Podcast & Audio Transcriber: Speech to Text, RSS, SRT

Turn podcast episodes and audio or video files into text, timestamps and subtitles. Paste a podcast RSS feed link and press Start: where the show publishes its own transcript, you get it for free, with no key. Add your own speech-to-text key (Deepgram, AssemblyAI, ElevenLabs, OpenAI Whisper or Groq Whisper) to transcribe any episode. You pay the speech provider directly; this Actor charges $0.004 per audio minute and only for transcripts made by speech to text.

You get one tidy result row per episode: the full text, timestamped segments, optional speaker labels, keyword mentions with the time they are said, and ready-made SRT, WebVTT, text and JSON files. Schedule it and each run transcribes only the episodes that appeared since the last one.

Not affiliated with Deepgram, AssemblyAI, ElevenLabs, OpenAI, Groq or Apify. The names are used only to say which services this Actor can call with your own account.

3-minute quick start

1. Press Start with the pre-filled input. The first feed is a real show that publishes its own transcripts: you get a finished transcript, an SRT file and keyword mentions in seconds. No account, no key.
2. Open the Transcripts overview of the dataset. The other two feeds show as free preview rows with a cost estimate.
3. To transcribe those too, put in your own feeds, pick a provider, paste your key and press Start again.

Podcast transcript generator

Give it podcast feeds or direct links to mp3, m4a, wav, ogg or mp4 files and get one row per episode: full text, timestamped segments, duration, language and, with Deepgram, AssemblyAI or ElevenLabs, speaker labels. A publisher's own transcript in the feed (the podcast:transcript tag) is used first: free, nothing sent to a provider. Otherwise your speech provider transcribes the episode.

RSS feed to text

It reads standard podcast RSS 2.0 feeds. Choose episodes per feed, a start date, title words, or oldest first to work through a back catalogue a few episodes per run. Switch on Only new episodes, name the watchlist and schedule the task: each run transcribes only what is new, so you never pay twice for an episode. It reads feeds and the audio they point to, never websites; YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts pages are refused.

Audio to text API

Every Apify run is an API call. This request returns the rows of a short run:

POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/nightfallhq~podcast-audio-transcriber/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN

{ "audioUrls": ["https://example.com/interview.mp3"], "provider": "groq", "apiKey": "YOUR-GROQ-KEY", "language": "en" }

For long runs, start the run and read its dataset. Webhooks, n8n, Make and Zapier work the same way: trigger on run finished, get the dataset items, keep rowType = "transcript". AI agents: call it with { "feedUrls": ["<RSS link>"] }, read text and segments, and on a problem read the last info row. With onlyNewEpisodes and a fixed watchlistName, repeated calls are idempotent. Never pass YouTube or Spotify page links.

SRT subtitle file from audio

Pick Extra files (srt, vtt, txt, json) and each row links to the file (srtUrl, vttUrl, textFileUrl, jsonUrl) in the run's key-value store, ready for a video editor or player. Subtitles come from the same timestamped segments as the result, so timing is as good as the provider's.

Podcast keyword alerts and mention monitoring

List names, brands or topics under Keywords to listen for. Every transcript gets a mentions list: each place a keyword is said, with the time (00:12:34) and about 20 words around it. Case is ignored, whole words only, phrases in order. Alerts cost nothing extra. The run ends with one free info row summing up what was heard and where, so you can send one message per run. Add "keywords": ["Acme Corp", "interest rates"] to any input to switch it on.

