Free tool

Transcribe a Podcast

A whole episode, free. 90 minutes is the limit, and we picked it by measuring real episodes rather than by what was cheap to give away.

Looked after by Clack, a typewriter with a sheet of paper in it.

We show the transcript here and email you the text, SRT and VTT, so you still have them tomorrow.

Free. No account. 2 files a day per person, up to 90 minutes each.

Ninety, because across 96 transcripts we measured the median episode was 47.3 minutes and 96% were 90 minutes or under.

How to transcribe an episode

  1. 1Send the episodeUpload the audio file. Up to 90 minutes and 600MB.
  2. 2Say where to send itClose the tab if you like. The transcript is emailed either way.
  3. 3Take the textParagraphs for show notes and quotes, SRT and VTT if there is a video version.
  4. 4Turn it into notesChapters, timestamps and a searchable archive all start from this file.

Questions

Is a full episode really free?
Yes — up to 90 minutes, two episodes a day, no card and no trial. We pay about 15 cents an hour of audio to transcribe it and cap what the tool can spend in a month. If a month runs out the tool says so and offers to email you when it resets.
Why 90 minutes and not 15?
Because we measured what episodes actually are. Across 96 transcripts we made between February and September 2026, the median was 47.3 minutes and 96% were 90 minutes or under. A 15-minute cap would have covered 17% of them. The number is chosen around real episodes rather than around what is cheap to give away.
Does it say who is speaking?
No, and for an interview show that is the thing worth knowing before you start. You get everything that was said, in paragraphs, without "Host:" and "Guest:" labels. Speaker diarisation is a paid feature. If your episode is two people talking, the free transcript is excellent for search, notes and quotes, and is not a publishable interview transcript without editing.
Can I paste my RSS or episode link?
No — this takes the audio file itself. Download the episode from your host, or use the file you exported when you made it, and drop it in. Nothing you would normally copy from Apple Podcasts, Spotify or an RSS feed is the audio file, which is why we stopped asking for links at all.
How long does an episode take?
Usually a few minutes for an hour of audio. You can close the tab; it is emailed to you when it is done, so the wait does not have to be spent watching a page.
What can I do with the transcript?
Show notes, chapter markers, quote pulls, a searchable archive of your back catalogue, and an accessible version of the episode for people who cannot listen. The SRT and VTT files also work as captions for a video version.
Do you keep my episode?
The audio is deleted after 7 days and the text after 30, by a job that runs daily and has been watched doing it. Nothing is used to train anything.
How this compares to Otter, Rev and the rest

We read the free tiers of six other transcription tools off their own pricing pages and put them in one table — longest free file, whether they label speakers, whether you need an account, and what happens when the free part runs out. It includes where we lose, because a comparison that does not is an advertisement.

Why the limit is ninety minutes

Every other free transcriber stops somewhere between ten and thirty minutes. That number is not chosen around what podcasters record; it is chosen around what is cheap to give away, and it means the free tier is useless for the thing most people want to use it for.

We had a way to check. Slice transcribes episodes for a living, so we measured our own, on 16 September 2026 — 96 transcripts made between February and September 2026, aggregate figures only, no customer file, name or content in them:

  • Median length: 47.3 minutes. Half of everything longer than that.
  • Mean: 44.5 minutes. 90th percentile: 72 minutes.
  • 96% were 90 minutes or under. The longest was 93.6.
  • Only 17% were 15 minutes or under. A fifteen-minute free tier would have failed five episodes in six.
  • Average 7,775 words at about 172 words a minute; 94% audio rather than video.

Ninety is where the evidence and the budget meet: it covers the overwhelming majority of real episodes, and it is a length we can afford to hand out. If your show runs longer, the tool says so before it uploads anything and tells you the length it read.

What it costs us, said out loud

About 15 cents an hour of audio, which we pay. That is why there are two files a day per person and a monthly budget for the tool as a whole. When a month runs out the tool says so and offers to email you when it resets — it does not quietly get worse or start asking for a card.

The limitation that matters most for interview shows

There are no speaker labels. You get everything both people said, in paragraphs, with nothing marking the handover. For search, notes, quote-hunting and accessibility that is genuinely fine. For a transcript you intend to publish as an interview, it is a first draft with an editing pass in front of it. Diarisation is a paid feature, and pretending otherwise here would only waste your afternoon.

What to do with it next

The chapter formatter turns timestamps into the chapter markers Apple and Spotify read. The subtitle converter reshapes the SRT if a platform wants something else. And if you want the clips as well as the words — the bits worth posting, cut and captioned — that is what Slice Shorts does, and it is the paid thing this free tool is honestly a doorway to.

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Shorts by Slice

From the team behind these free tools

One video. A week of posts.

Upload an episode and get back the moments worth posting, cut and captioned.

  • Reads the whole episode, then picks the excerpts worth posting
  • Captions burned in and framed vertical, ready to post
  • Seven days free, no card
Try Shorts by Slice