Hard facts side by side: free tiers, prices, limits, SDKs and privacy. Every value links to the official page it came from and is re-checked every week.
| Fact |  ElevenLabs |  Deepgram |  AssemblyAI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes Free plan with 10k credits per month (TTS, STT, sound effects and more). Source, Sep 29, 2026 | Trial credits $200 in free credit on Pay As You Go, no credit card required. Source, Sep 29, 2026 | Trial credits $50 in free credits at signup, no credit card required. Source, Sep 29, 2026 |
| Starting price | $6 per month |
Starter plan, 30k credits per month with commercial license.
| $0.0043 per minute Nova-3 pre-recorded, monolingual, Pay As You Go. Source, Sep 29, 2026 |
| $0.15 per hour Universal-2 pre-recorded speech-to-text (Universal-3.5 Pro: $0.21/hr). Source, Sep 29, 2026 |
| Rate limit | 2 concurrent requests Free plan, Multilingual v2 (Flash models: 4 concurrent). Source, Sep 29, 2026 | 50 concurrent requests Pay As You Go, speech-to-text REST API (150 for streaming WSS). Source, Sep 29, 2026 | 5 concurrent transcriptions Free accounts, async; paid accounts get 200+. Source, Sep 29, 2026 |
|---|
| Size limit | 10,000 characters per request eleven_v4 and Multilingual v2; Flash v2.5 allows 40,000. Source, Sep 29, 2026 | 2 GB per file Maximum file size for pre-recorded audio. Source, Sep 29, 2026 | 5 GB / 10 hours per file Transcript endpoint; direct uploads via /v2/upload capped at 2.2 GB. Source, Sep 29, 2026 |
|---|
| Storage | Not listed | Not listed | Transcripts kept ~30 days Async audio deleted within 24-48 hours; transcript deletion begins at 30 days. Source, Sep 29, 2026 |
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| Official SDKs | PythonJavaScript / TypeScriptSwiftKotlinSource, Sep 29, 2026 | PythonJavaScript / TypeScript | PythonJavaScript / TypeScript |
|---|
| Trains on your data | Opt-out Data used to improve models by default; toggle off in Data use settings. Enterprise excluded by default. Source, Sep 29, 2026 | Opt-out Requests join the Model Improvement Program unless mip_opt_out=true is set. Source, Sep 29, 2026 | Opt-out Certain PII-redacted files used for training unless opted out, on a BAA, or using EU servers. Source, Sep 29, 2026 |
|---|
| EU hosting | Yes Isolated EU data residency environment, Enterprise customers only. Source, Sep 29, 2026 | Yes EU endpoint api.eu.deepgram.com keeps processing in the EU. Source, Sep 29, 2026 | Yes EU endpoint api.eu.assemblyai.com keeps data in the EU. Source, Sep 29, 2026 |
|---|
| Compliance | SOC 2GDPRHIPAASource, Sep 29, 2026 | SOC 2GDPRHIPAASource, Sep 29, 2026 | SOC 2ISO 27001Source, Sep 29, 2026 |
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