# MiniMax Speech-to-Text vs Mistral Voxtral Transcribe

> Mistral Voxtral Transcribe scores 63.1 (B) to MiniMax Speech-to-Text's 48.4 (D) for speech-to-text. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/minimax-stt-vs-mistral-voxtral-transcribe
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/minimax-stt-vs-mistral-voxtral-transcribe.md (~5,400 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)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Mistral Voxtral Transcribe scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against MiniMax Speech-to-Text's 48.4 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do speech-to-text.

- MiniMax Speech-to-Text: grade D, 48.4/100, rank #1114 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/minimax-stt.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/minimax-stt.json
- Mistral Voxtral Transcribe: grade B, 63.1/100, rank #526 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mistral-voxtral-transcribe.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mistral-voxtral-transcribe.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

### MiniMax Speech-to-Text (D)

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

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Mistral Voxtral Transcribe loses 6 points for them

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

### Mistral Voxtral Transcribe (B)

Good for: Suited to low-cost batch transcription with diarisation in the 13 supported languages, and to live captions or voice agents that can run without speaker labels.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 53 against 47
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 70
- Security & auth, 70 against 33
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 88 against 6
- Transparency & trust, 83 against 63

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2 and Realtime 2602 retire on 30 April 2027, and their Voxtral 3 replacements are Public Preview with silent updates allowed


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +82

- 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.
- Mistral Voxtral Transcribe (88): Model reading. Mistral released three Voxtral 3 transcription models (Mini Transcribe 3, Small Transcribe 3 and Mini Transcribe Realtime 3) in Public Preview on 20 October 2026, 13 days before this check (30). The lifecycle policy promises six months' notice for GA models, and Transcribe 2 and Realtime 2602 were deprecated on 31 October with retirement on 30 April 2027, 181 days (12 of 12). No transcription model was retired in the 90 days to 2 November; Voxtral Mini Transcribe (2507) retired on 31 May 2026 (8 of 8). Six dated changelog entries from 31 August to 22 October, one of them the Voxtral 3 release, read as mistral-api reads the same changelog (10 of 15). The eight newest open issues on client-python had zero or one comment per the 8 October check (5 of 10). Official `mistralai` 3.7.0 (1 November) per the client-python RELEASES.md, and `@mistralai/mistralai`, with a v2 to v3 migration guide (15). Both are generated from the OpenAPI document, with test, lint and example workflows in the repository (8 of 10). 30+12+8+10+5+15+8 = 88.

### Security & auth: Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +37

- 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.
- Mistral Voxtral Transcribe (70): Model reading, scored like the other Mistral listings. Keys are bound to one workspace, can carry an expiry date and a connector scope, and organisations can enforce a maximum key lifetime. Browser clients get `rt_` tokens from `POST /v1/client/sessions` that last about 900 seconds, work for one model and travel in `Sec-WebSocket-Protocol`. A key cannot be limited to transcription (26 of 30). The commercial terms effective 25 September 2026 say Mistral will not train on customer data unless the customer opted in, or did not opt out where a product defaults to opt-in, without naming the API's default. The privacy and data controls page the docs link to returned 404 (10 of 20). Input and output are kept 30 rolling days for abuse monitoring, and `/v1/audio/transcriptions` is on the zero data retention list for paid plans, on request and subject to approval (12 of 15). Audit logs cover API key actions on Enterprise plans only (10 of 15). security.txt is valid until 5 May 2027 and names a HackerOne submission form, and the docs publish three security advisories for 2026. Certifications sit in a trust centre drawn by script that we could not read (12 of 20).

### Payments & pricing: Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +20

- 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.
- Mistral Voxtral Transcribe (40): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). $0.003 a minute for Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2 and $0.006 a minute for Voxtral Realtime on public pages (20). Free mode gives API access with no card, within limits shown in the console (20). A person signs up in a browser (0).

### Transparency & trust: Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +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.
- Mistral Voxtral Transcribe (83): The hosted service is closed under commercial terms. The Realtime weights are published on Hugging Face under Apache-2.0 and the SDKs are Apache-2.0, while Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2 has no public weights (20 of 30). The privacy policy effective 3 September 2026 (30 rolling days), the zero data retention page and the terms agree on retention, and the terms leave the API's training default unnamed (20 of 30). A model lifecycle page with notice periods per stage (20). Opt-in EU and US regional endpoints are documented, the global endpoint commits to no location, and the provider list is in a trust centre we could not read (13 of 20).

