Rev AI Speech-to-Text API by Rev

# Fix list: Rev AI Speech-to-Text API

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/rev-ai-stt, the October 2026 research run, assessed 1 October 2026. Grade C, 58 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on Rev AI Speech-to-Text API: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Security & auth, 40 out of 100, up to 10.5 more on the total

Why it scored 40: Model reading of the checklist, with training and retention in place of least-privilege and injection lines. Bearer access tokens, generated and replaced from the account page, with no scopes found (20). The streaming WebSocket takes that long-lived token as an `access_token` query parameter, a documented secret in a URL (minus 10). The Rev.com terms (15 May 2026) say customer content on speech-to-text services may be used for continuous training of Rev's ASR and other AI models, not generative AI, and offer no opt-out (0). Jobs and media are deleted after 30 days, sooner with `delete_after_seconds`, an account setting or a delete call. Streaming retention isn't stated (10). Jobs are listed per account, no audit log found (10). Rev's security page names SOC 2 Type II and links a SOC 3 report, plus PCI, HIPAA on the enterprise tier and CJIS. No security.txt, disclosure policy or bug bounty found (10 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 2. Payments & pricing, 20 out of 100, up to 10 more on the total

Why it scored 20: No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-hour and per-minute prices published without a login (20). Free credits worth 5 hours of Reverb, but we couldn't confirm whether sign-up needs a card (0). A person signs up in a browser (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 3. Maintenance & community, 30 out of 100, up to 6.1 more on the total

Why it scored 30: The newest changelog entry is 2026-08-20, deprecating the `fusion` transcriber, 42 days ago (20). Two dated entries in the last 90 days, 28 July and 20 August (0). Public changelog and an email support channel. The SDK repositories had commits in March and May 2026 but no release (5). npm's latest Node SDK is 3.8.5 from 4 January 2024 and the Python SDK's last tag is 2.21.0 from 27 November 2024. Both repositories merged a `source_config` fix in March 2026 (Python 2.22.0, Node 3.9.0 in source) that hasn't shipped (5). Rev's own readiness report in the Node repository (12 May 2026) records the last three default-branch CI runs as failed (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## 4. Reliability, 75 out of 100, up to 5 more on the total

Why it scored 75: Statuspage at status.rev.ai with component history (20). No incident since 13 May 2026, so the last 90 days are clean. The page has logged only eight incidents since September 2022, which says as much about how often Rev posts as about uptime (30). Limits published with numbers, 10,000 async submissions and 500 processing jobs per 10 minutes and 10 concurrent streams (15). No 429 handling, Retry-After or backoff guidance in the async reference, the get-started page or the changelog (0). No SLA found, and the pricing page names none (0). Async and streaming are GA (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 5. Agent ergonomics, 72 out of 100, up to 4.6 more on the total

Why it scored 72: API reading of the checklist. Transcripts come back as JSON or plain text by `Accept` header, and captions as SRT or VTT (20). `GET /jobs` pages with `limit` and `starting_after` (20). Error formats weren't documented in the reference section we read (10). No idempotency key. `test_mode` on human jobs returns a dummy transcript at no charge, which helps testing but isn't dedupe (10). A job needs only a media URL in `source_config`. SDKs exist in Node and Python, but the published versions still send `media_url`, deprecated since 9 May 2022, and Rev's own March 2026 commit says the v3 transcriber rejects it with a 400 (12 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 6. Schema & documentation, 80 out of 100, up to 3.3 more on the total

Why it scored 80: The async reference links an OpenAPI description at docs.rev.ai/_bundle/api/asynchronous/reference.yaml, which came back unreadable to our fetcher but is published (25). llms.txt (10). Endpoint descriptions state purpose, and the docs explain when to choose the machine, foreign-language or human transcriber (15). Typed options with enums for the transcriber, though we couldn't read constraints from the spec file (10). The reference excerpt we read shows no error responses for `POST /jobs` (5). Versioned `/speechtotext/v1` paths and a dated changelog (15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 7. Transparency & trust, 71 out of 100, up to 2.5 more on the total

Made of editorial 55, provenance 86.

Why it scored 71: Closed service under the Rev.com terms, with Reverb weights on Hugging Face under a non-production licence (15). The terms (15 May 2026) disclose training of Rev's own ASR models on customer content, the security page says content never trains external models, and the docs promise 30-day deletion with per-job overrides. They agree with each other, though the API docs themselves never mention training (20 of 30). Deprecations are dated, but both say the option will be removed in a future release with no removal date (10). EU deployment in Frankfurt documented, no sub-processor list found (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Domain age: rev.ai, registered 2017-12-16 (8 years) (11 of 15)
- security.txt: not found (0 of 10)

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- unchecked: whether the free credits need a card. Neither the pricing page nor the get-started page says, and we didn't read the sign-up page
- unchecked: the OpenAPI file's contents, which came back as binary to our fetcher on both runs, so its error responses and constraints are unread
- When `low_cost`, `fusion` and `media_url` will be removed; the changelog still says only a future release
- Whether API customers can opt out of ASR training, which neither the terms nor the security page mentions
- Whether `machine_v3`, named in Rev's March 2026 SDK commits, is a public transcriber, since the docs changelog doesn't mention it
- The listing's `openapi` field was null, but the async reference links an OpenAPI file, so we patched it

## Weaknesses

- The streaming WebSocket takes the account's access token as a URL query parameter
- Published SDKs date from January 2024 (Node) and November 2024 (Python) and still send the deprecated `media_url`
- The terms let Rev train its ASR models on customer content, with no opt-out stated
- Two deprecations in 2026 with no removal dates
- No SLA or 429 guidance found

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Keep streaming URLs out of logs. They carry `access_token`
- Send `source_config: {"url": ...}`, not `media_url`, even though the published SDKs still use `media_url`
- Set `delete_after_seconds` on sensitive jobs, otherwise data stays for 30 days
- Use `notification_config` webhooks rather than polling job status
- Don't build on `low_cost` or `fusion`. Both are deprecated

## What the review panel asked for

- State free-credit card terms
- Document error responses and 429 handling
- Publish an SLA

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.