Terms of Service

Last Updated: June 7, 2026

These Terms of Service constitute a legally binding agreement between you and Transcribe API ("Transcribe API," "we," "us," or "our"), the provider of the speech-to-text transcription service described in these Terms. By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, you may not use the Service.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and legally capable of entering into a binding agreement to use the Service. If you are using the Service on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have the authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

2. Accounts & Security

• Registration: You must create an account to access the API. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and API keys.
• API Keys: API keys grant access to your account's transcription capabilities and balance. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your API keys. You may create and revoke API keys at any time through the dashboard. If you believe an API key has been compromised, you must revoke it immediately.
• Email Changes: You may update your account email address via account settings.
• Account Deletion: You may delete your account at any time through your account settings. For details on how your data is handled upon deletion, please see our Privacy Policy.

3. Billing & Payments

• Pay-as-You-Go: The Service is billed based on the duration of audio transcribed, billed per second and rounded up to the next second. In batch transcription, each file has a minimum billable duration of 1 second. Current pricing is published on our website and may be updated from time to time.
• Prepaid Credits: You purchase credits in advance through the dashboard. Each transcription request deducts credits from your account balance based on the duration transcribed. Credits do not expire.
• No Refunds: Except where required by applicable law, all credit purchases are non-refundable, including if you do not use the purchased credits.
• Payment Processor: Payments are processed by Stripe. We do not store your full payment card details on our servers.
• Free Trial: Every new account receives a one-time free transcription allowance. This allowance is limited to one per user and may be restricted based on account, email address, payment method, or other eligibility signals used to prevent fraud or abuse. You may not create multiple accounts, use different email addresses or payment methods, or otherwise attempt to bypass these limits. If Transcribe API reasonably believes you have abused or attempted to abuse the free trial, we may deny, revoke, suspend, or terminate the applicable benefit or your account.

4. Intellectual Property and Content Protection

• Our Content: The Transcribe API website, documentation, SDKs, and all related materials are the property of Transcribe API and are protected by applicable intellectual property laws.
• Your Content: You retain all rights to the audio files you upload and the transcriptions generated from them. By using the Service, you grant us a limited license to process your audio files solely for the purpose of providing the transcription Service.

5. Audio Files and Transcription

• File Limits: The Service imposes file size and duration limits as published in our documentation. You are responsible for ensuring your audio files comply with these limits.
• Deletion: Audio files are deleted immediately after transcription is complete. Transcription output is retained for 7 days for async jobs and webhook-delivered transcriptions, after which it is automatically deleted. See our Privacy Policy for details.
• No Training: We do not use your audio files or transcription output to train or improve any speech recognition models.

6. Customer Content, End-User Consents, and Data Processing

• Customer Content: For purposes of these Terms, "Customer Content" means audio files, recordings, transcription output, text, VTT files, segment data, metadata, and any other content submitted to or generated by the Service on your behalf.
• Customer Responsibility: You are responsible for your Customer Content and for ensuring that you have all rights, permissions, notices, and consents necessary to submit Customer Content to the Service and to allow Transcribe API to process it for transcription. This includes, where applicable, consent from speakers, callers, meeting participants, employees, customers, end users, or any other individuals whose voice or personal information may be included in the audio.
• Role of Transcribe API: As between you and Transcribe API, you control the Customer Content you submit to the Service. Transcribe API processes Customer Content only to provide, secure, maintain, and support the Service, including generating transcription output, preventing abuse, enforcing usage limits, and complying with applicable law.
• Processing Instructions: You instruct Transcribe API to process Customer Content as necessary to provide the Service in accordance with these Terms, the Privacy Policy, your API requests, and your account settings. Transcribe API will not sell Customer Content or use Customer Content to train or improve speech recognition models.
• Service Providers: You authorize Transcribe API to use trusted service providers and infrastructure providers to process Customer Content where necessary to provide the Service, including hosting, security, traffic routing, payment processing, and transcription compute. Transcribe API remains responsible for selecting service providers that support the operation and security of the Service.
• Deletion: Audio files are deleted after transcription is complete. Transcription output is retained as described in the Privacy Policy unless deleted earlier through the API or account tools.

