Amazon Transcribe vs ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API

Amazon Transcribe

$0.006 a minute batch and $0.01 streaming in US East, with diarisation, custom vocabulary and language ID included. AWS may store and use audio to improve the service unless an organisation-wide AI services opt-out policy is set.

ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API

$0.22 an hour for batch with 90+ languages and diarisation to 32 speakers. Audio may be used for training unless the account opts out, and the opt-out isn't retroactive.

Amazon Transcribe

1. Give every job a unique TranscriptionJobName. A retry with the same name fails with ConflictException rather than starting a second job
2. Batch is a job. Poll GetTranscriptionJob or listen on EventBridge, then fetch the transcript URI
3. Set OutputBucketName, because job records are deleted after 90 days
4. Back off on LimitExceededException. It arrives as a 400, not a 429
5. Set the organisation's AI services opt-out policy before sending customer audio

ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API

1. Create a key restricted to speech-to-text with a credit quota and an expiry
2. Use source_url for hosted files instead of downloading and re-uploading
3. Set webhook=true for long files so the call doesn't block
4. Back off exponentially on any of the three 429 codes
5. Opt out under Data use before sending customer audio. It only covers later uploads