# Audio & Video Transcriber (Whisper) — Podcasts, MP3, Any URL (`eliai/audio-transcriber-whisper`) Actor

Speech-to-text for any direct audio or video URL — podcasts, MP3, WAV, M4A, MP4. Whisper transcription with segments, SRT, language auto-detect. $0.03 per started audio-minute, failed files never charged. No API keys required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/eliai/audio-transcriber-whisper.md
- **Developed by:** [Anthony Snider](https://apify.com/eliai) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Automation, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 4 total users, 3 monthly users, 75.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$30.00 / 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/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Audio & Video Transcriber — Whisper (no API keys)

Transcribe audio and video files from URLs with OpenAI's Whisper model running **inside the actor** — no API keys, no external transcription service, nothing to configure. Paste direct file URLs, get back plain text, timestamped segments and ready-to-use SRT subtitles.

- **Model:** Whisper `small` (int8, CPU) via [faster-whisper](https://github.com/SYSTRAN/faster-whisper). The model is baked into the actor image, so runs start transcribing immediately — no download wait.
- **Formats:** anything FFmpeg can decode — mp3, wav, m4a, ogg, flac, opus, and the audio track of video files (mp4, webm, mov, mkv…).
- **Languages:** Whisper's ~100 languages, auto-detected by default (detected language + probability included in every record). Optional translate-to-English.

### Input

```json
{
  "audioUrls": ["https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lordbasilaiassistant-sudo/b2b-assets/main/gettysburg_address_64kb.mp3"],
  "language": "",
  "format": "both",
  "translateToEnglish": false,
  "maxFileSizeMb": 200
}
```

- `audioUrls` — direct URLs to audio/video files. One dataset record per URL.
- `language` — ISO 639-1 code (`en`, `es`, `de`, …); empty = auto-detect.
- `format` — `both` (default), `text` (plain text only) or `segments` (timestamped segments + SRT only).
- `translateToEnglish` — use Whisper's translate task instead of transcribing in the original language.
- `maxFileSizeMb` — larger downloads are skipped (recorded as failed, never charged).

### Output

One dataset record per file. Real output from the default input above (a 2:38 public-domain LibriVox recording of the Gettysburg Address), `text`/`segments`/`srt` truncated here for space:

```json
{
  "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lordbasilaiassistant-sudo/b2b-assets/main/gettysburg_address_64kb.mp3",
  "ok": true,
  "durationSeconds": 157.88,
  "language": "en",
  "languageProbability": 0.9997,
  "wordCount": 299,
  "tookMs": 315181,
  "text": "This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. [...] Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty [...]",
  "segments": [
    { "start": 0.05, "end": 6.01, "text": "This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more" },
    { "start": 6.01, "end": 13.13, "text": "information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org." }
  ],
  "srt": "1\n00:00:00,050 --> 00:00:06,010\nThis is a LibriVox recording. [...]"
}
```

Failed files push `{ "url": …, "ok": false, "error": … }` and are **never charged**.

### Speed and limits (measured, not estimated)

- Runs Whisper **small** on CPU — solid accuracy for clear speech; it is not a GPU service and won't match large-model accuracy on very noisy audio or heavy accents.
- Measured on the default 2 GB actor memory (0.5 CPU core), three runs of the 2:38 test file: 4.2, 5.3 and 7.2 minutes wall — **about 1.6 to 2.7 minutes of processing per minute of audio** depending on platform CPU contention. CPU share scales with actor memory, so raising memory to 4 GB (1 full core) roughly halves it. Memory peak measured: 1.24 GB.
- Download timeout 30 s per file; size cap 200 MB (configurable down).
- Segments are phrase-level (start/end seconds); word-level timestamps are not included.

### Billing and price comparison

**$0.03 per started minute of audio actually transcribed** (one `audio-minute` event per started minute — the 2:38 example = 3 events, $0.09). Failed downloads, oversized files and undecodable inputs are recorded in the dataset but **never charged**.

Measured against incumbents (store prices, 2026-08-07):

| Actor | Price |
|---|---|
| **This actor** | **$0.03 / audio-minute** |
| tictechid/vanzi-universal-transcriber | $0.0025 / transcription-second = $0.15 / audio-minute |
| memo23/video-audio-transcriber | $0.02–0.05 / audio-minute |

Honest note on speed: processing is CPU Whisper `small` (typically 0.4–0.6x realtime at default memory; measured 0.36–0.63x across our runs) — cheaper than GPU services because you're not paying for idle GPU time, at the cost of slower turnaround on long files.

# Actor input Schema

## `audioUrls` (type: `array`):

Direct URLs to audio or video files (mp3, wav, m4a, ogg, flac, mp4, webm, mov, …). Each file becomes one dataset record with text, segments and SRT.

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

ISO 639-1 code of the spoken language, e.g. `en`, `es`, `de`, `fr`, `ja`. Leave empty to auto-detect (the detected language and its probability are included in every record).

## `format` (type: `string`):

`both` returns plain text AND timestamped segments + SRT. `text` returns only the plain text. `segments` returns only the timestamped segments + SRT.

## `translateToEnglish` (type: `boolean`):

Translate the speech into English instead of transcribing in the original language (Whisper's built-in translate task).

## `maxFileSizeMb` (type: `integer`):

Downloads larger than this are skipped (recorded as failed, never charged).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "audioUrls": [
    "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lordbasilaiassistant-sudo/b2b-assets/main/gettysburg_address_64kb.mp3"
  ],
  "language": "",
  "format": "both",
  "translateToEnglish": false,
  "maxFileSizeMb": 200
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Every item this run produced, as JSON.

## `resultsCsv` (type: `string`):

The same items as a spreadsheet-ready CSV.

# 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 = {
    "audioUrls": [
        "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lordbasilaiassistant-sudo/b2b-assets/main/gettysburg_address_64kb.mp3"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("eliai/audio-transcriber-whisper").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 = { "audioUrls": ["https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lordbasilaiassistant-sudo/b2b-assets/main/gettysburg_address_64kb.mp3"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("eliai/audio-transcriber-whisper").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 '{
  "audioUrls": [
    "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lordbasilaiassistant-sudo/b2b-assets/main/gettysburg_address_64kb.mp3"
  ]
}' |
apify call eliai/audio-transcriber-whisper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

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/eb505646SmdvrObVP/builds/Gv2uM85jhaNrpVlhG/openapi.json