Head-to-head comparison
ElevenLabs Speech-to-Text vs Gladia
Two of the transcription tools podcasters reach for. Here's how they differ on pricing, features, audience, and the trade-offs that actually matter day-to-day.
Scribe model from the voice-AI company
Best for: Teams already using ElevenLabs for TTS who want to round-trip audio in the same dashboard.
Multilingual Whisper-powered API with sub-300ms streaming.
Best for: Voice product developers
At a glance
The honest trade-offs
ElevenLabs Speech-to-Text
Pros
- Diarisation and speaker labels are solid
- Unified billing with ElevenLabs TTS
- Word-level timestamps included
Watch-outs
- Newer than competitors, less battle-tested
- Limited non-English depth versus Whisper
- No live streaming endpoint yet
Gladia
Pros
- Sub-300ms real-time latency
- 100+ languages with code-switching
- Free 10 hours/month evaluation
Watch-outs
- API-only, no editor for end users
- Higher async rate than raw Whisper
- Volume tiers need annual commits
Which one should you pick?
Pick ElevenLabs Speech-to-Text if
You’re building around teams already using elevenlabs for tts who want to round-trip audio in the same dashboard.. ElevenLabs entered the ASR race with Scribe, a model that lands competitive WER scores on English and Spanish while inheriting the company's strong diarisation work from voice cloning. Cleanest if you already use ElevenLabs for TTS.
Pick Gladia if
You’re building around voice product developers. Gladia took Whisper and re-engineered it to work in production — sub-300ms streaming latency, code-switching across 100+ languages, diarization and translation in the same stream. For developers building voice products it's a serious Whisper-API upgrade.
Also worth comparing
Frequently asked
What does ElevenLabs Speech-to-Text do better than Gladia?
ElevenLabs Speech-to-Text's standout is "Diarisation and speaker labels are solid". Gladia doesn't make that promise — it leans into "Sub-300ms real-time latency" instead. If the first sentence describes your workflow, pick ElevenLabs Speech-to-Text; if the second does, pick Gladia.
What are the trade-offs?
ElevenLabs Speech-to-Text: newer than competitors, less battle-tested. Gladia: api-only, no editor for end users. Whether either matters depends entirely on what you actually need — neither is a deal-breaker by itself.
Can I use ElevenLabs Speech-to-Text and Gladia together?
Both are transcription tools so most teams pick one. Some workflows do combine them — for example, using ElevenLabs Speech-to-Text for one show or episode type and Gladia for another. Worth trying both free tiers before committing.