Head to head · Speech stt · October 2026 research run
Soniox Speech-to-Text vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
Speechmatics Speech-to-Text has a score of 67.3 (B) against Soniox Speech-to-Text's 58.3 (C). Both do speech stt. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 45 points.
Soniox Speech-to-TextSoniox · Model API
C58.3/100#281 of 452
Speechmatics Speech-to-TextSpeechmatics · Model API
B67.3/100#145 of 452
Which one, for what
Pick Soniox Speech-to-Text for
- security & auth (+5)
Pick Speechmatics Speech-to-Text for
- reliability (+5)
- schema & documentation (+5)
- agent ergonomics (+10)
- payments & pricing (+20)
- maintenance & community (+45)
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Soniox Speech-to-Text | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 65 | 70 | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +5 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 60 | 65 | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 70 | 80 | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +10 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 70 | 65 | Soniox Speech-to-Text +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 40 | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 30 | 75 | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +45 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 78 | 78 | even |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 58.3 · C | 67.3 · B |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Soniox Speech-to-Text | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Soniox | Speechmatics |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.soniox.com/v1 | https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2 |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (Python SDK) | MIT (SDKs) |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-08-11 | 2026-09-22 |
| Popularity | 12 stars, 22k npm/wk | 20 stars, 58k npm/wk, 48k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |
Verdicts
Soniox Speech-to-Text
About $0.10 an hour async and $0.12 real time, with diarisation, language ID and translation included. No free credits for new accounts since October 2025.
Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
Training is opt-in and real-time audio is not stored. Enhanced transcription costs $0.40 to $0.43 an hour.
Before you call either
Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Pass
audio_urlfor public files and skip the upload step. Delete uploaded files or they count against the 10 GB quota for 30 days - Use the
contextfield for names and domain terms - Buffer audio while the WebSocket connects, then flush it after the config message
- Split anything over 300 minutes. The cap is fixed
- Set
client_reference_idso failed or duplicate requests can be traced in the usage log
Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- Set
"model": "enhanced"explicitly. The default isstandard - Use notifications instead of polling. Polling waits 5 seconds by default since the 23 September 2026 change, and
wait=0turns that off - Fetch batch transcripts within 7 days. After that the API returns 404
expired - Pass a
fetch_dataURL for files over 1 GB - Use
/v2/agentwithlinden-1for live agents instead of the plain realtime path
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