happy scribe alternative · honest comparison
A Happy Scribe alternative with 15× the minutes.
Happy Scribe does more: human proofreading, more exports, more languages. If you just need machine transcripts in volume, it's expensive per hour.
// short answer
Happy Scribe Basic is $17/month billed monthly ($8.50/month billed yearly) for 120 minutes of AI transcription. audiotranscribe.app is $9/month for 30 hours. Pick Happy Scribe for human proofreading, 150+ languages, or PDF and DOCX exports. Pick this for hours of recordings at a flat, low price.
Updated 2026-09-17
Happy Scribe vs audiotranscribe.app
| Happy Scribe | audiotranscribe.app | |
|---|---|---|
| Price, billed monthly | $17/month (Basic) | $9/month |
| Price, billed yearly | $8.50/month | Monthly only |
| AI transcription included | 120 minutes a month | 1800 minutes (30 h) a month |
| Free tier | 10-minute free trial, 45 min per recording | 3 files a day, up to 15 min on screen (30 min by email), 15 MB |
| Languages (AI) | 150+ (their figure) | ~99 (Whisper large-v3) |
| Export formats | TXT, SRT, PDF, DOCX | TXT, SRT |
| Human proofreading | From $2.00/min | No |
Happy Scribe figures are their own, from their pricing page. Prices checked 2026-09-13, all figures re-checked 2026-09-17. Vendors change plans often; check before you buy.
// pick Happy Scribe if
- You need a human-checked transcript for legal, research or publication work.
- You need Word or PDF exports.
- Your language isn't among the ~99 Whisper covers.
- You transcribe under 120 minutes a month and can pay yearly ($8.50/month).
// pick audiotranscribe.app if
- You transcribe more than two hours a month. 30 hours for $9 is a flat price, not a per-minute meter.
- Machine transcription is good enough and you'll edit the text yourself.
- You want to try it on real files first: 3 free files every day, not a one-off 10-minute trial.
- You want to try it without signing up. Free use needs no account.
Switching
Nothing to import. Keep Happy Scribe for anything that needs human proofreading, and send routine recordings here. Download .txt or .srt and open them in the editor you already use.
Free vs Unlimited
| Free | Unlimited | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $9/month, cancel anytime |
| Files per day | 3 | No daily limit |
| Longest file | 15 min on screen, 30 min by email | 2 hours |
| Upload size | 15 MB | 50 MB |
| Audio per month | — | 30 hours |
| Speaker labels | No | Yes |
| Account | None | None, Stripe checkout |
FAQ
How much cheaper per hour is audiotranscribe.app?+
At full use, Unlimited works out to $0.30 per audio hour. Happy Scribe Basic at $17 for 120 minutes is $8.50 per hour on monthly billing (prices as of 2026-09-13). If you only transcribe an hour or two a month, the gap is much smaller.
Does audiotranscribe.app offer human transcription?+
No. It's machine transcription only (Whisper large-v3). Happy Scribe offers human proofreading from $2.00 per minute if you need that.
Can I get Word or PDF files?+
Not directly. You get .txt and .srt. Paste the text into Word or Google Docs and export from there.