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

MiniMax Speech-to-Text vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text

Speechmatics Speech-to-Text scores 67.8 (B) on agent readiness against MiniMax Speech-to-Text's 48.4 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do speech-to-text.

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

Which one, for what

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.

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Speechmatics Speech-to-Text loses 3 points for them

Watch for

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

Speechmatics Speech-to-Text B

Best for Regulated or privacy-sensitive audio, multilingual batch with Melia 1, and voice agents that want speaker-attributed turns.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 47
  • Schema & documentation, 90 against 82
  • Agent ergonomics, 80 against 70
  • Security & auth, 65 against 33
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 70 against 6
  • Transparency & trust, 76 against 63

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

Enhanced costs $0.38 to $0.40 an hour, above most rivals

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.

Maintenance & community Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +64

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.

Speechmatics Speech-to-Text 70

Model reading of the checklist, deprecation notice and support in place of release counts and issue replies. Changelog entries on 29 October 2026 for Batch SaaS and Agent STT, and speechmatics-rt 1.2.2 tagged on 26 October (30). Far more than three dated entries since 3 August, nine in October on the changelog's first page alone (10 of 10). No deprecation policy, and operating_point, the region field and the Voice SDK are marked deprecated with no removal date (0 of 10). A public changelog, a support portal with chat and email, and a community channel (10 of 15). SDK issues and reply times couldn't be read (0 of 10). Python packages speechmatics-batch 1.1.0 and speechmatics-rt 1.2.2, and JavaScript batch-client and real-time-client, current (15). A test workflow in the Python SDK, results not seen (5 of 10).

Security & auth Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +32

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.

Speechmatics Speech-to-Text 65

Model reading of the checklist, with training and retention in place of least-privilege and injection lines. API keys as bearer tokens, with a separate management token for key administration (20). Browser and realtime clients pass temporary keys as ?jwt= on the WebSocket URL, with a lifetime the caller sets from 60 to 86,400 seconds, so we deduct half (minus 5). Training is opt-in only, and opting in buys a 33 per cent discount (20). Realtime audio isn't stored, batch data is deleted after 7 days or on request (15). A usage reporting service exists, but we found no per-request audit log (10). ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and SOC 2 Type II with a SafeBase trust centre. No security.txt (404 on 1 November), disclosure policy, bug bounty or public advisories found (5).

Reliability Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +23

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.

Speechmatics Speech-to-Text 70

Statuspage at status.speechmatics.com with components per region and history (20). Since 3 August, minor incidents only, each touching one region, one mode or a subset of requests. Batch AU slower for 2 hours on 10 August, a subset of Batch EU1, US1 and US2 jobs failing or slow for 56 minutes on 19 August, Realtime 4003 errors in the EU and US for 37 minutes on 4 September, and TLS errors for a subset of US Realtime sessions for about 2 hours on 10 September. The rest were scheduled database maintenance, a portal maintenance and a billing credit error, and nothing was posted after 10 September (20). Limits published with numbers, 10 new batch jobs and 50 status calls a second, 20,000 concurrent jobs, and 2 or 50 realtime sessions by plan (15). Both batch limits return 429 with a reason, but the docs only suggest notifications instead of polling and give no backoff or Retry-After (5). No SLA found for self-serve plans (0). Batch, Realtime and Agent STT on /v2/agent are GA (10).

Payments & pricing Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +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.

Speechmatics Speech-to-Text 40

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-hour prices for every model published without a login, with credits at $1 each before discounts (20). $100 credit with no card (20). A person signs up in a browser (0).

Transparency & trust Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +13

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.

Speechmatics Speech-to-Text 76

Closed service with clear terms and MIT SDKs (15). The pricing page, limits pages and security page agree on opt-in training, 7-day batch retention and no storage for realtime (25). The changelog announces behaviour changes in advance, such as the 23 September 2026 switch to waiting polls, but we found no deprecation policy (10). EU1, US1 and AU1 regions documented per endpoint and the service named as Azure-hosted, but no sub-processor list was found (15).

Agent ergonomics Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +10

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.

Speechmatics Speech-to-Text 80

API reading of the checklist. Transcripts can be fetched as txt, json-v2 or srt (20). The jobs list pages by creation date and limit (20). Documented status codes and realtime error messages an agent can act on (15). No idempotency key on job creation (10). A batch job needs a file and a language. Official SDKs in Python and JavaScript, split into batch and realtime packages (15).

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runMiniMax Speech-to-TextSpeechmatics Speech-to-TextEdge
Reliability16%204770Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +23
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28290Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.27080Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +10
Security & auth14%17.53365Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +32
Payments & pricing10%12.52040Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8670Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +64
Transparency & trust7%8.86376Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +13
Negative events≤150-3
TotalD 48.4/100B 67.8/100

Facts side by side

FactMiniMax Speech-to-TextSpeechmatics Speech-to-Text
KindModel APIModel API
VendorMiniMaxSpeechmatics
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per usePay per use
Price for speech-to-textnot published$0.0025 per minute of audio
x402nono
LicencenoneMIT (SDKs)
Tools exposed0none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last releasenone2026-10-26
Terms last updatedcouldn't be readno date given
Privacy policy last updatedcouldn't be read2026-05-27
Customer content may train modelscouldn't be readnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be readnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be readyes
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be readnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be readnot found in the text
Popularitynone20 stars, 58k npm/wk, 48k PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone3.5/5 (2)

What the same task costs

TaskMiniMax Speech-to-TextSpeechmatics Speech-to-Text
Transcribe a one-hour meeting60 minutes of recorded audio$0.38$0.12 to $0.40

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

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.

Speechmatics Speech-to-Text

Training is opt-in and real-time audio is not stored. Enhanced transcription costs $0.38 an hour for files and $0.40 for live audio.

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

Speechmatics Speech-to-Text

  1. Set "model": "enhanced" explicitly. The default is standard
  2. Use notifications instead of polling. Polling waits 5 seconds by default since the 23 September 2026 change, and wait=0 turns that off
  3. Fetch batch transcripts within 7 days. After that the API returns 404 expired
  4. Pass a fetch_data URL for files over 1 GB
  5. Use /v2/agent with linden-1 for live agents instead of the plain realtime path
  6. Read the Batch API's Swagger file at https://docs.speechmatics.com/batch.yaml before building the multipart config field

Questions

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

Speechmatics Speech-to-Text scores 67.8 (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 Speechmatics Speech-to-Text need an API key?

Both need an API key.

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

No hosted endpoint is listed for MiniMax Speech-to-Text. Speechmatics Speech-to-Text has a hosted endpoint at https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2.

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

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