# AssemblyAI: what's new, verdict & setup

Canonical: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/assemblyai · First covered by us (no vendor release date published): 2026-10-25 · Last verified: 2026-10-25 · Evidence: Reported (not run by us) · Vendor: AssemblyAI · Official site: https://www.assemblyai.com/

> Speech AI APIs for transcription and understanding; start free, pay as you go.

## 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. Written from official release notes and docs; we have not run this release ourselves.

Pricing: Partly verified. Read from assemblyai.com/pricing on 2026-10-25. (checked 2026-10-25)

## Best for

- [Best AI tool for AI voice and speech](https://theagenticweekly.com/best/voice-ai) (#-): 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.

1. **Get access.** Create an API key and run the quickstart.
2. **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

- [Deepgram](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/deepgram): Voice AI APIs for speech-to-text, text-to-speech and agents with $200 in free credit.
- [Cartesia](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/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](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/murf-ai): Text-to-speech platform with a $10 free API trial, pay-as-you-go credits and per-character API pricing.
- [Resemble AI](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/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.
- [Retell AI](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/retell): Voice AI agents for phone calls with pay-per-minute pricing and 20 free concurrent calls.
- [Speechify](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/speechify): Text-to-speech app that reads PDFs, books and web pages aloud, with a Free plan and a $29 monthly premium price.
- [Vapi](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/vapi): Developer platform for voice agents; $5 free credits, then pay for the minutes you run.
- [Piper](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/piper): Fast local neural text-to-speech that runs on CPU.
- [faster-whisper](https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/faster-whisper): Speech-to-text library that runs OpenAI Whisper models with CTranslate2.

## 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](https://www.assemblyai.com/) (fetched 2026-10-25)
- [AssemblyAI pricing](https://www.assemblyai.com/pricing) (fetched 2026-10-25)

## How to cite

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 the verdict.