{"rid":"compute/assemblyai","card":{"rid":"compute/assemblyai","eid":"assemblyai","topic":"compute","slug":"assemblyai","provider":"AssemblyAI","url":"https://assemblyai.com/pricing","domain":"assemblyai.com","category":"inference API","tier":null,"verdict":"qualifies-with-caveat","vorder":1,"grp":"usable","confidence":"documented","binding":"request-rate","identity_kind":"email","identity_basis":"stated","needs_card":0,"needs_phone":1,"needs_id":0,"needs_institution":0,"country":null,"crypto":null,"interfaces":"rest","egress_metered":null,"per_object_bytes":null,"retention_days":null,"verified_at":"2026-10-22T00:00:00.000Z","verified_basis":"live","checked_on":"2026-10-22","stale_on":"2026-11-21","n_evidence":4,"usd_month":null,"usd_per_tb_month":null,"summary":"'$50 in free credits at signup, no credit card required. Concurrency is capped (see above) until you upgrade.' At the Universal-2 pre-recorded rate of USD 0....","duplicate_of":null,"n_unknown":8},"record":{"topic":"compute","slug":"assemblyai","provider":"AssemblyAI","url":"https://assemblyai.com/pricing","category":"inference API","free_tier":{"stated":"'$50 in free credits at signup, no credit card required. Concurrency is capped (see above) until you upgrade.' At the Universal-2 pre-recorded rate of USD 0.15 an hour, 50 / 0.15 = 333 hours of transcription. At Universal-3.5 Pro (USD 0.21 an hour) the same credit is 238 hours.","unit":"hours","metered_on":"wall-clock","source_url":"https://assemblyai.com/pricing","read_on":"2026-10-22","notes":"one-time-credit"},"per_object_cap":{"stated":"not applicable","bytes":null,"source_url":"https://assemblyai.com/pricing","notes":null},"retention":{"stated":"not applicable","days":null,"source_url":"https://assemblyai.com/pricing","notes":null},"egress":{"terms":"not stated","metered":false,"free_allowance":null,"price_per_tb":null,"source_url":"https://assemblyai.com/pricing"},"interface":["rest"],"interface_detail":"inferred from the tooling the provider documents; not probed","tooling":"not stated","chaining":"a free runner plus 333 hours of pre-recorded transcription is enough to transcribe a whole lecture or podcast archive once; pair it with a free object store from the storage lane for the audio, since the credit covers the API and nothing else. What breaks: the 5-stream streaming cap makes live capture useless, and a re-transcription after a model change spends the credit twice.","limits":[{"kind":"request-rate","value":"the free tier caps streaming concurrency at '5 new streams per minute' against 100 for pay-as-you-go, so five live sessions a minute is the real wall on a free account, long before 50 dollars of credit is spent.","source":"https://assemblyai.com/pricing"}],"limits_note":"the free tier caps streaming concurrency at '5 new streams per minute' against 100 for pay-as-you-go, so five live sessions a minute is the real wall on a free account, long before 50 dollars of credit is spent.","binding":"request-rate","binding_note":"the free tier caps streaming concurrency at '5 new streams per minute' against 100 for pay-as-you-go, so five live sessions a minute is the real wall on a free account, long before 50 dollars of credit is spent.","identity_cost":{"kind":"email","detail":"no card and no payment method: the FAQ states '$50 in free credits at signup, no credit card required', so no payment method is taken and no hold exists. The evidence does not say which identifier the signup form asks for, so whether an email alone or an email plus a phone is required is not stated; debit and prepaid acceptance are not stated","country":null},"reliability_note":"no reliability event recorded","confidence":"documented","evidence":[{"url":"https://assemblyai.com/pricing","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"'$50 in free credits at signup, no credit card required. Concurrency is capped (see above) until you upgrade', quoted from the FAQ 'What's the free tier?'"},{"url":"https://assemblyai.com/pricing","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"'Free-tier streaming concurrency: 5 new streams per minute. Pay-as-you-go streaming concurrency: 100 new streams per minute', quoted"},{"url":"https://assemblyai.com/pricing","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"pre-recorded rates 'Universal-3.5 Pro ... $0.21/hr' and 'Universal-2 ... $0.15/hr', quoted; 'Pre-recorded is billed per hour of audio submitted'"},{"url":"https://assemblyai.com/pricing","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"'$50 in free credits, no credit card required' restated in the Key Pricing Facts block, and 'EU region is the same price as US', quoted"}],"verdict":"qualifies-with-caveat","verified_at":"2026-10-22T00:00:00.000Z","notes":"These are inference credits, not general compute. The page is an llms.txt-shaped 'Authoritative Reference' block dated 'Last updated: 2026-09-28' on the vendor's own pricing URL, so it is the vendor speaking and the rung is documented. The page also warns that 'Defaults can differ between free-tier and paid accounts' and that streaming bills session duration rather than audio duration, which is where a free credit disappears without producing output. Expiry of the USD 50 is not stated on the page; a 12-month read would have to come from the console.","extras":{"wave2":{"class":"credit-large-enough-for-real-workload","free_tier_kind":"one-time-credit","shape":{"vcpu":null,"ram_gib":null,"gpu_class":null,"gpu_count":0}}}},"claims":[{"path":"$.free_tier.stated","kind":"free-quota","num":333,"unit":"hours","per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.limits[0].value","kind":"limit:request-rate","num":null,"unit":null,"per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"unparsed"}],"unknown":[["$.egress.metered","egress-unknown"],["$.egress.terms","not-stated"],["$.per_object_cap.notes","process"],["$.per_object_cap.stated","not-applicable"],["$.reliability_note","none-observed"],["$.retention.notes","process"],["$.retention.stated","not-applicable"],["$.tooling","not-stated"]],"history":[],"drift":[]}