# Audio & Video Transcriber (Whisper, SRT, TikTok, Podcasts) (`unsavedai-tools/unsavedai-transcribe`) Actor

Super cheap Whisper transcription: about $0.04 per hour of audio. Paste a file or TikTok/Instagram link, get text with timestamps, word timings, speaker labels and SRT/VTT subtitles in 99 languages. Private: nothing is stored.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/unsavedai-tools/unsavedai-transcribe.md
- **Developed by:** [UnsavedAI](https://apify.com/unsavedai-tools) (community)
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.01 / 1,000 second of audio transcribeds

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 (Whisper, SRT, TikTok, Podcasts)

**Price: about $0.04 per hour of audio** ($0.0006 per minute, billed per second), plus a tiny per-run start fee. Speaker labels add the same again.

Turn an **audio or video file link**, or the **page link of a TikTok, Instagram or X video**, into text, in about 99 languages (auto-detected, including Mandarin). Optional extras:

- timestamped segments with confidence;
- word-level timings;
- **speaker labels** (beta: who spoke when);
- SRT and WebVTT subtitles.

**Two kinds of link work:**

- **A file link** (`.mp4`, `.m4a`, `.mp3`, `.webm`, `.ogg` ...): the most reliable, for example the download URL a TikTok, Instagram, Douyin or podcast scraper returns.
- **A page link** such as `https://www.tiktok.com/@user/video/123...`: the audio is downloaded for you inside the run and removed again right after transcription. This is best effort: some platforms refuse cloud servers (a few TikTok posts, private or login-only posts and **YouTube** links currently fail). When a link can't be downloaded the run stops with a clear message and only Apify's start fee is charged.

### What you get

One dataset item per run:

```json
{
  "text": "NASA's Curious Universe. Houston, we have a podcast. ...",
  "language": "en",
  "language_probability": 0.996,
  "duration_seconds": 62.84,
  "processed_seconds": 62.84,
  "truncated": false,
  "complete": true,
  "segments": [{"start": 0.0, "end": 1.48, "text": "NASA's Curious Universe.", "confidence": 0.93, "speaker": "S1"}],
  "words": [{"start": 0.0, "end": 0.54, "word": "NASA's", "probability": 0.994, "speaker": "S1"}],
  "speakers": 2,
  "turns": [{"speaker": "S1", "start": 0.0, "end": 14.6, "text": "NASA's Curious Universe. ..."}],
  "srt": "1\n00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,480\nS1: NASA's Curious Universe.\n...",
  "billed_seconds": 63
}
```

### Input

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `url` | Direct http(s) link to an audio or video file (required) |
| `max_minutes` | Transcribe and pay for at most this many minutes (1–30). Longer media is cut and flagged `truncated`. |
| `language` | Whisper code (`en`, `es`, `zh`, ...); leave empty to auto-detect |
| `segments`, `words`, `srt`, `vtt` | Extra outputs |
| `speakers` | Speaker labels (beta, paid add-on, up to 20 minutes per run) |
| `num_speakers` | The number of speakers, if known; improves speaker labels |

### Pricing

Pay per event, only for audio actually transcribed:

- **audio-second:** per second of processed audio;
- **speaker-second:** the speaker-label add-on, per second, charged only when labels are returned.

A failed run (for example a web page instead of a media file) charges no audio or speaker events, only Apify's standard run-start fee ($0.00005).

### Accuracy and speed

- **Engine:** Whisper large-v3-turbo.
- **Accuracy:** about 98% of words correct on clear speech; about 1–2% word error rate on the JFK inaugural address.
- **Speed:** a 1-minute clip takes seconds, and 30 minutes takes up to ~4 minutes at peak.
- **Speaker labels** are best-effort. They work well for clearly different voices; pass `num_speakers` when you know it.

### Privacy

The media is deleted as soon as its audio is decoded, and transcripts are never stored or logged by the transcription service. For page links, the downloaded audio is held in your run's storage only while it is transcribed, then deleted. The result lives only in your run's dataset.

# Actor input Schema

## `url` (type: `string`):

A direct link to an audio or video file (.mp4, .m4a, .mp3, .webm, .ogg ...), or the normal page link of a TikTok, Instagram, X or similar video: its audio is fetched for you. Page links are best effort, because some platforms block cloud servers (YouTube links are not supported yet).

## `max_minutes` (type: `integer`):

Transcribe (and pay for) at most this many minutes. Longer media is cut and flagged 'truncated'.

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

Whisper language code such as 'en', 'es', 'zh'. Leave empty to auto-detect.

## `segments` (type: `boolean`):

Add the transcript as timestamped segments with confidence.

## `words` (type: `boolean`):

Add start/end time and confidence for every word.

## `speakers` (type: `boolean`):

Who spoke when: a speaker on every segment and word, plus speaker turns. Up to 20 minutes per run.

## `num_speakers` (type: `integer`):

With speaker labels: how many people speak. Improves accuracy.

## `srt` (type: `boolean`):

Also return the transcript as SRT subtitles (in the srt field). Cues start with S1:, S2: and so on when speaker labels are on.

## `vtt` (type: `boolean`):

Also return the transcript as WebVTT subtitles (in the vtt field), for HTML5 video players.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/JFK_inaugural_address.ogg",
  "max_minutes": 10,
  "segments": true,
  "words": false,
  "speakers": false,
  "srt": false,
  "vtt": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

# 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 = {
    "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/JFK_inaugural_address.ogg"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("unsavedai-tools/unsavedai-transcribe").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 = { "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/JFK_inaugural_address.ogg" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("unsavedai-tools/unsavedai-transcribe").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 '{
  "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/JFK_inaugural_address.ogg"
}' |
apify call unsavedai-tools/unsavedai-transcribe --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/6gFfUs9shFZj4bxIW/builds/UH7sM7SKJ3EH5dlkM/openapi.json