Head to head · Speech stt · October 2026 research run
Amazon Transcribe vs Soniox Speech-to-Text
Amazon Transcribe has a score of 73.6 (BB) against Soniox Speech-to-Text's 58.3 (C). Both do speech stt. The largest gap is reliability, 30 points.
Amazon TranscribeAmazon Web Services · Model API
BB73.6/100#57 of 452
Soniox Speech-to-TextSoniox · Model API
C58.3/100#281 of 452
Which one, for what
Pick Amazon Transcribe for
- reliability (+30)
- schema & documentation (+30)
- agent ergonomics (+10)
- security & auth (+10)
- maintenance & community (+5)
- transparency & trust (+7)
Pick Soniox Speech-to-Text for
No category where it leads by five points or more.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Amazon Transcribe | Soniox Speech-to-Text | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 95 | 65 | Amazon Transcribe +30 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 90 | 60 | Amazon Transcribe +30 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 80 | 70 | Amazon Transcribe +10 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 80 | 70 | Amazon Transcribe +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 35 | 30 | Amazon Transcribe +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 85 | 78 | Amazon Transcribe +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 73.6 · BB | 58.3 · C |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Amazon Transcribe | Soniox Speech-to-Text |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Soniox |
| Hosted endpoint | https://transcribe.us-east-1.amazonaws.com | https://api.soniox.com/v1 |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | Apache-2.0 (Python SDK) |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-08-11 |
| Popularity | 185 stars, 506k npm/wk, 201k PyPI/wk | 12 stars, 22k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |
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.
Soniox Speech-to-Text
About $0.10 an hour async and $0.12 real time, with diarisation, language ID and translation included. No free credits for new accounts since October 2025.
Before you call either
Amazon Transcribe
- Give every job a unique
TranscriptionJobName. A retry with the same name fails withConflictExceptionrather than starting a second job - Batch is a job. Poll
GetTranscriptionJobor listen on EventBridge, then fetch the transcript URI - Set
OutputBucketName, because job records are deleted after 90 days - Back off on
LimitExceededException. It arrives as a 400, not a 429 - Set the organisation's AI services opt-out policy before sending customer audio
Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Pass
audio_urlfor public files and skip the upload step. Delete uploaded files or they count against the 10 GB quota for 30 days - Use the
contextfield for names and domain terms - Buffer audio while the WebSocket connects, then flush it after the config message
- Split anything over 300 minutes. The cap is fixed
- Set
client_reference_idso failed or duplicate requests can be traced in the usage log
Other comparisons with Amazon Transcribe or Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Amazon Transcribe vs AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal)
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- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Rev AI Speech-to-Text API vs Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Soniox Speech-to-Text vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text