# ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT

> ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text scores 73 (BB) to Smallest.ai Pulse STT's 65 (B) for speech-to-text. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-smallest-pulse-stt
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md (~5,300 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
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- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API scores 73 (BB) on agent readiness against Smallest.ai Pulse STT's 65 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do speech-to-text.

- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API: grade BB, 73/100, rank #114 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/elevenlabs-scribe.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/elevenlabs-scribe.json
- Smallest.ai Pulse STT: grade B, 65/100, rank #443 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/smallest-pulse-stt.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/smallest-pulse-stt.json
- Best speech-to-text APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/speech-to-text/index.md
- All 320 stt comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/speech-to-text/index.md

## Which one, for what

### ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API (BB)

Good for: Batch transcription where diarisation, entity detection and keyterms matter, and for teams already on ElevenLabs for speech.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 63
- Agent ergonomics, 75 against 66
- Security & auth, 65 against 52

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Audio may be used for training unless the account opts out, and the opt-out isn't retroactive

### Smallest.ai Pulse STT (B)

Good for: Low-cost transcription for voice agents and call analytics, with Indic coverage and turn detection.

Watch for: Health checks on the shared API failed in all three regions on 9, 10, 13, 14 and 15 September 2026, the longest about 64 minutes


## Why the edge

### Reliability: ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API +17

- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API (80): incident.io status page with a Speech to Text component and dated component history (20). Re-read on 1 November from the history page, which dates each component's impact, as the ElevenLabs text-to-speech, voice cloning and agents listings were read; the incidents feed was re-posted on 21 October and leaves older incidents out. Six incidents touched the Speech to Text component in the 90 days from 3 August. Elevated TTS and STT error rates from 06:39 to 07:13 UTC on 3 August and TTS and STT latency from 15:15 to 17:53 UTC on 26 August, both at degraded performance. Two latency incidents on 4 September, the EU residency from 11:41 to 12:12 UTC and the global residency from 13:55 to 21:01 UTC for "a small subset of requests", and STT latency from 15:42 to 16:05 UTC on 28 September, all degraded. From 16:00 to 19:44 UTC on 29 September a usage datastore fault caused latency, conversation failures and 429s on STT requests, marked partial outage on Speech to Text and Conversations. The 1 October note called it one major of 94 minutes; the page dates the STT impact at 3 hours 44 minutes, and it is read as partial, as the ElevenLabs agents listing read the same incident. A one-minute entry named "Test" on 16 October isn't counted. Nothing has touched STT since 29 September. Minor only (20 of 30, was 10). Concurrency per plan published with numbers, re-read on 1 November, 8 on Free to 60 on Scale for batch and 6 to 45 for realtime, with `current-concurrent-requests` and `maximum-concurrent-requests` headers (15). The error reference names three 429 codes, `rate_limit_exceeded`, `concurrent_limit_exceeded` and `system_busy`, and asks for exponential backoff (15). No SLA found for self-serve plans, and the API pricing page puts SLAs under Enterprise (0). Scribe v2, Scribe v2 Realtime and Scribe v2 Medical carry no alpha or beta label (10). 20 + 20 + 15 + 15 + 0 + 10 = 80.
- Smallest.ai Pulse STT (63): BetterStack status page at status.smallest.ai with components for the Global, India and USA APIs (one health check covers the Agents and Models APIs), docs, the app and Electron, and per-component history (20). In the 90 days from 8 August the health checks on the shared API failed in all three regions on 9, 10, 13, 14 and 15 September (about 8, 21, 33, 17 and 64 minutes of flapping), in the Global and India regions on 11 and 17 September (12 minutes each), and in the USA region alone on 1, 3, 5, 12, 21 and 30 September (6 to 62 minutes) and 6 October (12 minutes). Outages in every region at once are read as wide errors, so several majors (0). Standard plan limits published per model, 100 concurrent streaming sessions and 25 batch requests a minute, and the pricing page also says 100 concurrent STT streams (15). 429 is documented with exponential backoff from 500 ms to 30 s and Retry-After when present, and batch calls are synchronous with optional webhooks (15). An infrastructure SLA of 99.99 per cent is named for Enterprise only, with no terms published, and the terms disclaim any availability commitment (5 of 10). Pulse, Pulse 2.0 and Pulse Pro carry no preview label, but eleven language codes are marked Beta (8 of 10). 20 + 0 + 15 + 15 + 5 + 8 = 63.

