Head to head · Speech-to-text · October 2026 research run
OpenAI Speech to Text vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
OpenAI Speech to Text scores 72.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Rev AI Speech-to-Text API's 57.8 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Rev AI Speech-to-Text API leads on transparency & trust. Both do speech-to-text.
Best speech-to-text APIs for AI agents · All 91 stt comparisons
Which one, for what
Good for Suited to plain transcription of recorded files at a low price a minute and to teams already holding an OpenAI key.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 80 against 75
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 80
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 72
- Security & auth, 86 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 30
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
Watch for
whisper-1, gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe and gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize were deprecated on 26 August 2026 and shut down on 26 February 2027
Good for English batch jobs where a human-checked transcript may be needed later, through the same API.
Ahead on
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 61
Watch for
The streaming WebSocket takes the account's access token as a URL query parameter
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | OpenAI Speech to Text | Rev AI Speech-to-Text API | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 80 | 75 | OpenAI Speech to Text +5 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 88 | 80 | OpenAI Speech to Text +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 78 | 72 | OpenAI Speech to Text +6 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 86 | 40 | OpenAI Speech to Text +46 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 75 | 30 | OpenAI Speech to Text +45 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 61 | 68 | Rev AI Speech-to-Text API +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 72.4 · BB | 57.8 · C |
Facts side by side
| Fact | OpenAI Speech to Text | Rev AI Speech-to-Text API |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | OpenAI | Rev |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.openai.com/v1 | https://api.rev.ai/speechtotext/v1 |
| Transports | HTTP, websocket | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service. The service terms were not read (see open questions). The Python SDK is Apache-2.0 and the OpenAPI document is MIT | MIT (SDKs) |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-08-26 | 2024-11-27 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-05-15 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-02-03 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 32k stars | 36 stars, 16k npm/wk, 130k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |
Verdicts
OpenAI Speech to Text
gpt-transcribe costs $0.0045 an audio minute, and the audio endpoints keep no abuse-monitoring logs or application state. Speaker labels, timestamps, subtitles and translation exist only on whisper-1 and gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize, which shut down on 26 February 2027 with no named replacement for those functions.
Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
Reverb English at $0.20 an hour, foreign languages at $0.30. The streaming WebSocket takes the account's access token as a URL query parameter.
Before you call either
OpenAI Speech to Text
- Send
gpt-transcribetoPOST /v1/audio/transcriptionsfor recorded files. Uselanguages(a list), notlanguage, and never send both. - Keep each upload at 25 MB or less. Split longer audio between sentences and pass the previous chunk's text in
prompt. - For speaker labels send
gpt-4o-transcribe-diarizewithresponse_format=diarized_jsonandchunking_strategy=autofor audio over 30 seconds. Plan for its shutdown on 26 February 2027. - Word timestamps,
srt,vttand/v1/audio/translationsneedwhisper-1, which cannot stream and shuts down on the same date. - On 429 or 503 wait at least
Retry-Afterwhen present, then back off with jitter. Do not retrycredit_balance_exhaustedor spend-limit errors.
Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- Keep streaming URLs out of logs. They carry
access_token - Send
source_config: {"url": ...}, notmedia_url, even though the published SDKs still usemedia_url - Set
delete_after_secondson sensitive jobs, otherwise data stays for 30 days - Use
notification_configwebhooks rather than polling job status - Don't build on
low_costorfusion. Both are deprecated
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, OpenAI Speech to Text or Rev AI Speech-to-Text API?
OpenAI Speech to Text scores 72.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Rev AI Speech-to-Text API's 57.8 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Rev AI Speech-to-Text API leads on transparency & trust.
Do OpenAI Speech to Text and Rev AI Speech-to-Text API need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call OpenAI Speech to Text and Rev AI Speech-to-Text API without installing anything?
Yes. OpenAI Speech to Text has a hosted endpoint at https://api.openai.com/v1 and Rev AI Speech-to-Text API at https://api.rev.ai/speechtotext/v1.
Other comparisons with OpenAI Speech to Text or Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- Amazon Transcribe vs OpenAI Speech to Text
- Amazon Transcribe vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) vs OpenAI Speech to Text
- AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs OpenAI Speech to Text
- Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- Cartesia Ink vs OpenAI Speech to Text
- Cartesia Ink vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) vs OpenAI Speech to Text
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- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs OpenAI Speech to Text
- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs OpenAI Speech to Text
- Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs OpenAI Speech to Text
- Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- Groq Speech-to-Text vs OpenAI Speech to Text
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- Mistral Voxtral Transcribe vs OpenAI Speech to Text
- Mistral Voxtral Transcribe vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- OpenAI Speech to Text vs Soniox Speech-to-Text
- OpenAI Speech to Text vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- Rev AI Speech-to-Text API vs Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Rev AI Speech-to-Text API vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/openai-speech-to-text-vs-rev-ai-stt.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/openai-speech-to-text.json·/api/v1/tools/rev-ai-stt.json - From a terminal
anchor compare openai-speech-to-text rev-ai-stt(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "openai-speech-to-text", "b": "rev-ai-stt"}at/mcp, no key