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Meeting notes, a searchable transcript, subtitles and video editing are four different jobs, and the tools that lead one rarely lead another. Decide what the words are for before you compare anything — then the per-hour price becomes a useful number instead of a misleading one.
Of the tools below I use Descript, which pays me nothing. Notta, Transkriptor and HappyScribe all pay me a commission and I have not used any of them as my daily tool; what I can tell you about them is their published pricing and what they are built for.
What is the transcript actually for?
| What you need | Where to look |
|---|---|
| What was decided in a call | Notta |
| The transcript itself, cheaply | Transkriptor |
| Subtitles, several languages, or human accuracy | HappyScribe |
| To cut a video by editing text | Descript |
| Captions on a clip you are already editing | your editor already does it |
That last row disqualifies a purchase more often than any comparison does. If you edit video in something that generates captions, the transcript arrives with a thing you already pay for, and a separate subscription buys you nothing.
When is a meeting tool the right answer?
When the output you want is decisions, not text.
Notta joins calls, records, transcribes and pulls out what was agreed. The value is not the transcript — it is not having to write "he said he would send it by Friday" in your own notes while trying to listen.
Its published plans: a free tier of 120 minutes a month with a three-minute cap per recording, which makes it a taster rather than something you can work with, and Pro at around $8.17 a month billed annually for 1,800 minutes. That works out near $0.27 an hour.
Transkriptor sits next to it and is aimed at the transcript rather than the meeting: $9.99 a month for 300 minutes, $19.99 for 2,400, or $99.99 a year for the same 2,400 a month. At the Pro tier that is roughly $0.42 an hour on monthly billing. It pays me a commission and I have not used it daily.
Worth saying plainly: cheapest per hour only matters if it does your job. A meeting tool is a poor subtitle tool.
The whole list
68 tools, what each costs and when you actually need it. Updated twice a year.
When do you need subtitles or a human?
When the words go in front of an audience rather than into your notes.
HappyScribe is built around subtitling and translation, and offers human transcription on the same platform from €1.75 a minute — roughly €105 an hour, against pennies for the machine version.
That gap looks absurd until you ask what an error costs. For notes you read once, machine plus a skim is obviously right. For a published quote, a legal record or a medical note, a human is cheap insurance. The question is never accuracy in the abstract; it is what happens when this is wrong.
Its machine plans, checked 23 September 2026: €0.20 a minute as credits, or €17 (120 min), €29 (600 min) and €89 (6,000 min) a month.
When is an editor the better buy?
When you are cutting video anyway.
Descript treats the transcript as the editing surface — delete a sentence in the text and it disappears from the video. That is a genuinely different way of working, and it is the one I use.
Its plans count media hours rather than transcription hours, which means the transcript comes along with the editing you were already paying for. Creator at $24 a month includes 30 media hours, about $0.80 an hour; Business at $50 includes 40, about $1.25. The more expensive plan costs more per hour, because the higher tier buys features rather than capacity — check the division before you upgrade.
What does an hour cost, side by side?
Prices checked 23 September 2026, in the currency each vendor charges.
| Tool | Plan | Price | Included | Per hour | Pays me |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notta | Pro | $8.17/mo yearly | 1,800 min | $0.27 | yes |
| Transkriptor | Pro yearly | $8.33/mo yearly | 2,400 min | $0.21 | yes |
| Descript | Creator | $24/mo | 30 media h | $0.80 | no |
| HappyScribe | Business | €89/mo | 6,000 min | €0.89 | yes |
| HappyScribe | Pro | €29/mo | 600 min | €2.90 | yes |
| HappyScribe | credits | €0.20/min | — | €12.00 | yes |
| HappyScribe | human | €1.75/min | — | €105 | yes |
The full break-even arithmetic — including the point below which you should not subscribe to anything — is in what an hour of transcription actually costs, and the side-by-side is in which transcription tool.
When should you not switch at all?
Under about ninety minutes a month. At €0.20 a minute, an entry subscription pays for itself at 85 minutes. Below that, credits win and a subscription is a small monthly apology.
When your editor already captions. Covered above, and it is the most common unnecessary purchase in this category.
When the problem is your audio. A decent microphone improves accuracy more than any engine change, one speaker at a time improves it more than that, and recording locally with something like OBS Studio gives you a cleaner track than a call platform will. People upgrade plans to fix problems caused by a laptop microphone and a fan.
What I would do
Work out roughly how many hours a month you transcribe. Under 1.5, buy credits. Between 1.5 and 10, pick the tool that matches the job and take its middle tier. Above that, the per-hour column finally becomes the right thing to look at — and by then you will know which job you are actually doing.
The Short Version
Every conclusion from all eight playbooks — 97 chapters, condensed. Free.
Tools in this piece
| Tool | What it does | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Notta | Transcribes meetings, calls and interviews, then pulls the decisions out of them. | Free tier, then ~$8/mo (yearly) |
| Transkriptor | Transcribes meetings, interviews and calls, with summaries and search on top. | From ~$9.99/mo |
| HappyScribe | Transcribes, subtitles and translates video with AI, with human linguists as an option. | €0.20/min, or from €17/mo |
| Descript | Edit video by editing the transcript. | Free tier, then ~$15–30/mo |
| OBS Studio | Screen recording. Free, open source, and good enough for everything. | Free |
| CapCut | Fast shorts and vertical editing, with captions. | Free, Pro ~€10/mo |
Every tool has its own page with the price, who should skip it and what to check before paying. Some links are affiliate links.
Questions people ask
What is the best Otter.ai alternative?
It depends on what the transcript is for. Notta is built around meetings and calls, HappyScribe around subtitles and translation with human transcription available, and Descript is an editor where the transcript is how you cut the video. Transkriptor sits alongside them aimed at the transcript itself. Comparing them on accuracy alone misses that they are different products.
What is the cheapest transcription tool per hour?
Of the plans checked in September 2026, Notta Pro at around $8.17 a month billed annually for 1,800 minutes works out near $0.27 an hour. But an hour is only comparable when the job is the same, and a cheap tool that does not do your job is not cheap.
Is there a free alternative to Otter.ai?
Several include a free tier of roughly one to two hours a month, which is enough for occasional calls. Notta's free tier caps a single recording at three minutes, so it functions as a taster rather than a working tier. Below about ninety minutes a month, pay-as-you-go beats any subscription.
Do I need transcription if my editor already does captions?
Usually not. If you edit video in a tool that generates captions, the transcript comes with something you already pay for. Buying a separate transcription subscription on top only makes sense when you need translation, human accuracy, or a searchable archive of calls.
How do you improve transcription accuracy without paying more?
A decent microphone matters more than a better engine, one speaker at a time matters more than both, and recording locally rather than through a call platform gives you a cleaner track. People routinely upgrade plans to fix a problem caused by a laptop microphone.