AssemblyAI: what’s new and our verdict
Speech AI APIs for transcription and understanding; start free, pay as you go.
At a glance
- Evidence
- Reported
- First covered
- Oct 25, 2026
- Last verified
- Oct 25, 2026
- Pricing
- Partly verified
- Best for
- AI voice and speech
Evidence and ranking
Evidence behind this verdict
- Sources read2 cited sources, latest fetched Oct 25, 2026. (done)
- Facts re-checkedLast verified Oct 25, 2026. (done)
- Not run by us yetWe have not run it, so this is labelled Reported. (not done)
Where we rank it (editorial)
Listed here but not yet ranked. Ranks are editorial picks, not benchmark scores.
Pricing: Read from assemblyai.com/pricing on 2026-10-25. (checked 2026-10-25)
Our verdict
Speech AI APIs for transcription and understanding; start free, pay as you go.
Good for
- Developers adding transcription and speech understanding
Skip if
- Non-technical meeting note taking
Status: Reported. This write-up is based on official release notes and docs; we have not run this release ourselves yet.
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Best for
- Best AI tool for AI voice and speech: Speech-to-text and speech understanding APIs.
Key facts
AssemblyAI's pricing says start free and pay as you go with no commitments, with custom rate limits and concurrency for enterprise. Per-model rates are published but their units were not captured.
- License: Proprietary
- Platforms: API
- Pricing model: Pay as you go
- Free tier: Free to start
- Paid plans: Per-model usage rates (units not captured); custom enterprise
- How to start: Create an API key and run the quickstart.
- Catalog entry: facts read from the vendor's pages on 2026-10-25. We do not track release notes for this entry.
How to set it up: Get started with AssemblyAI
These steps come from the vendor's own pages as read on 2026-10-25. We have not run AssemblyAI.
Get access
Create an API key and run the quickstart.
Check the limits and costs first
Free to start. Paid: Per-model usage rates (units not captured); custom enterprise. Read from assemblyai.com/pricing on 2026-10-25.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Free start
- No commitments
Cons
- Units not captured here
Alternatives and comparisons
- Deepgram: Voice AI APIs for speech-to-text, text-to-speech and agents with $200 in free credit.
- Cartesia: Realtime voice AI: text-to-speech, speech-to-text in 44 languages and voice agents, with a free plan and credit tiers.
- Murf AI: Text-to-speech platform with a $10 free API trial, pay-as-you-go credits and per-character API pricing.
- Resemble AI: Resemble AI now leads with real-time deepfake detection and watermarking for audio, video and images; plans from free to $1,000 a month.
FAQ
What is AssemblyAI?
AssemblyAI's pricing says start free and pay as you go with no commitments, with custom rate limits and concurrency for enterprise. Per-model rates are published but their units were not captured.
Is AssemblyAI free?
Free to start. Paid: Per-model usage rates (units not captured); custom enterprise. Read from assemblyai.com/pricing on 2026-10-25. Checked 2026-10-25; prices change, so confirm on the vendor's page.
What license is AssemblyAI under?
Its license: Proprietary. Read from the project's own pages on 2026-10-25.
What we have not verified
- Release date (none published on the pages we read; the date shown is the day we first covered this entry)
- Per-model rate units
Sources
- AssemblyAI (fetched 2026-10-25)
- AssemblyAI pricing (fetched 2026-10-25)
Last verified · Agentic Weekly
Related tools
- Cartesia: Realtime voice AI: text-to-speech, speech-to-text in 44 languages and voice agents, with a free plan and credit tiers.
- Deepgram: Voice AI APIs for speech-to-text, text-to-speech and agents with $200 in free credit.
- Murf AI: Text-to-speech platform with a $10 free API trial, pay-as-you-go credits and per-character API pricing.
How to cite this page
Agentic Weekly, "AssemblyAI: what's new, verdict & setup", last updated 2026-10-25, https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/assemblyai
Keep the Reported or Tested label when you quote a verdict. Plain-text version: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/assemblyai.md. More for AI assistants: /ai, /tools.json, /llms.txt.
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