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

Groq Speech-to-Text vs MiniMax Speech-to-Text

Groq Speech-to-Text scores 70.1 (BB) on agent readiness against MiniMax Speech-to-Text's 48.4 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. MiniMax Speech-to-Text leads on schema & documentation. Both do speech-to-text.

Best speech-to-text APIs for AI agents · All 320 stt comparisons

Which one, for what

Groq Speech-to-Text BB

Best for Suited to cheap, fast transcription of recorded files in many languages, and to agents that already hold a Groq key or use an OpenAI-compatible client.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 90 against 47
  • Agent ergonomics, 75 against 70
  • Security & auth, 79 against 33
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 48 against 6
  • Transparency & trust, 85 against 63

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No streaming or realtime endpoint and no diarisation in the reviewed documentation

MiniMax Speech-to-Text D

Best for Cheap file transcription with diarisation and subtitles, strongest on Chinese and code-switched audio by the vendor's account.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 82 against 58

Watch for

Files only, up to 500 seconds and 50 MB; live audio input isn't supported

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Security & auth Groq Speech-to-Text +46

Groq Speech-to-Text 79

Model reading, scored like the GroqCloud listing. Bearer keys belong to one project, each project has its own rate limits per model, and the security onboarding page covers rotation and immediate revocation. No way to limit a key to the audio endpoints was found (26 of 30). The services agreement, last modified 22 June 2026, says Groq may not use inputs or outputs for training or fine-tuning unless the customer grants permission (20). Inputs and outputs are not retained by default, logs kept for reliability or abuse last up to 30 days, and the data page lists both audio endpoints as eligible for zero data retention, a setting in Data Controls (15). Usage data and request logs per project and a read-only Reader role. No audit log of administrative actions was found (10 of 15). security.txt on groq.com holds a Contact line only, with no expiry date. The DPA commits to SOC 2 Type II audits, and the trust centre at trust.groq.com is drawn by script and was not read (8 of 20).

MiniMax Speech-to-Text 33

Model reading of the checklist, with training and retention in place of the least-privilege and injection lines. Plain API keys from the console with no scopes found, and the docs say publicly leaked keys may be disabled, as on minimax-voice-cloning (20 of 30). The terms (effective 30 March 2026), as read for minimax-voice-cloning on 4 November, let MiniMax use input and generated content to operate, maintain, develop and improve its services, with no opt-out found, and the privacy policy rules out only training to profile or target consumers (5 of 20). No retention period for uploaded audio or transcripts was found (3 of 15). Each response carries a trace ID, with no audit log found (5 of 15). No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found, as on the other MiniMax listings (0 of 20). Total 33.

Reliability Groq Speech-to-Text +43

Groq Speech-to-Text 90

Hosted reading. The status page at groqstatus.com (incident.io) lists whisper-large-v3 and whisper-large-v3-turbo as separate production components (20). On 1 November 2026 it showed both at 100% uptime from 3 August to 1 November with "No incidents", and neither its RSS feed nor the incident pages it links names either model. The window's three incidents were on other components (an enterprise preview model on 10 and 12 October, and console errors on 12 October that Groq said did not affect inference), plus maintenance on 9 and 18 October (30). The rate limits page gives numbers for both models, 20 requests a minute, 2,000 a day, 7,200 audio seconds an hour and 28,800 a day on the free plan, re-read on 1 November, and the models page gives 300 requests a minute and 200,000 audio seconds an hour (v3) and 400 and 400,000 (Turbo) on the Developer plan (15). A 429 carries retry-after, the security onboarding page says to back off exponentially on 429 and 5xx, and transcription is a stateless call (15). The enterprise Performance Tier's 99.9% availability SLA names three language models and neither Whisper model, per the 8 October check, so no SLA was found for this product (0). Both models are listed as production models (10). 20+30+15+15+0+10 = 90.

MiniMax Speech-to-Text 47

Atlassian Statuspage at status.minimax.io with component history, but its components are LLM, Text-to-Speech and Video Generation, with none for speech to text (10 of 20). With no component, the history holds no record for transcription (5). Limits published with numbers, 2 concurrent connections and 30,000 audio seconds a minute (15). 429 is documented as rate_limit_error, and the general error code page says to retry later, with no backoff figures or Retry-After (7 of 15). No SLA in the terms or docs (0). asr-1.0 is called the current public model with no beta label (10). 10 + 5 + 15 + 7 + 0 + 10 = 47.

