AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API Pros and Cons

What do you like best about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

AssemblyAI is one of the best choices for automatically transcribing and analyzing audio. It is very accurate, fast, and easy to use. It has many features and is perfect for developers, tech companies, and anyone who wants to manage large amounts of voice data automatically. With the API system, you can create your own software and customize it as you wish. I use the APIs with my own program in Python.

Strengths

Accuracy: among the best accuracy rates in the industry, with a very low Word Error Rate (WER) and consistent performance even on complex audio.

Speed: asynchronous transcription in less than 45 seconds and real-time with latency under 600 ms.

Developer experience: well-documented API, easy to integrate, with practical examples and effective technical support.

Versatility: suitable for both simple use cases (webinar transcription, meetings, podcasts) and complex workflows (sentiment analysis, entity extraction, content moderation).

Accessibility: competitive pay-as-you-go pricing, with no hidden costs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

I can't say I've found any problems in the system. Excellent and reliable. The best. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

I'm impressed with AssemblyAI's transcription service due to its reasonable pricing. For transcribing 243 hours of audio, I paid only $68. In comparison, Google's Chirp_2 model cost $47 for just 35 hours, which would have totaled $326 for the same 243 hours.

Additional benefits include the ability to separate text by different speakers (English only) and automatic language detection. The API is straightforward to use and was easy to integrate into both Flutter and .NET Core Web applications.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the service and plan to continue using it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

There are some aspects I'd like to see improved. The API response contains too many unnecessary fields that I don't need, which increases loading times. I would also appreciate faster speech-to-text processing speeds and an increase in the maximum duration limit beyond the current 10-hour restriction. Additionally, the slam-1 model only works with English text, and I would like to see this model become internationalized to support multiple languages. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

Excellent documentation and responsive support that will help you resolve any issues with using the API.

Multiple language support and automatic detection. The ability to upload files directly to their server, which makes it faster than saving them to third-party services.

You pay for usage instead of a subscription, which is very nice. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

During my time using the service, I haven't found much that I dislike. The main my issue is that I would like to see support for video files from services such as YouTube directly via a link. Currently, I have to use third-party services to download and process videos from YouTube before sending them to AssamblyAI. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

AssemblyAI is seriously impressive. Before I found it, I tried out Google Cloud, Whisper, and some open-source tools for diarization. I even gave Read.ai a shot, but honestly, none of them gave me the results I was looking for.

Then I saw someone mention AssemblyAI on Reddit, and I decided to give it a try. I’m so glad I did—their transcription and diarization are on another level. I barely ever need to edit the transcripts, which is rare with these kinds of tools.

The pricing is super reasonable for what you get, and the API is really flexible. I’ve been able to build my own workflows to transcribe meetings, interviews, and videos without any hassle. I use it pretty much every day for transcribing meetings I record on my computer, and I save everything in Markdown format.

If you’re looking for a solid, reliable transcription service that just works, I can’t recommend AssemblyAI enough. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

It's not that I don't like but I think there is high bareer for non-techs to access the serviece. I know tht they ahve a playground, but it's still scary for peop,e who want to use the service but see the. Some friends who see my workflow wants to mimic but stop when they see the api nterface. The docs are very well detailed, but there are barreres for adoption for certain customer segments still.

Another thing that I would like would to store the cluster of voicers that are recorded I would like the odel to automatically name them. I think this would be too complicated and probably there's privacy concerns involved. But it would be a quality of life approach. But I guess this is a niche need instead of something the custoemr base would be interested at Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

We recently started using the AssaemblyAI api to transcribe videos from our educational channels. The API works quickly and reliably. So far we have never encountered any limitations of the platform, although our videos are quite large. The quality of recognition is very high, the price is about the same as with OpenAI analogs, but there is no limit of 25 minutes per video fragment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

I wish the price was even lower, we have so many more videos to process. Also it is not quite clear how formatting into paragraphs works, according to the api we get exactly the text without paragraphs, although in the version available for free through the interface, the recognized text is already formatted Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

AssemblyAI impresses with its high transcription quality, even when dealing with messy or low-quality audio inputs. The diarization capabilities are particularly strong—accurately distinguishing between speakers in less-than-perfect recordings. The API suite is fast, well-documented, and returns a rich, detailed output format that makes post-processing straightforward and powerful. I also found the Word Boost feature especially helpful: being able to prioritize tricky or uncommon words significantly improves recognition accuracy in niche use cases. Overall, it’s a developer-friendly platform that balances precision with flexibility. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

Honestly, there’s little to complain about. The pricing model is reasonable for the level of quality and features provided, and I haven’t encountered any significant drawbacks in my usage Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

One of the best things about AssemblyAI is how much more affordable and accessible it is compared to many other options on the market. The pricing is straightforward and budget-friendly, which makes it an excellent choice for both small developers and larger teams. Despite the lower cost, the transcription accuracy and feature set remain top-notch. The API is easy to implement, and the documentation is clear and helpful. It’s reliable, fast, and packed with features like speaker diarization and topic detection that are usually reserved for much more expensive platforms. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

Currently there are some features not available to the European users but I believe these are in development. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

It's really great for Spanish specifically and user diarization. Also, it's quick compared to Speechmatics API; it's really slow, so kudos on that also, and it's been really cost-effective. I must have transcribed 800-1000 calls with the free credits, so that's really great. Overall super solid though. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

I think the worst part about Assembly has been that the API itself is a bit complicated to work with, since with recordings you've got to make them into links first and then send the links and transcript IDs to a separate endpoint. I can still work with it and have done lots of things, but it would be easier if it was a single API if I'm working with recordings that did this in the background. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

I'm an academic- I recently started using Assembly AI for a project I've been interested in doing for years. I just didn't have a good way to generate transcripts off of videos. Thus, I've been using it extensively over the past few weeks. I imagine it will be a case where I use it a lot in brief spurts over the coming months/years.

I reached out with a question about academic use and was surprised by how quickly AAI responded (but, please recognize .edu as a valid work e-mail).

I started working with Assembly AI on the free credits (which is a great way to "test drive"). It took me a while to get things just as I wanted, but once I got there, it has been smooth sailing and largely automated its integration into my research workflow. I've found the transcription quite accurate (this is the standard model, not the fancy new one). Processing time is fast- and everything is readily scriptable. There is rather nice documentation. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

I think there are two things I would like to see in the future.

First, I think the documentation is kind of balkanized. It would be nice if it was more streamlined. In my case, this really goes for formatting the output. More sample scripts for the output would be great. This would have made initial implementation a fair bit easier (I'd call it a 5/10 difficulty... and I'd call myself an ok-ish Python user).

Second, I would like to see interruption/overlay detection. I get that might be hard without multiple microphones. For this one, I'm just going to hold out hope for the steady march of progress. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you like best about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

Accurate transcription, reliable service and great prices. It is easy to integrate, easy to use, and full of valuable insights for your audio Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about AssemblyAI - Speech to Text API?

It only supports EU and US data residency. Regional self deployments would be great.

Moreover, for companies that deal with both text and audio data, it would be useful to have the same pii redaction and insights for both data types, but AssemblyAI only accepts audio inputs, forcing us to try and replicate their pii redaction on text data through other means, or skip their pii redaction and insights for sake of uniformity. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.