Best free transcription tools in 2026: what you really get for free

Checked on 12 October 2026 on each service's own website. Prices and limits change — follow the links to see the current version.

"Free" on a transcription pricing page can mean three quite different things: a small allowance that renews every day, a bucket of minutes that refills every month, or a one-off trial that ends once you have used it. Which one you need depends on what you are transcribing. A weekly 20-minute podcast segment, a pile of voice notes and a single two-hour lecture are three different problems.

This page is published by SonaFact. We compared ourselves as fairly as we could; check each vendor's page before you buy.

Everything below about other tools comes from the vendors' own pricing pages, checked on 12 October 2026. Free plans change often. Where a page did not mention something, the table says "not stated".

What each free plan includes

Tool	Free limit	Longest file on free	Exports on free	The catch
SonaFact Free	3 transcriptions a day, no card	30 min	DOCX, PDF, TXT, CSV, Markdown, SRT, WebVTT, files for NVivo, MAXQDA, ATLAS.ti	One 60-minute file does not fit; split it or upgrade
TurboScribe Free	3 files a day	30 min	Not stated	One upload at a time, lower priority
Otter.ai Basic	300 min a month	30 min per conversation	mp3, txt	Only 3 file imports in total, ever
Happy Scribe Free	Meeting recordings; a 10-minute trial for AI file transcription	45 min per meeting recording	Not stated	Free use is aimed at meetings, not uploaded files
Sonix	30 trial minutes, no card	Not stated	Not stated	One-time trial, not a monthly plan
Rev Free	45 AI min a month	Not stated	Not stated	English only
Descript Free	60 media min a month	Not stated	Not stated	A video and podcast editor, not a transcription service
Notta Free	120 min a month, 50 uploads	3 min per conversation	Not stated	The 3-minute cap rules out most real recordings
Good Tape	Described differently on two pages	30 min, per its FAQ	Not stated	Pricing page says 1-hour trial; FAQ says 3 transcripts a month
NVivo Transcription	15 minutes to try	Not stated	Not stated	Built into NVivo
MAXQDA Transcription	60 minutes once, new account	Not stated	Not stated	Built into MAXQDA
Amberscript	No free plan shown	—	—	Paid from the first hour

The three kinds of free

Renewing every day. SonaFact and TurboScribe both give 3 files a day of up to 30 minutes each. If your recordings are short and regular, a daily allowance goes a long way over a month.

Renewing every month. Otter.ai (300 minutes), Notta (120 minutes), Descript (60 minutes) and Rev (45 minutes) refill monthly. Read the small print: Otter allows only three file imports in the lifetime of a free account, and Notta stops at 3 minutes per conversation.

One-off trials. Sonix (30 minutes), MAXQDA (60 minutes), NVivo Transcription (15 minutes) and Happy Scribe's 10-minute AI file trial are for testing quality before you pay, not for ongoing work.

Tool by tool

TurboScribe

The free tier is close in shape to SonaFact's: three files a day, half an hour each. The trade-offs on the pricing page are one upload at a time and lower priority. If you outgrow it, the paid Unlimited plan removes the hour cap for one person.

Otter.ai

Three hundred minutes a month sounds generous, and for live meetings with Otter's meeting assistant in Zoom, Teams or Meet it can be. For files you already have, three imports in total is the real limit.

Happy Scribe

The free offer is built around meeting recordings, at up to 45 minutes each. For uploaded audio or video files, the free option is a 10-minute trial of AI transcription.

Sonix

Thirty trial minutes with no card is a fair way to see the editor and the output. After that, Sonix charges per hour or by subscription.

Rev

Forty-five AI minutes a month, but English only. If your recordings are in another language, this free plan will not help.

Descript

Descript gives 60 media minutes a month, and it is mainly an editor for video and podcasts. Worth a look if you want to cut a podcast episode by editing the text; less so if you only need a transcript.

Notta

The monthly allowance is 120 minutes with up to 50 uploads, but each conversation stops at 3 minutes. Fine for a quick voice memo, not for an interview.

Good Tape

Its pricing page and its FAQ describe the free option differently: a 1-hour trial on one, 3 transcripts a month up to 30 minutes on the other. Check which applies when you sign up.

NVivo and MAXQDA

Both offer a taste of their built-in transcription: 15 minutes for NVivo Transcription, 60 minutes once for MAXQDA with a new account. Useful if you already work in that software.

Amberscript

No free plan was shown on the pricing page when we checked; transcription starts at €10 for one hour.

SonaFact's free plan

The Free plan costs $0 and needs no card: 3 transcriptions a day, each up to 30 minutes. You can also try SonaFact without an account first.

SonaFact separates speakers automatically, offers verbatim or clean mode, underlines uncertain words, and handles 100 recording languages, with word-level timestamps in 32 of them. In the editor, clicking a line plays the audio from that moment.

The pricing page lists these in every plan, including Free:

Search across your recordings and questions about them, with answers linked to the moment in the audio. Free includes 3 AI tasks a day; each question uses one.
AI summaries in which every point links to the moment in the recording it comes from.
The quote checker, which shows whether a quote was said word for word and takes you to that moment.

We did not find a quote checker like this in the 16 tools we checked in September 2026.

Recordings and transcripts are stored and processed in the EU, encrypted, and SonaFact does not train AI on them. You can set recordings to delete automatically after a time you choose.

The catch, stated plainly: 30 minutes per file. A one-hour recording needs the Starter plan ($9 a month, or $72 a year, with files up to 3 hours), or you split it into parts. Prices on the pricing page appear in your local currency.

Free browser tools, no plan needed

Separately from the Free plan, SonaFact has 61 free tools and templates at /tools/. A few that pair well with free transcription:

WhatsApp audio to text: one voice note free, without an account.
Split audio and Compress audio, for files that are too long or too large.
Transcription time calculator.
Remove filler words, for tidying a transcript you already have.
Anonymize transcript: a browser tool that replaces names, emails and phone numbers in a text.
Subtitle checker, for SRT files from any source.
Templates such as the interview transcript template.

How to pick

Short, regular recordings (voice notes, a weekly 20-minute call): a daily allowance, such as SonaFact Free or TurboScribe Free.
One long recording (a two-hour lecture): no free plan here takes it in one piece. Split it into 30-minute parts, or pay for a single month of a plan with longer files.
Just testing quality: use a one-off trial, but test with your own hardest recording, not a clean sample.
Recordings not in English: skip Rev's free plan, which is English only.
Interviews for a thesis or study: see our comparison of transcription software for researchers.

Whatever you use, record other people only with their consent. Free tools do not change that.

Want a closer look at a single competitor? See SonaFact vs Otter, vs TurboScribe and vs Happy Scribe.

Transcribe your first recording free: 3 transcriptions a day, up to 30 minutes each, no card.

Try it on your own recording

The free plan gives you 3 transcripts a day, up to 30 minutes each, without a card — enough to judge the transcript, the speakers and the editor yourself.

Try SonaFact free

Upload only recordings you have the right to use. Record other people only with their consent.