Free Transcription Tools: Which Kind You Need
For a meeting, a file on your computer, or your own product.
The best free transcription tool depends on what you transcribe. For meetings, Fathom and Fireflies have no monthly minute limit. For files on your computer, Vibe is open source and works offline. For your own product, AssemblyAI and Deepgram give free API credits.
Checked November 2026 on each tool's own site.
Free transcription tools by kind
| Tool | Best for | What is free |
|---|---|---|
| Fathom | Meetings | Unlimited recordings, transcripts and instant summaries |
| Fireflies | Meetings and uploaded files | Unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team |
| Otter | Short meetings | 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation, 3 file imports in total |
| Vibe | Audio and video files, offline | Open source under the MIT license, for Mac, Windows and Linux |
| AssemblyAI | Transcription API | $50 in credits, then from $0.15 an audio hour |
| Deepgram | Transcription API | $200 in credits, then Nova-3 from $0.0043 a minute for recorded audio |
What is Vibe transcription?
Vibe is an open source app that transcribes audio and video on your own computer. Its README says no data leaves your device. It can save SRT, VTT, TXT, HTML, PDF, JSON and DOCX files.
Is there a free transcription API?
Not free for good, but two give credits to start, with no card needed. AssemblyAI gives $50 and Deepgram gives $200. After that, you pay for what you use.
How accurate is AI transcription?
On clear audio with one person speaking at a time, AI transcripts need few corrections. Crosstalk, strong accents and poor microphones cause most of the errors. When a transcript must be exact, a human service such as Rev promises 99% accuracy or better.