Get the AppBuild with API

Soniox vs OpenAI Whisper pricing

Compare Soniox vs OpenAI Whisper for real-time speech-to-text. This comparison focuses on GPT-Realtime-Whisper, OpenAI’s streaming Whisper speech-to-text model, including pricing per minute, hour, and month, realtime transcription capabilities, multilingual speech recognition, and use cases such as voice agents and conversational AI.

Pricing calculator

Compare Soniox and OpenAI Whisper realtime cost

Compare real-time transcription costs based on monthly audio volume. The comparison uses Soniox real-time speech-to-text and OpenAI GPT-Realtime-Whisper, allowing you to estimate costs for live transcription, voice agents, conversational AI, captions, and other realtime speech applications.

1,000 hours of audio / month

1025501002505001k2.5k5k10k100k

Pricing assumptions

Based on public pay-as-you-go pricing. Enterprise discounts and committed-use contracts may differ. Some providers charge separately for certain features. The calculator uses the public price for the provider configuration that most closely matches Soniox.

How much does OpenAI Whisper realtime cost?

OpenAI GPT-Realtime-Whisper is a streaming speech-to-text model designed for applications that need low-latency transcript updates from live audio. Unlike asynchronous transcription models, it is designed to process streaming audio and return transcript deltas as speech arrives.

OpenAI lists GPT-Realtime-Whisper at $0.017 per minute of realtime audio. That corresponds to approximately $1.02 per hour. For a direct comparison with Soniox:

Soniox

stt-rt-v5, updated June 2026

$0.12/hr

$0.002 per minute

OpenAI

gpt-realtime-whisper, updated September 2026

$1.02/hr

$0.017 per minute

GPT-Realtime-Whisper is billed by audio duration rather than text tokens, making the cost straightforward to estimate from realtime audio volume.

OpenAI Whisper cost per minute, hour, and month

The OpenAI Whisper realtime cost is based on the duration of audio processed by GPT-Realtime-Whisper.

At the current rate of $0.017 per minute:

Sonioxstt-rt-v5OpenAIgpt-realtime-whisper
Cost per minute$0.002$0.017
Cost per hour$0.12$1.02
Cost per 100 hours$12$102
Cost per month at 1,000 hours$120$1,020

The OpenAI Whisper cost per month depends on the amount of live audio processed. At 1,000 hours of realtime transcription per month, GPT-Realtime-Whisper costs approximately $1,020 at the current public rate.

Soniox real-time speech-to-text is currently priced at $0.12 per hour, making the same 1,000-hour workload approximately $120.

Monthly realtime STT cost at 1,000 hours of audio

Soniox

stt-rt-v5

$120

OpenAI

gpt-realtime-whisper

$1,020
Difference$900/month

Soniox vs OpenAI Whisper for realtime speech-to-text

Compare Soniox and OpenAI GPT-Realtime-Whisper across realtime transcription, streaming, multilingual speech recognition, diarization, timestamps, and other capabilities relevant to live speech applications.

Sonioxstt-rt-v5OpenAIgpt-realtime-whisper
Single multilingual model
Language hints
Language identification
Speaker diarization
Customization
Timestamps
Confidence scores
Real-time latency config
Endpoint detection
Manual finalization
SupportedPartialNot supported

Soniox’s realtime API streams transcription results as audio is processed and supports more than 60 languages. OpenAI’s GPT-Realtime-Whisper supports streaming speech-to-text through its realtime transcription APIs.

At 1,000 hours of realtime audio per month, the current public pricing represents a $900 monthly difference between the two services.

Whisper realtime pricing FAQ

How much does OpenAI Whisper cost for realtime transcription?
OpenAI GPT-Realtime-Whisper costs $0.017 per minute of realtime audio, equivalent to approximately $1.02 per hour.
What is the OpenAI Whisper cost per minute?
For realtime transcription using GPT-Realtime-Whisper, the current price is $0.017 per minute.
What is the OpenAI Whisper cost per hour?
GPT-Realtime-Whisper costs approximately $1.02 per hour based on its $0.017 per minute realtime audio price.
How much does OpenAI Whisper cost per month?
There is no fixed monthly subscription price for GPT-Realtime-Whisper. Monthly cost depends on realtime audio volume. At 1,000 hours per month, the estimated cost is $1,020.
What is GPT-Realtime-Whisper?
GPT-Realtime-Whisper is OpenAI’s streaming speech-to-text model for realtime transcription. It is designed to return transcript updates from live audio with low latency.
Is GPT-Realtime-Whisper the same as Whisper?
GPT-Realtime-Whisper is a distinct OpenAI realtime transcription model. It should not be confused with the older whisper-1 API model, which has separate asynchronous transcription pricing.
Is Whisper realtime or asynchronous?
Whisper technology can be used in different transcription configurations. For realtime Whisper speech to text, OpenAI provides GPT-Realtime-Whisper. The older whisper-1 API has a separate transcription price and should not be used as the realtime benchmark.
Does OpenAI Whisper support streaming speech to text?
Yes. GPT-Realtime-Whisper supports streaming and realtime transcription. OpenAI describes it as a streaming speech-to-text model for applications that need low-latency transcript deltas from live audio.
What is Whisper ASR?
Whisper ASR refers to Whisper-based automatic speech recognition. ASR converts spoken audio into text. GPT-Realtime-Whisper provides this capability for streaming realtime audio.
Is GPT-Realtime-Whisper suitable for voice agents?
GPT-Realtime-Whisper can provide the realtime speech recognition component of a voice agent. A complete voice agent may also require a language model, response generation, text-to-speech, session management, and other components.
How does Soniox compare with OpenAI Whisper realtime?
Soniox real-time speech-to-text is currently priced at $0.12/hour, while GPT-Realtime-Whisper is priced at $1.02/hour based on the public rates of $0.12/hour and $0.017/minute respectively.
What is the OpenAI realtime transcription API?
OpenAI provides dedicated realtime transcription functionality through its realtime transcription APIs. GPT-Realtime-Whisper is one of the models available for realtime transcription.
What is the difference between GPT-Realtime-Whisper and GPT-Live-Transcribe?
Both are listed by OpenAI as streaming speech-to-text models for realtime transcription, and both are currently priced at $0.017/minute. GPT-Realtime-Whisper is the Whisper-branded model, while GPT-Live-Transcribe is OpenAI’s newer low-latency transcription model.

Ready to get started?

Create an account instantly, or contact us to design a custom package for your business.

Build with API

Documentation

Get up and running in minutes and spend your time building, not wrestling with the API.

Explore docs

See what you’ll pay

Pay only for what you use with our flexible pricing. Built to scale with you.

Pricing details