Tool profile
Deepgram: cost, fit and limits
Deepgram is a speech AI platform that sells speech to text, text to speech and voice agent APIs on usage billing, aimed at developers who need streaming or pre-recorded transcription at volume. Its Nova-3 models are the transcription line named on the pricing page.
What to know first
Deepgram bills transcription by the hour of audio. Pay as you go lists Nova-3 monolingual streaming at $0.46 per hour and multilingual at $0.55, and a free $200 credit with no card and no expiry. The Growth plan trades a $4,000 yearly prepayment for lower rates and more concurrent streams. The pricing page says nothing about hosting region, retention or training.
Deepgram at a glance
| Maker | Deepgram, Inc., United States |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Entry price | $0.015 per 1,000 characters (Aura-1, pay as you go) |
| API access | Yes |
| Category | Best AI Speech to Text APIs in 2026, rank 11 of 12 |
| Website | deepgram.com |
Who Deepgram is best for
Live captioning and call products
Streaming rates and concurrency caps are printed per plan, so a team can check whether 150 or 225 simultaneous streams covers its peak before writing code.
Teams testing before they buy
The $200 credit needs no card and does not expire, and the page says it covers roughly 43,000 minutes of Nova-3, which is enough for a real pilot.
Enterprises wanting private deployment
Enterprise lists a self-hosted option, custom model training and a named account team, which matter when audio cannot leave the buyer's own infrastructure.
Deepgram plans and pricing
| Plan | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Pay as you go | Free $200 credit, then usage rates | No minimums or expiry. Nova-3 monolingual streaming $0.46 per hour, pre-recorded about $0.26 per hour, 150 concurrent streaming connections. |
| Growth | $4,000 or more per year | Prepaid annual credits saving up to 20 percent, Nova-3 monolingual streaming at $0.39 per hour, and 225 concurrent speech to text connections. |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | Volume discounts, custom model training, a named account team and self-hosted deployment options. Pricing for these terms is not published on the page. |
Checked October 2026.
What Deepgram does
- Nova-3 transcription
- The pricing page names Nova-3 in monolingual and multilingual versions, priced at $0.46 and $0.55 per hour for streaming on pay as you go. The multilingual version costs about 20 percent more per hour, so language mix affects the bill.
- Pre-recorded and streaming modes
- File transcription is quoted at roughly $0.26 per hour, derived from per-minute rates times 60, while live audio streams cost more per hour. Buyers should budget the two modes separately because the gap between them is large.
- Voice Agent product
- A Voice Agent tier is listed at $4.50 per hour for the Standard level on pay as you go, billed per minute of connection. It is a separate product line from transcription, with its own pricing unit and its own limits.
- Audio Intelligence billing
- Audio Intelligence features are billed per 1,000 tokens, separate from the per-second speech to text charge, so analysis adds a second cost line. A project that adds analysis on top of transcription should model both charges from the start.
How Deepgram handles your data
The pricing page does not state whether Deepgram trains on customer audio, how long audio is retained, where it is hosted or which certifications apply, so this entry makes no claim on those points. Enterprise terms list a self-hosted deployment, which would keep audio inside the buyer's own environment, but the page gives no detail on how it works. Request the privacy policy and data processing terms in writing before sending recordings that contain personal data.
Where Deepgram falls short in practice
- Overage on Growth. Usage beyond the prepaid Growth credits is billed at the Growth rate plus 10 percent and charged weekly, so a spike can cost more than the plan rate suggests.
- Concurrency ceilings. Pay as you go caps streaming speech to text at 150 connections and Growth at 225. Higher numbers require an Enterprise conversation and an unpublished quote.
- Unpublished policies. No retention, training or region statement appears on the pricing page, so compliance review has to rely on documents we did not read. Anyone with a compliance questionnaire to fill in must go to Deepgram directly for answers.
Works with
Alternatives to Deepgram
Deepgram: common questions
How much does Deepgram cost per hour of audio?
On pay as you go the pricing page lists Nova-3 monolingual streaming at $0.46 per hour and multilingual streaming at $0.55. Pre-recorded audio works out to about $0.26 per hour from the per-minute rate. Growth lowers monolingual streaming to $0.39 per hour. Rates may change, so confirm on the page.
Does Deepgram's free credit need a credit card?
No. The pricing page says the $200 credit needs no card and does not expire. It is described as covering roughly 43,000 minutes of Nova-3 transcription, which is vendor arithmetic at the entry rate, so your own mix of features may stretch it less far.
What does the Growth plan add over pay as you go?
Growth starts at $4,000 a year in prepaid credits, saves up to 20 percent, drops Nova-3 monolingual streaming to $0.39 per hour and raises concurrent speech to text connections from 150 to 225. Overage is billed at the Growth rate plus 10 percent, weekly.
Can Deepgram run on my own servers?
The Enterprise tier lists self-hosted options, alongside custom model training and a named account team. The pricing page gives no technical detail, minimum commitment or price for self-hosting, so a buyer needs to ask sales what hardware, licensing and support the arrangement involves.
Does Deepgram use my audio to train its models?
The pricing page does not say, so this site cannot confirm either way. The vendor's privacy policy and data processing terms were not opened for this entry. Ask for a written statement on training, retention and region before sending regulated recordings, and keep it with your vendor file.