### Security & auth: ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API +13

- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API (65): Model reading of the checklist, with training and retention in place of least-privilege and injection lines. Keys can be restricted to chosen endpoints, given a credit quota and limited to IP addresses or CIDR ranges, user keys can expire after 15 minutes to 30 days, service accounts hold keys that don't belong to a person, and leaked keys found by GitHub secret scanning are disabled, re-read on 1 November. Realtime browser clients use single-use tokens, which we don't deduct for (30). The Privacy Policy (updated 9 October 2026, re-read on 1 November) says ElevenLabs may train on personal data, with an opt-out under Data use that only covers data sent after it's set (10). Speech-to-text audio and transcripts are kept by default and zero retention through `enable_logging=false` is Enterprise only, though the zero retention page now names every `/v1/speech-to-text/` endpoint (5). The Developers page has a Request Log that lists every API request with search, filters and CSV export, and usage can be broken down by API key, though we found no audit log of key actions below Enterprise (10 of 15, was 5). A valid security.txt (expiring 6 October 2027, re-read on 1 November) pointing to a vulnerability disclosure programme, and the Eleven v4 launch page states SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and PCI DSS Level 1 certification for every ElevenLabs model. We count those as vendor claims because we saw no report, and the trust centre wasn't re-read. No bug bounty or public advisories found (10 of 20, was 5, as the ElevenLabs text-to-speech listing reads the same evidence). 30 + 10 + 5 + 10 + 10 = 65.
- Smallest.ai Pulse STT (52): Model reading of the checklist, with training and retention in place of the least-privilege and injection lines. Plain `sk_` keys per organisation, shown once, revoked at once and deletable, with one key per environment advised. The docs say a key grants full account access, and no scope is offered. Short-lived access tokens (`wat_`, 30 to 900 seconds) cover only inference routes and can't mint tokens (22 of 30). The error reference documents the key as a `?token=` query parameter for browser WebSockets, and the token guide passes access tokens as `?api_key=` on the STT socket, so 10 off (12 of 30). The terms (21 October 2026) say Smallest won't use user content or input to train or improve its services. The privacy policy (18 September 2026) lists improving the services with machine learning as a use of usage data and doesn't address uploaded audio or text either way (15 of 20). Zero data retention and the `x-expire-content` header are Enterprise only, or a $1,000 a month HIPAA add-on on pay as you go. Other plans keep content readable in logs and the dashboard, with no retention period published (5 of 15). Usage is tracked per key, request rows sit in a dashboard log viewer, and every response carries `x-request-id`. No audit log of key actions was found (10 of 15). security.txt is valid to 31 December 2026 and the site footer claims SOC 2, GDPR and HIPAA compliance, while the pricing page lists SOC 2 compliance only on Enterprise. No bug bounty, disclosure policy or public advisories found (10 of 20). Total 52.

### Agent ergonomics: ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API +9

- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API (75): API reading of the checklist. Timestamps can be dropped or set to word or character level, and extra formats such as SRT or plain text come back alongside JSON (20). Transcripts can be fetched by ID, but we didn't find a paginated list for them (10). Typed error codes with messages, `invalid_parameters`, `insufficient_credits` and the 429 family (20). No idempotency key, and `webhook=true` makes the call asynchronous without a dedupe guarantee. Since 26 October transcription webhooks are retried on failure when the webhook's retry setting is on, and requests priced below one credit are charged one credit (10). Two required fields, the model and a file or `source_url`. Official SDKs in Python and TypeScript (15). 20 + 10 + 20 + 10 + 15 = 75.
- Smallest.ai Pulse STT (66): API reading of the checklist. Word timestamps, utterances, diarisation, emotion and gender are each opt-in, so the default response is the transcript with metadata (18 of 25). There are no list endpoints for transcriptions to page. Output controls are the opt-in fields and finalisation settings on the socket (10 of 20). Errors carry a status and a machine-readable `code` or `error_code` (`LANGUAGE_NOT_SUPPORTED_BY_MODEL`, `AudioTooLong` and others) with fixes, but the body comes in two shapes, `message` or `error` (15 of 20). Batch calls are synchronous with no idempotency key, and whether a retried file is billed again isn't stated (10 of 20). A file call needs only the model and audio. Official Python and Node SDKs exist, though the Node SDK was last published in May 2025 (13 of 15). Total 66.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API | Smallest.ai Pulse STT | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 63 | ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API +17 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 95 | 92 | ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 66 | ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 52 | ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 73 | ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 71 | even |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **73 · BB** | **65 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API | Smallest.ai Pulse STT |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | ElevenLabs | Smallest AI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP, websocket |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (SDKs) | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-27 | 2026-11-02 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-03-31 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-20 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 3.1k stars, 1.1M npm/wk, 2.2M PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## What the same task costs

| Task | ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API | Smallest.ai Pulse STT |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Transcribe a one-hour meeting | $0.22 to $0.39 | $0.18 to $0.30 |

