Deepgram is a speech recognition and speech synthesis API billed by usage rather than a flat subscription. Whether it suits you comes down to volume and control: it rewards teams who want per-minute pricing, self-hosting, or both, over a fixed monthly plan.
What is Deepgram?
Deepgram is a speech AI company founded in 2015, offering speech-to-text and text-to-speech through an API and a browser-based Playground console. Its Nova-3 and Flux models handle transcription, and Aura-1, Aura-2 and Flux TTS generate speech; it also runs OpenAI's open-source Whisper Large model as a hosted option alongside its own. The API can run as a managed cloud service or as a self-hosted deployment inside your own infrastructure, validated against Deepgram's licence server rather than sold as a one-time perpetual licence.
What the Deepgram API does
Deepgram transcribes both pre-recorded audio and live streaming audio, with the Nova-3 and Flux models available in monolingual and multilingual variants. Its speech-to-text product page names 57 supported languages. Speaker diarization is included on pre-recorded transcription and priced separately on streaming, labelling who spoke when.
Keyterm Prompting lets you boost accuracy on domain-specific jargon, product names or acronyms, and a Redaction feature automatically removes sensitive PII such as social security numbers, credit card numbers and phone numbers from a transcript. On the speech side, the Aura-1, Aura-2 and Flux TTS models generate speech from text, sold as a standalone text-to-speech API separate from Deepgram's bundled Voice Agent API. For deployments that cannot send audio to Deepgram's cloud, the same components can also run self-hosted, in your own cloud or on-premises.
Working with Deepgram
Deepgram is API-first: everything runs through calls and SDKs rather than a shared team workspace. The one named third-party integration is with Amazon Connect. Outside the API itself, Deepgram offers a browser-based Playground for testing requests; no native desktop or mobile app is listed.
Deepgram pricing: what each plan gives
Deepgram has no flat monthly or annual plan. Pay As You Go is pure usage billing with no minimum spend and no expiration: streaming transcription with Nova-3 Monolingual costs $0.0077 per minute at the regular rate, pre-recorded transcription with the same model costs $0.0043 per minute, and Aura-2 text-to-speech costs $0.030 per 1,000 characters. The bundled Voice Agent API is billed at $0.075 per minute of websocket connection time on its Standard tier.
New accounts get $200 in free credit with no card required and no expiration date, which converts to pay-as-you-go billing once spent. A Growth tier prepays credits annually, starting around $4,000 a year, for up to 20% off the same per-unit rates; Enterprise pricing is quoted directly by Deepgram's sales team.
Privacy and support
Deepgram's terms give it a licence to use your content to improve its models by default; you can opt out of training on a per-request or per-account basis rather than it being off automatically. Deepgram is SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified and describes itself as GDPR ready, with a dedicated EU API endpoint so data processing can stay within the European Union. It signs HIPAA Business Associate Agreements, but only for Enterprise customers handling protected health information.
Support runs through email, a documentation help centre, and a community Discord; no live chat or phone line is listed.
Who Deepgram suits
Deepgram suits development teams building their own transcription or voice product who want usage-based pricing rather than seat licences, and who value the option to self-host rather than send audio to a third party's cloud. The keyterm prompting and redaction features also suit teams working with domain-specific audio or sensitive personal data.
It suits less well anyone wanting a simple flat monthly plan with a fixed feature set: every tier here is metered by usage, and the discounted Growth tier requires a multi-thousand-dollar annual prepayment. Teams uncomfortable with default training on their audio need to actively opt out.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Deepgram cost?
Deepgram has no monthly subscription; you pay per minute or per character of usage. Streaming transcription with Nova-3 Monolingual costs $0.0077 per minute at the regular rate, and new accounts start with $200 in free credit.
How many languages does Deepgram transcribe?
Deepgram's speech-to-text product page names 57 supported languages, available across its Nova-3 and Flux models in monolingual and multilingual variants.
Can Deepgram run outside Deepgram's own cloud?
Yes. Alongside its managed Pay As You Go API, Deepgram offers a self-hosted deployment of the same components for your own cloud or on-premises infrastructure, though it still validates against Deepgram's licence server.
Does Deepgram train on the audio I send it?
By default, yes: Deepgram's terms let it use your content to improve its models, and you need to opt out per request or per account if you don't want that.
