# Audio & Video Transcriber: Speech to Text, SRT/VTT Subtitles (`ai_admin/audio-transcriber`) Actor

Whisper large-v3 for $5 per 1,000 minutes (30¢ an hour): transcribe MP3, WAV, M4A, MP4, MOV, WebM and more to text, timestamped segments and SRT/VTT subtitles. 99 languages incl. Ukrainian, no API key, hours-long files split automatically.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/ai_admin/audio-transcriber.md
- **Developed by:** [Andriy Kuzmenko](https://apify.com/ai_admin) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Videos, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $5.00 / 1,000 transcribed audio minutes

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Audio & Video Transcriber: Speech to Text, SRT/VTT Subtitles

Turn audio and video files into text, timestamped segments and ready-to-use **SRT / VTT subtitles** with OpenAI's
Whisper large-v3 model — 99 languages, automatic language detection, files of any length.

- **Any audio or video format.** MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, OGG, OPUS, FLAC, MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI… The speech track is
  extracted automatically.
- **Long recordings.** Meetings, lectures, podcasts and interviews are split into 10-minute parts and stitched back
  with continuous timestamps.
- **Strong non-English support.** Whisper large-v3 handles Ukrainian, Polish, German, Spanish, Russian and 90+ more
  languages; a vocabulary hint fixes the spelling of names and terms.
- **Subtitles included.** SRT and WebVTT files with download links, plus segments as JSON.

### Why this Actor

| | This Actor | Typical alternatives in the Apify Store (Oct 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| **Price** | **$5 per 1,000 minutes** (30 cents an hour) | $6–28 per 1,000 minutes |
| **Model** | Whisper **large-v3** — the most accurate Whisper model — for every file | Often smaller, cheaper models, or large-v3 only in a premium mode |
| **Subtitles** | SRT + VTT + timestamped JSON segments in every run | Often text only, or subtitles as a paid extra |
| **No API key** | Nothing to sign up for; pay per minute through Apify | Some ask for your own OpenAI / Groq key |
| **Long files** | Hours-long recordings are split and stitched with continuous timestamps | Tools that send the file to a Whisper API in one request hit its 25 MB limit |

### Input

```json
{
  "sources": [{ "url": "https://example.com/interview.mp3" }, { "url": "https://example.com/webinar.mp4" }],
  "language": "uk",
  "quality": "accurate",
  "vocabulary": "Lviv, Kyivstar, PrivatBank",
  "subtitles": true
}
```

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `sources` | URLs of audio or video files. Files in your own Apify key-value store work too: set the store's access to "Anyone with ID can read" and use `https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/<store ID>/records/<key>` (the Actor runs with limited permissions and does not use your token). |
| `language` | ISO code (`en`, `uk`, `de`…) or empty for automatic detection |
| `quality` | `accurate` (Whisper large-v3, default) or `fast` (large-v3-turbo) — same price |
| `vocabulary` | Names and terms to spell correctly |
| `subtitles` | Save SRT and VTT files (free) |

### Output

```json
{
  "url": "https://example.com/interview.mp3",
  "fileName": "interview.mp3",
  "language": "Ukrainian",
  "durationSeconds": 1834.2,
  "billedMinutes": 31,
  "model": "whisper-large-v3",
  "text": "Добрий день! Сьогодні ми поговоримо про…",
  "segments": [{ "start": 0.0, "end": 4.6, "text": "Добрий день!" }],
  "srtUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/.../records/0001-interview.srt?signature=...",
  "vttUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/.../records/0001-interview.vtt?signature=..."
}
```

A file that cannot be downloaded or has no audio track gets an `error` field instead and is **not charged**.

### Pricing

| Event | Price | What counts |
|---|---|---|
| `audio-minute` | **$5 per 1,000 minutes** | every started minute of transcribed audio (at least 1 per file) |

Plus Apify's standard start fee of $0.05 per 1,000 runs. Subtitles are free. The run transcribes only as many minutes as
fit under your maximum charge per run and marks the item with a warning.

### Privacy

The speech track is sent to [Groq](https://groq.com)'s speech-to-text API, which runs the Whisper model; see
[Groq's privacy policy](https://groq.com/privacy-policy/). This Actor keeps files only in your own Apify run storage.

### Related Actors

- [Document to Markdown for AI](https://apify.com/ai_admin/document-to-markdown) — PDFs, scans, Office files → Markdown
- [Office to PDF & PDF/A](https://apify.com/ai_admin/office-to-pdf) · [PDF to Image & Image Converter](https://apify.com/ai_admin/pdf-image-converter)

Open source: [github.com/AndriyVK/-apify-document-tools](https://github.com/AndriyVK/-apify-document-tools)

### Use with AI agents and code

- **MCP (Claude, Cursor, VS Code, any MCP client):** add `https://mcp.apify.com?tools=ai_admin/audio-transcriber` as an MCP server —
  the agent gets one tool with this Actor's input schema and pays per use through your Apify account.
- **One HTTP call that returns the results:**

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/ai_admin~audio-transcriber/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"sources": [{"url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/FloomuI2DrQCJazY8/records/speech-en.mp3"}], "language": "en"}'
```

- **Agentic payments:** the Actor is enabled for Apify's agentic payments (x402), so autonomous agents can pay per run.

### Limits

- YouTube and other streaming pages are not supported — provide a direct link to the media file.
- Maximum download size is 200 MB per file.
- Speaker labels (diarization) are not included.

# Actor input Schema

## `sources` (type: `array`):

Public URLs of audio or video files: MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC, OGG, OPUS, FLAC, MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI and more. Long files are split automatically. Files in your own Apify key-value store work too: set the store's access to "Anyone with ID can read" and use https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/<store ID>/records/<key>.

## `language` (type: `string`):

ISO 639-1 code of the spoken language (en, uk, de, es, fr, pl, ru, ...). Leave empty to detect it automatically; setting it improves accuracy for short or noisy recordings.

## `quality` (type: `string`):

accurate = Whisper large-v3 (best for Ukrainian and other non-English languages); fast = Whisper large-v3-turbo. Same price.

## `vocabulary` (type: `string`):

Optional names, terms and spellings that appear in the recording (e.g. "Lviv, Kyivstar, PrivatBank"). Helps the model spell them correctly.

## `subtitles` (type: `boolean`):

Also save SRT and VTT subtitle files with download links (free).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/FloomuI2DrQCJazY8/records/speech-en.mp3"
    }
  ],
  "language": "",
  "quality": "accurate",
  "vocabulary": "",
  "subtitles": true
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `transcripts` (type: `string`):

Dataset items: url, language, durationSeconds, text, segments, srtUrl, vttUrl or error.

## `subtitles` (type: `string`):

SRT and VTT files in the run's key-value store.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "sources": [
        {
            "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/FloomuI2DrQCJazY8/records/speech-en.mp3"
        }
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("ai_admin/audio-transcriber").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "sources": [{ "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/FloomuI2DrQCJazY8/records/speech-en.mp3" }] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("ai_admin/audio-transcriber").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/FloomuI2DrQCJazY8/records/speech-en.mp3"
    }
  ]
}' |
apify call ai_admin/audio-transcriber --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,ai_admin/audio-transcriber"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/tTTOPBHdN4zAQBFNq/builds/JdR7UXUyspE9Q7g9e/openapi.json