### Agent ergonomics: Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +7

- MiniMax Speech-to-Text (70): API reading of the checklist. The default `json` returns only text, duration and a trace ID, with segments and subtitles opt-in (22 of 25). No lists to page. `response_format` and `language` are the output controls (12 of 20). Typed error envelopes with the real HTTP status, an error type and `request_id`, and 402 for an empty balance (18 of 20). Calls are synchronous with no idempotency key (10 of 20). Two fields, a model and a file. No official SDK, and MiniMax's MCP servers don't cover transcription (8 of 15). Total 70.
- Mistral Voxtral Transcribe (77): API reading, as for the other speech-to-text listings. Segments, word timestamps and speaker labels are returned only when asked for, and the default response is the text, the language and usage. No subtitle or plain-text output format was found (18 of 25). There is no transcript store to page through. Volume goes through the batch API, which accepts `/v1/audio/transcriptions` (12 of 20). Errors return `type`, `param` and `code` with a fix per status in the glossary (17 of 20). The call is stateless and safe to retry, the SDKs retry with backoff, and no idempotency key exists or is needed (15 of 20). `model` is the only required field beside the audio source, and there are official Python and TypeScript SDKs plus OpenAI SDK compatibility for the batch endpoint (15).

### Reliability: Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +6

- 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.
- Mistral Voxtral Transcribe (53): Hosted reading. The docs point to status.mistral.ai, a Rootly page with component uptime bars per the 1 and 2 October reading on the other Mistral listings (20). The page has answered with a Cloudflare bot check since 8 October, robots.txt included on 2 November, so it is treated as blocked and the 90-day record for audio was not read (5, unread and not a finding against the vendor). The limits page names audio seconds a minute and audio seconds a month as the audio limits, with the numbers shown only in the Admin Panel, per the 8 October check (3 of 15). The error glossary tells callers to back off exponentially on 429, 500, 502, 503 and 504 and to read the `Retry-After` header, and the official SDKs retry with backoff. Transcription is a stateless call (15). No SLA found (0). Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2 and Realtime (2602) are deprecated but served until 30 April 2027, and `voxtral-mini-latest` still points to Transcribe 2, while the Voxtral 3 transcription models are Public Preview (10).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | MiniMax Speech-to-Text | Mistral Voxtral Transcribe | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 47 | 53 | Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +6 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 85 | Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 77 | Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 33 | 70 | Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +37 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 40 | Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 6 | 88 | Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +82 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 83 | Mistral Voxtral Transcribe +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -6 | |
| **Total** | | **48.4 · D** | **63.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | MiniMax Speech-to-Text | Mistral Voxtral Transcribe |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | MiniMax | Mistral AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.mistral.ai/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, websocket |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary hosted service under Mistral's commercial terms. Voxtral Mini 4B Realtime weights and the SDKs are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 0 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-20 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-09-25 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-09-03 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 773 stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 4/5 (4) |

## What the same task costs

| Task | MiniMax Speech-to-Text | Mistral Voxtral Transcribe |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Transcribe a one-hour meeting | $0.38 | $0.18 to $0.48 |

## How the scores have moved

### MiniMax Speech-to-Text

No score change since it was listed.

### Mistral Voxtral Transcribe

- -1.1 on 2 November 2026: product, negative event
- +0.1 on 27 October 2026: checklist

## Verdicts

**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.

**Mistral Voxtral Transcribe.** Batch transcription costs $0.003 a minute and takes one multipart call with a file, a URL or an uploaded file ID. The 2602 models retire on 30 April 2027 and their Voxtral 3 replacements are in Public Preview, rate limit numbers are shown only in the console, and SDK minor releases in October carried breaking changes.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Mistral Voxtral Transcribe

1. Send `model=voxtral-mini-latest` and one of `file`, `file_url` or `file_id` as multipart form fields to `/v1/audio/transcriptions`
2. Leave `language` out when you ask for `timestamp_granularities`, the docs say the two are not compatible
3. Use the batch endpoint for diarisation with the 2602 models. `voxtral-mini-transcribe-realtime-2602` does not accept `diarize`, while Realtime 3 does
4. Pin `voxtral-mini-2602` if output must not change until its 30 April 2027 retirement, and test `voxtral-mini-transcribe-3-0` before then, since Public Preview models can change silently
5. Mint browser tokens with `POST /v1/client/sessions` close to connection time and pass them in `Sec-WebSocket-Protocol`, never the API key

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, MiniMax Speech-to-Text or Mistral Voxtral Transcribe?

Mistral Voxtral Transcribe scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against MiniMax Speech-to-Text's 48.4 (D), and leads in every scored category.

### Do MiniMax Speech-to-Text and Mistral Voxtral Transcribe need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call MiniMax Speech-to-Text and Mistral Voxtral Transcribe without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for MiniMax Speech-to-Text. Mistral Voxtral Transcribe has a hosted endpoint at https://api.mistral.ai/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with MiniMax Speech-to-Text or Mistral Voxtral Transcribe

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

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