7. Transcription Accuracy & Service Availability

• Accuracy: The Service uses speech recognition models and third-party compute, GPU, and AI inference infrastructure to generate transcriptions. While we strive for high accuracy, transcription quality may vary depending on audio quality, background noise, accents, overlapping speech, language, speaker clarity, and other factors. Transcriptions are provided on an "as is" basis and should be reviewed for accuracy where critical.
• Latency: Expected completion times are published in our documentation. Actual latency may vary based on audio duration and current system load.
• Service Availability: We make reasonable efforts to maintain the availability of the Service but do not guarantee uninterrupted access. Transcribe API is not liable for transcription errors, processing failures, or service interruptions.

8. Platform Integrity, Rate Limits & Security

The Service enforces rate limits on API requests, file sizes, file counts, batch sizes, and other usage dimensions as published in our documentation. You are permitted to use the Service up to these published limits. Requests that exceed a published limit will be denied or throttled.

We also enforce limits on login attempts, verification requests, and password resets to help prevent unauthorized access and account abuse.

To protect the security, stability, and integrity of the platform, we also prohibit:

• scraping or bulk extraction of content or data from our website or documentation;
• attempts to bypass platform safeguards, rate limits, or access controls; or
• other activity that threatens platform integrity or violates these Terms.

We may temporarily throttle, restrict, suspend, or terminate access to the Service if we reasonably believe an account is engaged in prohibited activity. If legitimate activity is mistakenly restricted, you may contact support for review.

9. Acceptable Use Policy

• Lawful Use: You may use the Service only in compliance with applicable laws. You are responsible for ensuring that you have all necessary rights, consents, permissions, and legal authority to submit audio, recordings, personal information, or other content to the Service.
• End-User and Speaker Consents: If you use the Service to transcribe audio involving other people, including calls, meetings, interviews, customer support interactions, workplace conversations, or user-generated recordings, you are responsible for providing any required notices and obtaining any required consents from those individuals before submitting the audio to the Service.
• Prohibited Use: You must not use the Service for unlawful purposes, to infringe the rights of others, to bypass legal consent requirements, to compromise the security or integrity of the Service, or to submit content that you are not legally permitted to process.
• Violation: Transcribe API reserves the right to suspend or permanently terminate your account if we reasonably determine that you have violated this policy, without a refund of unused credits, except where required by applicable law.

10. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Transcribe API will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, business, goodwill, or anticipated savings, arising out of or relating to your use of, or inability to use, the Service.
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Transcribe API’s total aggregate liability for all claims arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms will not exceed the amount you paid to Transcribe API for the Service during the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.
The Service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis, without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, statutory, or otherwise, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, availability, or uninterrupted operation.
Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations of liability or exclusions of warranties, so some of the above limitations may not apply to you.

11. Account Termination

Transcribe API may suspend or terminate your account and access to the Service if you violate these Terms or if your use of the Service poses a security, legal, or operational risk to Transcribe API or other users. This includes abuse of free trials, promotional offers, duplicate accounts, or attempts to bypass account, payment, or eligibility restrictions. In the event of suspension or termination due to your breach of these Terms, you will lose access immediately and will not be entitled to any refund for unused credits.

12. Modifications to the Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will post the updated Terms on the Service and update the "Last Updated" date above. Material changes will take effect upon posting unless otherwise stated. Your continued use of the Service after the updated Terms take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

13. Governing Law & Severability

These Terms will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Province of Alberta and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable or invalid, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that the remaining Terms remain in full force and effect.

14. Contact

If you have questions about these Terms, billing, or account access, you may contact us at support@transcribeapi.com.