## How the scores have moved

### ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API

- +4.0 on 1 November 2026 (B to BB): new evidence, correction
- +0.1 on 27 October 2026: checklist
- -0.1 on 8 October 2026: checklist

### Smallest.ai Pulse STT

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API.** Scribe v2 transcribes 90+ languages at $0.22 an hour of batch audio, with diarisation up to 32 speakers and keys that can be scoped by endpoint, capped and set to expire. Audio may be used for training unless the account opts out, the opt-out isn't retroactive, and zero retention needs Enterprise.

**Smallest.ai Pulse STT.** Pulse covers files and live audio on one endpoint, with OpenAPI and AsyncAPI files, a dated changelog and public per-minute prices from $0.003. The shared API's health checks failed in every region on five days in September, keys carry no scopes and can travel in a URL, and zero retention is Enterprise only.

## Before you call either

### 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 and turn on webhook retries so results aren't lost
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

### Smallest.ai Pulse STT

1. Pass `?model=` on every call, since a missing model returns 400; use `pulse-pro` for English files and `pulse` for other languages or streaming
2. Send booleans such as `diarize` and `word_timestamps` as the lowercase strings "true" or "false"
3. Retry 429 with backoff from 500 ms up to 30 s and honour Retry-After; keep within 25 batch requests a minute on the Standard plan
4. Use the region-pinned host api.us.smallest.ai or api.india.smallest.ai when the audio must stay in one region
5. Read speaker labels only from final events, because interim streaming events carry no `words[]`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API or Smallest.ai Pulse STT?

ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API scores 73 (BB) on agent readiness against Smallest.ai Pulse STT's 65 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Do ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API and Smallest.ai Pulse STT need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API and Smallest.ai Pulse STT without installing anything?

ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1. No hosted endpoint is listed for Smallest.ai Pulse STT.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "elevenlabs-scribe", "b": "smallest-pulse-stt"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare elevenlabs-scribe smallest-pulse-stt`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/elevenlabs-scribe.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/smallest-pulse-stt.json

## Other comparisons with ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API or Smallest.ai Pulse STT

- [Amazon Transcribe vs ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-elevenlabs-scribe.md)
- [Amazon Transcribe vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) vs ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-stt-vs-elevenlabs-scribe.md)
- [AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-stt-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-speech-to-text-vs-elevenlabs-scribe.md)
- [Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-speech-to-text-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [Cartesia Ink vs ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-elevenlabs-scribe.md)
- [Cartesia Ink vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) vs ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepgram-stt-vs-elevenlabs-scribe.md)
- [Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepgram-stt-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Giggy Speech to Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-giggy-stt.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-gladia-stt.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-google-speech-to-text.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Groq Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-groq-speech-to-text.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs IBM Watson Speech to Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-ibm-watson-stt.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Inworld STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-inworld-stt.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs MiniMax Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-minimax-stt.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Mistral Voxtral Transcribe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-mistral-voxtral-transcribe.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs OpenAI Speech to Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-openai-speech-to-text.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-rev-ai-stt.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Soniox Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-soniox-stt.md)
- [ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-scribe-vs-speechmatics-stt.md)
- [Giggy Speech to Text vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/giggy-stt-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gladia-stt-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-speech-to-text-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [Groq Speech-to-Text vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/groq-speech-to-text-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [IBM Watson Speech to Text vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ibm-watson-stt-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [Inworld STT vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inworld-stt-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [MiniMax Speech-to-Text vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/minimax-stt-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [Mistral Voxtral Transcribe vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-voxtral-transcribe-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [OpenAI Speech to Text vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-speech-to-text-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [Rev AI Speech-to-Text API vs Smallest.ai Pulse STT](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rev-ai-stt-vs-smallest-pulse-stt.md)
- [Smallest.ai Pulse STT vs Soniox Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/smallest-pulse-stt-vs-soniox-stt.md)
- [Smallest.ai Pulse STT vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/smallest-pulse-stt-vs-speechmatics-stt.md)

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