Does Google Meet transcribe meetings for free?

Google Meet's built-in transcripts are a Google Workspace feature, and the list of supported editions covers only Workspace plans. Google's admin help lists the editions that support Meet transcripts as Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus and Education Plus ¹. No personal account appears on that list, and the list does not include Business Starter either.

The built-in transcript depends on your Workspace edition

The transcript depends on your organization's Workspace edition, so the check comes first. Google's admin help says, as its first step, to make sure you have a Google Workspace edition that supports transcription ². The admin decides whether the feature is on. On Business Standard, an admin cannot turn the Meet transcription feature off in the Admin console ³.

If your employer or school provides your Google account, you may already have the built-in transcript. Ask your admin whether Meeting transcripts is on for your organization. Do not expect it on a personal Gmail account.

What the built-in transcript does once it is on

When the feature is on, it still does not run by itself. Google says the feature is on by default, but it is not automatic for each meeting, because someone in the meeting has to start transcription ⁴. The transcript is saved to the meeting organizer's Drive after the meeting ⁵. Both the user and the organization need enough free Drive storage for the transcript to be saved ⁶, so a full Drive can stop a transcript from being saved.

This matters if you are the person who needs the text. The transcript belongs to the organizer's Drive, so ask the organizer for a copy, or agree before the meeting who will start the transcript.

A free transcript on a personal account

If you use a personal Google account, a free route is to record the audio on your own device and transcribe the saved file. That route does not depend on Meet's transcript feature. Before you record, tell everyone on the call, and check that recording is allowed. Google's help pages were not available to us during research, so we could not confirm from them whether a personal account can record a Meet call. Test it with a short call first.

Once you have the file, a browser tool such as free audio to text can transcribe one saved recording. Our guide to transcribing an audio file covers the steps and what to check afterwards. Read the transcript against the audio before you rely on it. The word error rate on your own meetings is the number to check, because accuracy depends on the audio and the accents.

Which route to choose

• On a Workspace account in the supported editions, use the built-in transcript and ask the organizer where it is saved.
• On a Workspace account in an unsupported edition, ask the admin about an upgrade. Google's admin help says to check the edition first, so do that before you plan around the feature.
• On a personal account, use a recording on your own device, then transcribe the file yourself.

For the same comparison on Zoom and Teams, read the guide to Zoom, Teams and Google Meet transcription. To see how Zoom handles it, read how to turn on transcription in Zoom or whether Zoom can transcribe without recording. The transcription overview covers the wider set of options.