hour.
- The same 2,520 monthly minutes cost about 6.30 US dollars a month on AssemblyAI's Universal-2 model at 0.15 dollars per hour.
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