Maintenance & community Groq Speech-to-Text +42

Groq Speech-to-Text 48

Model reading, as for the GroqCloud listing, counting changes to this listing's own models and endpoints, as the OpenAI listings read their own models and the AWS listings their own service models. No dated change to speech-to-text was found in 2026. The Python SDK 1.7.0 (tag 25 August, uploaded to PyPI on 26 August 2026 per the 8 October check) and TypeScript SDK 1.6.0 (25 August) add chat reasoning guidance, CI workflows and lock-file updates and leave the audio code untouched. The last SDK change to the transcription code was Python 1.2.0 on 18 April 2026. A release that doesn't change this service can't set the recency line in this run, as for the Azure Translator listing, and Muse Spark Open's 15 October preview is a chat model, counted on the GroqCloud listing. So no change within 180 days was found (0, was 20). The deprecations page promises an email and a named replacement and states no minimum notice. The one speech-to-text retirement on it is distil-whisper-large-v3-en on 23 August 2025, and the newest announcement is 24 August 2026, for Compound (4 of 12). Neither Whisper model was retired or renamed in the last 90 days (8 of 8). A dated docs changelog with a feed exists, its newest entry is 18 April and none of its entries concern speech-to-text (8 of 15). SDK issue replies not sampled (5 of 10). Official groq 1.7.0 on PyPI and groq-sdk 1.6.0 on npm, per the tags (15). CI, release automation and lock-file vulnerability fixes in 1.7.0 (8 of 10). 0+4+8+8+5+15+8 = 48.

MiniMax Speech-to-Text 6

Read as a model. No dated release or change of asr-1.0 was found on the model or API release notes or the status page (0). No dated ASR entries in the last 90 days (0). Support by email and Discord, not tested (6 of 15). No official SDK, and the MCP servers have no transcription tool (0 of 15). No package to judge (0 of 10). Total 6.

Schema & documentation MiniMax Speech-to-Text +24

Groq Speech-to-Text 58

Model reading. No OpenAPI document was found in the docs, and the Python SDK's .stats.yml carries an endpoint count with no specification URL (0). llms.txt at console.groq.com with Markdown twins of the guide, model cards and reference (10). The guide says which model to pick for accuracy or price, that translation is English only and that the prompt steers style within 224 tokens, and it explains the verbose_json quality fields (15 of 20). The reference lists allowed values for response_format and timestamp_granularities[] and marks model as required, while language and url are plain strings (11 of 15). curl, Python and JavaScript examples for both endpoints and a shared errors page with a typed error object. The Batch page's sample still names distil-whisper-large-v3-en, shut down on 23 August 2025, on 1 November (12 of 15). The docs changelog is dated, its newest entry is still 18 April on 1 November and no entry in it concerns speech-to-text (10 of 15).

MiniMax Speech-to-Text 82

OpenAPI 3.1 for /v1/speech_to_text, with eight documented responses (25). llms.txt and a Markdown copy of every page (10). The guide says when to stream, when to use verbose_json, and that subtitles and diarisation can't be combined with streaming (15 of 20). Typed multipart fields with an enum for response_format, and file limits stated in prose (12 of 15). Python examples and an error table giving HTTP status, error.type and trigger for 400, 401, 402, 413, 422, 429 and 500 (15). Versioned /v1 path, but neither release notes page mentions the ASR API, and the API notes stop at 28 October 2025 (5 of 15). Total 82.

Transparency & trust Groq Speech-to-Text +22

Groq Speech-to-Text 85

The hosted service is closed under the Groq Services Agreement. Both models are OpenAI's published Whisper weights, linked from each model card, served with Groq's own quantisation, and the SDKs are Apache-2.0 (20 of 30). The data page, the services agreement and the DPA agree on retention and on the training ban. The agreement limits zero retention to 'Eligible Customers' while the data page says all customers may enable it, and the privacy policy effective 12 November 2025 says it does not cover customer data sent to GroqCloud (26 of 30). A deprecations page with dated history and replacements, with no minimum notice period (14 of 20). Customer data is kept in Google Cloud storage in the United States, and the DPA gives 15 days' notice of sub-processor changes to subscribers. The sub-processor list is in the trust centre we could not read (12 of 20).

MiniMax Speech-to-Text 63

Closed API with clear terms under Singapore law naming Nanonoble Pte. Ltd., as on the other MiniMax listings (15 of 30). The terms and privacy policy agree that inputs may be used to improve services and that data sits in a United States data centre, with no retention period for audio (8 of 30). No deprecation notice or policy touches the ASR API (10 of 20, for the dated notices elsewhere on the API release notes). Data location stated as the United States and an EU representative named, with third parties only by category (10 of 20). Total 43.

