AI Transcription Cost per Task Calculator

1. Step 1
Define one task by a consistent audio unit and enter its average duration.

2. Step 2
Add the speech-to-text provider charge per audio minute.

3. Step 3
Enter downstream text tokens and their blended price when cleanup or summarization uses a language model.

4. Step 4
Include infrastructure expense not already captured by provider rates.

5. Step 5
Add expected review time and labor cost, then allocate fixed monthly costs across task volume.

6. Step 6
Use the breakdown to identify which cost component changes most between workflow options.

Cost per task = audio minutes × audio price per minute + text tokens × token price ÷ 1,000,000 + other infrastructure cost + review minutes ÷ 60 × reviewer hourly cost + monthly fixed costs ÷ monthly tasks.

What the result means

The result is the estimated operating cost for one transcription task using the entered average duration and monthly volume.

Charges for storage, data transfer, diarization add-ons, retries, or minimum commitments should be included in infrastructure or fixed costs when applicable.

Given: 30 audio minutes at $0.006 per minute, 9,000 downstream tokens at $1.00 per million, $0.03 infrastructure, 4 review minutes at $28/hour, and $200 fixed cost over 3,000 tasks.

Calculation: Audio = 30 × 0.006 = $0.18. Tokens = 9,000 × 1 ÷ 1,000,000 = $0.009. Review = 4 ÷ 60 × 28 = $1.8667. Fixed = 200 ÷ 3,000 = $0.0667. Total = $2.1523.

Result: Estimated cost is $2.15 per task.