Transcribe podcasts with your own Deepgram, AssemblyAI, ElevenLabs, OpenAI or Groq key

Provider and model	Their price	All-in with this Actor	Free to start
Groq whisper-large-v3-turbo	$0.04 per hour	$0.28 per hour	free tier, rate limits
AssemblyAI Universal-2	$0.15 per hour	$0.39 per hour	$50 credit
ElevenLabs Scribe v2	$0.22 per hour	$0.46 per hour	free plan, some hours
Deepgram Nova-3	$0.26 per hour	$0.50 per hour	about $200 credit
OpenAI whisper-1	$0.36 per hour	$0.60 per hour	none

AssemblyAI's more accurate Universal-3.5 Pro costs $0.21 per hour (set Model). These are list prices found on 2026-10-13, not your invoice: check your provider. Keys: console.deepgram.com, assemblyai.com/dashboard, elevenlabs.io/app/settings/api-keys (needs the Speech to Text permission), console.groq.com/keys, platform.openai.com/api-keys. For OpenAI and Groq the Actor downloads the file and cuts long episodes into parts of at most 20 minutes, so a two-hour episode works.

How it compares

All-in cost per hour of audio, as listed on 2026-10-13:

Option	About per hour
This Actor, the show's own transcript	$0
This Actor with your own provider key	$0.28 to $0.60
Cheapest all-in Store Actors	$0.18 to $0.36
Other all-in Actors (some add summaries or chapters)	$0.60 to $3.00

The cheapest all-in Actors can cost less. This one adds free publisher transcripts, your own provider account, five engines, speaker labels, SRT and VTT, keyword alerts and a new-episodes memory. If one bill and no setup matter more than price, pick an all-in Actor.

Use cases

• Show notes and newsletters: the full text is raw material for summaries, quotes and chapters.
• SEO blog posts: put the transcript on the episode page for search engines.
• Brand mention alerts: know when your name or a competitor comes up, and when.
• AI and RAG datasets: text and timed segments split into chunks that point back to the audio.
• Research quotes: turn a back catalogue of interviews into searchable text.

What you get

A real run on the public feed of the Podcasting 2.0 show, October 2026, publisher transcript (text shortened here):

{
  "rowType": "transcript",
  "transcriptSource": "publisher",
  "feedTitle": "Podcasting 2.0",
  "episodeTitle": "Episode 274: \"Vibe Cloning\"",
  "durationMinutes": 101.07,
  "chargedMinutes": 0,
  "wordsCount": 14796,
  "text": "Podcasting 2.0 for October 9th, 2026, episode 274, Vibe Cloning. ...",
  "segments": [
    { "start": 1, "end": 6.759, "text": "Podcasting 2.0 for October 9th, 2026, episode 274, Vibe Cloning." }
  ],
  "mentionCount": 14,
  "mentions": [
    { "keyword": "podcast index", "start": 538.58, "timestamp": "00:08:58", "snippet": "...are reposting. There's a couple thousand people using the podcast index robot.com. ..." }
  ]
}

That run had 1,483 segments and cost nothing. The transcript belongs to its publisher and is shown only to illustrate the format. Other rowType values: preview, skipped, error, warning and one info summary.

Pricing

$0.004 per audio minute ($0.24 per hour), only for transcripts made by speech to text. Each file counts its started minutes, rounded up, and is charged after its transcript is saved. Free: the show's own transcripts, previews, failed or skipped files, keyword alerts and info rows. Apify's maximum cost per run is never exceeded. Your provider bills you separately. A 45-minute episode costs $0.18 here; a weekly one-hour show $0.24 a week.

FAQ

Do you store my API key? No. Apify stores the key field encrypted in your own account; during the run it is held in memory and sent only to your provider, in a request header. It never reaches logs, rows, files or the watchlist memory. A key made just for Apify, with a spending limit, is a good habit. What your provider keeps is between you and them: check its data-retention page before sending sensitive audio.

Am I allowed to transcribe this audio? You must have the right to transcribe the audio: your own recordings, audio you have permission to use, or public domain or licensed material. A publisher's transcript is the publisher's work. You are responsible for your use and your provider's terms.

The run succeeded but I got no transcripts. Read the last info row: its code and fix say why. A mistake on your side never turns the run red, and a failed file is never charged.

How long can an episode be? Up to 720 minutes and 2 GB. Set the Actor's run timeout to at least Maximum run time plus 20 minutes.

Does it summarise, translate or name speakers? No. It transcribes; speaker labels are "speaker 0, speaker 1".

Something not working? Open an issue on the Actor page with the feed link (never your key).