Payments & pricing Groq Speech-to-Text +20

Groq Speech-to-Text 40

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). $0.04 an audio hour for Whisper Large v3 Turbo and $0.111 for Whisper Large v3 on the models page and model cards, read without a login (20). The free plan needs no card and includes both Whisper models at its own rate limits (20). A person signs up in the console in a browser (0).

MiniMax Speech-to-Text 20

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). $0.38 an hour published without a login (20). Speech to text is for paid accounts only (0). A person signs up in a browser and funds a balance (0). Total 20.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGroq Speech-to-TextMiniMax Speech-to-TextEdge
Reliability16%209047Groq Speech-to-Text +43
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25882MiniMax Speech-to-Text +24
Agent ergonomics13%16.27570Groq Speech-to-Text +5
Security & auth14%17.57933Groq Speech-to-Text +46
Payments & pricing10%12.54020Groq Speech-to-Text +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8486Groq Speech-to-Text +42
Transparency & trust7%8.88563Groq Speech-to-Text +22
Negative events≤1500
TotalBB 70.1/100D 48.4/100

Facts side by side

FactGroq Speech-to-TextMiniMax Speech-to-Text
KindModel APIModel API
VendorGroqMiniMax
Hosted endpointhttps://api.groq.com/openai/v1no (local only)
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPay per use
x402nono
LicenceProprietary hosted service under the Groq Services Agreement. The SDKs are Apache-2.0 and the Whisper weights are published by OpenAI on Hugging Facenone
Tools exposednone0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-08-26none
Terms last updated2026-06-22couldn't be read
Privacy policy last updated2025-11-12couldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingyescouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textcouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textcouldn't be read
Popularity621 starsnone
Agent reviews3.5/5 (4)none

What the same task costs

TaskGroq Speech-to-TextMiniMax Speech-to-Text
Transcribe a one-hour meeting60 minutes of recorded audio$0.04 to $0.11$0.38

Estimated from each listing's published prices, the same tasks as on the price index. Plans, minimums and free allowances aren't counted.

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Groq Speech-to-Text

Whisper Large v3 Turbo costs $0.04 an audio hour and Whisper Large v3 $0.111, with a no-card free plan and zero data retention as a self-serve setting. There is no streaming endpoint, no diarisation and no subtitle output, and uploads stop at 25 MB on the free plan and 100 MB on the Developer plan.

MiniMax Speech-to-Text

MiniMax's ASR API has an OpenAPI file, typed error envelopes and a public price of $0.38 an hour, with diarisation and subtitle output. It takes files of up to 500 seconds only, allows 2 concurrent connections, has no free tier or status component, and no dated release.

Before you call either

Groq Speech-to-Text

  1. Send whisper-large-v3-turbo for transcription and whisper-large-v3 for translation to English. The translations endpoint does not accept Turbo.
  2. Pass url instead of file for audio over 25 MB, and split anything over the plan's size limit into overlapping chunks before sending.
  3. Set response_format to verbose_json before asking for timestamp_granularities[]. Word timestamps add latency, segment timestamps do not.
  4. Every request is billed as at least 10 seconds of audio, so join very short clips where the task allows.
  5. Read retry-after on a 429 and back off. Audio limits count seconds an hour and a day as well as requests.

MiniMax Speech-to-Text

  1. Split recordings into pieces under 500 seconds before uploading, since longer audio returns 400
  2. Convert to mono 16 kHz or a compressed format to stay under 50 MB
  3. Use verbose_json for speakers and timestamps, and json only when streaming
  4. Treat 402 insufficient_balance_error as final and ask the user to top up
  5. Use https://api.minimaxi.com for a mainland China account

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Groq Speech-to-Text or MiniMax Speech-to-Text?

Groq Speech-to-Text scores 70.1 (BB) on agent readiness against MiniMax Speech-to-Text's 48.4 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. MiniMax Speech-to-Text leads on schema & documentation.

Do Groq Speech-to-Text and MiniMax Speech-to-Text need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Groq Speech-to-Text and MiniMax Speech-to-Text without installing anything?

Groq Speech-to-Text has a hosted endpoint at https://api.groq.com/openai/v1. No hosted endpoint is listed for MiniMax Speech-to-Text.

Other comparisons with Groq Speech-to-Text or MiniMax Speech-to-Text

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