AI Transcription Services With Free Trials: Find Your Match
Learn which AI transcription services you can try for free, so you can find the right service for your needs! Click to read the guide from Rev.
Finding the right AI transcription service shouldn't require a leap of faith—or your credit card. Whether you're a lawyer reviewing depositions, a journalist transcribing interviews, or a content creator converting podcasts into blog posts, you need to test tools before paying.
Luckily, many leading AI transcription services offer free trials or free plans, so you can try before you buy.
In this guide, we'll compare the top AI transcription services with free trials or free plans. We'll break down what each offers, who they're best for, and how to choose the right one for your needs.
1. Rev: Legal-Grade Accuracy With a Free Plan
Why settle for a free trial with an expiration date when you can simply sign up for a free plan that lasts? Rev offers a permanent free plan, which includes 45 minutes of AI transcription (as well as captioning services) every month, mobile recording, and more, allowing you to test the platform. Check out Rev's free transcription tools.
While you're trying it out, you won’t have to worry about the security of your data. Rev’s SOC 2 Type II certification and HIPAA compliance options will keep your information safe. In addition, Rev doesn't train external LLMs on your data, so your private content stays protected.
What makes Rev different: Rev delivers 96%+ accurate AI transcription and is built on over 18 billion words and 7 million hours of speech data. Our platform includes AI Templates that pull out key information from transcripts automatically—great for legal evidence review, client intake calls, or witness interviews.
Best for: Criminal defense teams, district attorneys, civil litigation firms, journalists, and any professional who needs reliable transcripts and the ability to analyze multiple files at once.
2. Otter: Meeting-Focused Transcription
Otter offers a free plan with 300 minutes of transcription per month. The platform focuses on real-time meeting transcription and team collaboration. It works directly with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, making it popular for business meetings.
The free plan covers basic meeting transcription needs. However, the accuracy drops if you’re dealing with legal terminology, and its file-importing capabilities are also limited compared to other transcription tools.
What makes Otter.ai different: The platform includes real-time speaker identification and lets team members add comments and highlights during or after meetings. You can even search across all your meeting transcripts to find specific topics or action items.
Best for: Business teams who only need meeting transcription and collaborative note-taking.
3. Sonix: Multi-Language Support
Sonix provides a 30-minute free trial to test their AI transcription services, which includes access to all standard Sonix features like speaker labeling, editing, and various AI tools.
The platform supports dozens of languages and emphasizes automated subtitles and translation capabilities; however, these often come at an additional cost. Accuracy also varies significantly depending on the language and audio quality, so if you’re trying to translate a file with a lot of background noise, you might not get great results.
What makes Sonix different: Sonix's strength is handling multiple languages in a single workflow. You can transcribe in one language and automatically translate to another.
Best for: Content creators and international teams needing multi-language transcription and subtitle generation.
4. Trint: Journalist-Friendly Features
Trint offers a 7-day free trial of their AI transcription platform, with the ability to transcribe up to three files, translate in over 70 languages, and generate AI summaries of your files.
The platform was designed with journalists and media professionals in mind, with an interface that emphasizes quick editing and story development. However, the platform has fewer specialized features for legal or medical transcription use cases.
What makes Trint different: Trint's interface lets you edit transcripts while staying synced to the audio, and collaborate with your team members in real time. The platform also offers translation services for international reporting.
Best for: Journalists, podcasters, and media professionals who need fast turnaround on interview transcripts.
5. Descript: Video Editing Meets Transcription
Descript's free plan includes one hour of transcription per month. The platform combines audio and video file editing with AI transcription and offers translation in up to 25 languages.
One thing to keep in mind is that the learning curve is steeper than that of pure transcription tools, and transcription accuracy is secondary to their editing features. If you only need to transcribe audio or video, Descript may be more complex than necessary.
What makes Descript different: Descript treats your transcript as the editing interface for your media. Delete words from the transcript, and the corresponding audio or video disappears. You can also add transitions, music, and effects through the same interface.
Best for: Video creators and podcasters who want an all-in-one production and transcription tool so they can move faster.
6. Happy Scribe: Accessibility-Focused
Happy Scribe offers a limited free plan that features 10 minutes of AI transcription, unlimited meeting recordings (45 min each), and 3 Ask AI uses to allow you to check out the product.
This limited plan may not give you enough information to determine if this is the right service for you. For example, they offer translation services in 120+ languages and unwatermarked file exports in other plans, but you can’t try those services out for free.
What makes Happy Scribe different: Happy Scribe's extensive language support covers more options than most competitors. The platform automatically generates subtitles and captions for videos, which helps with accessibility compliance.
Best for: Organizations that need transcription and subtitles across many languages for accessibility compliance.
7. Fireflies.ai: Sales and Meeting Intelligence
Fireflies.ai provides a free plan with 3-10 transcription credits, 20 AI credits, and 800 minutes of meeting storage. If you want to try out more transcription minutes or continue to play around with their advanced AI features, you’ll have to purchase more credits.
Privacy concerns automatically exist with all meeting recording platforms—not all participants may be comfortable with their meeting being recorded. In addition, transcription accuracy drops with specialized terminology outside of sales and business contexts.
What makes Fireflies.ai different: Fireflies.ai acts as an AI assistant that joins your meetings automatically, creates transcripts, extracts action items, and more. The platform integrates with CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot, making your workflow easier.
Best for: Sales teams and remote workers who want automated meeting capture and searchable conversation history.
Why Your AI Platform Choice Matters
Not all transcription tools are created equal. Choosing the wrong service can cost you more than just money. Here's why your choice matters:
- Accuracy impacts usability: A transcript with lots of errors needs extensive editing, which wastes time and could cost you sales.
- Security protects your data: Legal professionals, healthcare providers, and businesses need high security compliance, which many free transcription software don’t offer.
- Specificity matters: Meeting-focused tools work differently from evidence review platforms, so choose a service that meets your needs.
- Trial structure affects testing: A permanent free plan lets you test over time, while a 7-day trial rushes your decision.
- Integration matters for workflows: The best AI transcription services work with your existing tools, instead of forcing you to change your workflow.
Frequently Asked Questions on AI Transcription
When looking at cheap transcription services and free trials, several common questions come up. Here are the answers to help guide your decision.
What Is the Best Free AI Transcription Service?
Rev offers the best free AI transcription service for professionals who need high levels of accuracy and security. You get 45 minutes of AI transcription a month on a permanent free plan. Unlike time-limited trials, Rev's free plan includes AI Templates, mobile recording, and industry-leading accuracy.
What AI Transcription Features Can I Access In a Paid Rev Plan?
Rev's paid plans unlock advanced features designed for professionals who need more than basic transcription. Paid features include:
- Unlimited AI transcription minutes
- Discounts on human transcription services
- Unlimited AI templates for your specific workflows
- Multi-file insights that find contradictions across 500+ recordings
- Bulk upload capabilities
- CJIS and HIPAA compliance
- Side-by-side foreign language translation
Looking for AI API usage? Our Rev AI platform offers five free hours of credit for new users.
A Free Plan With Real Value
The best way to find your ideal AI transcription service is to actually use it in your day-to-day workflow, ideally without a time constraint.
Whether you're reviewing evidence for a case, transcribing client intake calls, or documenting witness interviews, Rev delivers the accuracy, security, and features that you need. Our free plan provides real value, and when you need court-ready precision, human transcription is always just a click away.
