Which Unlimited Transcription Plans Are Really Unlimited?
By Eman Khoubian, Founder & CEO · Updated
"Unlimited" on a transcription pricing page rarely means unlimited. Of the nine plans below, only two have no monthly limit on the files you upload. One of those two has a heavy-use rule in its terms. The other one is ours.
Before you pay for any of them, check three things: what the word covers, whether a second cap sits behind it, and how long one file can be. On WhisperAI Business Pro ($24.99 a month), unlimited covers uploads and live recording, and one file can run 10 hours or 5 GB.
Which transcription plans are really unlimited?
Prices are for monthly billing, in US dollars, as of October 30, 2026.
| Plan | What's unlimited | The limit behind it | Longest file |
|---|---|---|---|
| WhisperAI Business Pro, $24.99/mo | Minutes for uploads and live recording | No monthly cap of any kind | 10 hours or 5 GB |
| TurboScribe Unlimited, $20/mo | Uploads | High Volume Mode past 24 hours of audio a day on average | 10 hours or 5 GB |
| Notta Business, $27.99/seat | Transcription minutes | 200 file uploads a month | 3 hours with speaker labels, 5 without |
| Fireflies Pro and Business | Transcription, mostly of meetings | 3,000 minutes of uploads a month | 150 minutes |
| Otter Business | Meetings and in-app recordings only | 6,000 minutes of imported files a month | 4 hours per conversation |
| Happy Scribe Pro, $29/mo | Notetaker recordings only | 600 AI minutes a month, then $0.20 a minute | 1 GB per file in bulk uploads |
| Rev Essentials, $29.99/seat | Nothing: it's a minute plan | 5,000 AI minutes per user a month | Not stated |
| Descript Business, $65/mo | Nothing: it's an hours plan | 40 media hours a month | Not stated |
| Sonix Pro, $80/mo | Nothing: it's an hours plan | 40 hours a month, then $10 an hour | Not stated |
What limits hide behind "unlimited"?
Unlimited meetings, capped uploads. Otter Business promises "Unlimited meetings + in-app recordings", but files you import count against a separate 6,000 minutes a month. Happy Scribe's unlimited line is its meeting notetaker; its transcription plans sell minutes. If most of your audio is files (interviews, podcasts, lectures), these plans aren't unlimited for you.
Unlimited minutes, a second cap. Notta Business lists "Unlimited transcription" and 200 file uploads a month on the same plan. Fireflies sells unlimited transcription, then limits dashboard uploads to 3,000 minutes a month, "approx 50 one-hour media files".
A heavy-use rule. TurboScribe says that past "more than 24 hours of audio or video per day on average, or top 0.1% of usage", it uses "optimizations like High Volume Mode". Its terms also let it "temporarily disable your account if your usage significantly exceeds the typical usage of other customers", though it says it will contact you first except in rare cases.
WhisperAI's terms have no clause like that, and Business Pro never checks your monthly total.
What happens to each plan in a 50-hour month?
Fifty hours is 3,000 minutes: a weekly podcast with long raw recordings, or a research project with a few dozen interviews. Here's how each plan handles it.
Upload hours a month on capped plans, against a 50-hour month
- No change on WhisperAI Business Pro or TurboScribe.
- Notta: fine until file 201. If your 50 hours are in clips shorter than 15 minutes, you hit the file cap before the hours run out.
- Fireflies: right on its upload limit. One bonus episode and you're over.
- Rev Essentials and Otter Business: both fit. 3,000 minutes is under their 5,000 and 6,000 a user.
- Descript and Sonix: both include 40 hours. On Sonix Pro the other 10 hours cost $10 each, so the month is $180. Descript sells extra hours on Creator and Business.
- Happy Scribe: Pro covers 10 hours. The 50-hour month needs Business, at $89.
How do you find a plan's real limits before you pay?
Three places, in this order. First, the asterisk next to "unlimited" on the pricing page. Otter's leads to a footnote that reads "Limit applies only to imported files".
Second, the help center. Search it for "upload limit" and "rate limit". Fireflies' pricing page says unlimited transcription, and the upload limit sits in a help article called "Learn about rate limits".
Third, the terms. Search them for "usage" and "exceeds". That's where TurboScribe keeps the line about disabling accounts whose use goes far past other customers'. If all three come back clean, the plan means what it says.
How long can one file be on an unlimited plan?
For long recordings, this is the number that matters, and it's rarely printed next to "unlimited". WhisperAI and TurboScribe take files up to 10 hours. Notta stops at 3 hours for uploads with speaker identification. Fireflies stops at 150 minutes. Otter Business allows 4 hours per conversation.
So a three-hour podcast session goes through WhisperAI as one file. On Fireflies it's two uploads and two transcripts to stitch back together. Got something past 10 hours? Our guide to transcribing large audio files shows how to split it and keep the timestamps usable.
What about a desktop app with no limits at all?
MacWhisper Pro is a one-time purchase (€65) with "unlimited transcriptions". It runs Whisper models on your own Mac, so your limit is your computer: how long it takes to get through 50 hours, and how much you mind keeping your Mac busy that long. WhisperAI runs in the browser: nothing to install, and your Mac isn't the one doing the work. Our Whisper desktop apps comparison covers which app runs on which machine.
What do you get with WhisperAI Business Pro?
Unlimited minutes for uploaded files and for live recording in your browser, up to 12 hours per session. Speaker labels, translation and exports to TXT, DOCX, PDF, SRT and VTT come with it, and so does a recap of each live recording.
Pay for the year and it's $199. Unlimited starts at Business Pro: the free plan has 5 minutes a month and Premium has 120. The pricing page has every plan side by side.