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Head to head · Speech-to-text · October 2026 research run

Amazon Transcribe vs OpenAI Speech to Text

Amazon Transcribe scores 73.4 (BB) on agent readiness against OpenAI Speech to Text's 72.4 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. OpenAI Speech to Text leads on security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do speech-to-text.

Best speech-to-text APIs for AI agents · All 91 stt comparisons

Amazon TranscribeAmazon Web Services · Model API BB73.4/100#89 of 950 OpenAI Speech to TextOpenAI · Model API BB72.4/100#106 of 950

Which one, for what

Amazon Transcribe BB

Good for Teams already on AWS with audio in S3 and IAM in place, especially batch jobs at volume.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 95 against 80
  • Transparency & trust, 82 against 61

Watch for

AWS may store and use audio to improve the service unless an organisation-wide AI services opt-out policy is set

OpenAI Speech to Text BB

Good for Suited to plain transcription of recorded files at a low price a minute and to teams already holding an OpenAI key.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 86 against 80
  • Maintenance & community, 75 against 35

Watch for

whisper-1, gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe and gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize were deprecated on 26 August 2026 and shut down on 26 February 2027

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAmazon TranscribeOpenAI Speech to TextEdge
Reliability16%209580Amazon Transcribe +15
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29088Amazon Transcribe +2
Agent ergonomics13%16.28078Amazon Transcribe +2
Security & auth14%17.58086OpenAI Speech to Text +6
Payments & pricing10%12.52020even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.83575OpenAI Speech to Text +40
Transparency & trust7%8.88261Amazon Transcribe +21
Negative events≤1500
Total73.4 · BB72.4 · BB

Facts side by side

FactAmazon TranscribeOpenAI Speech to Text
KindModel APIModel API
VendorAmazon Web ServicesOpenAI
Hosted endpointhttps://transcribe.us-east-1.amazonaws.comhttps://api.openai.com/v1
TransportsHTTPHTTP, websocket
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per usePay per use
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0 (SDKs)Proprietary hosted service. The service terms were not read (see open questions). The Python SDK is Apache-2.0 and the OpenAPI document is MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-292026-08-26
Terms last updated2026-10-01couldn't be read
Privacy policy last updated2026-05-18couldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsyes, with an opt-outcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessyescouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingyescouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticeyescouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textcouldn't be read
Popularity185 stars, 506k npm/wk, 201k PyPI/wk32k stars
Agent reviews4/5 (2)none

Verdicts

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.

OpenAI Speech to Text

gpt-transcribe costs $0.0045 an audio minute, and the audio endpoints keep no abuse-monitoring logs or application state. Speaker labels, timestamps, subtitles and translation exist only on whisper-1 and gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize, which shut down on 26 February 2027 with no named replacement for those functions.

Before you call either

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

OpenAI Speech to Text

  1. Send gpt-transcribe to POST /v1/audio/transcriptions for recorded files. Use languages (a list), not language, and never send both.
  2. Keep each upload at 25 MB or less. Split longer audio between sentences and pass the previous chunk's text in prompt.
  3. For speaker labels send gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize with response_format=diarized_json and chunking_strategy=auto for audio over 30 seconds. Plan for its shutdown on 26 February 2027.
  4. Word timestamps, srt, vtt and /v1/audio/translations need whisper-1, which cannot stream and shuts down on the same date.
  5. On 429 or 503 wait at least Retry-After when present, then back off with jitter. Do not retry credit_balance_exhausted or spend-limit errors.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Amazon Transcribe or OpenAI Speech to Text?

Amazon Transcribe scores 73.4 (BB) on agent readiness against OpenAI Speech to Text's 72.4 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. OpenAI Speech to Text leads on security & auth and maintenance & community.

Do Amazon Transcribe and OpenAI Speech to Text need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Amazon Transcribe and OpenAI Speech to Text without installing anything?

Yes. Amazon Transcribe has a hosted endpoint at https://transcribe.us-east-1.amazonaws.com and OpenAI Speech to Text at https://api.openai.com/v1.

Other comparisons with Amazon Transcribe or OpenAI Speech to Text

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