OpenAI Whisper and TTS API pricing
OpenAI prices whisper-1 at $0.006 a minute of audio. Newer models run from $0.003 to $0.034 a minute. gpt-transcribe costs $0.0045 a minute. gpt-4o-mini-transcribe costs $0.003. For speech, tts-1 costs $15 per 1M characters and tts-1-hd $30. OpenAI marks whisper-1, tts-1, tts-1-hd, and gpt-4o-mini-tts as deprecated on their model pages. Figures come from the OpenAI API docs on October 26, 2026. We do not track OpenAI API prices on SaaS Price Watch yet.
Speech to text
| Model | Use | Price |
|---|---|---|
| whisper-1 (deprecated) | File transcription | $0.006 a minute |
| gpt-transcribe | File and realtime transcription | $0.0045 a minute |
| gpt-4o-transcribe | Transcription | $0.006 a minute (estimate) |
| gpt-4o-mini-transcribe | Transcription | $0.003 a minute (estimate) |
| gpt-live-transcribe | Live transcription | $0.017 a minute (estimate) |
| gpt-realtime-whisper | Live transcription | $0.017 a minute (estimate) |
| gpt-realtime-translate | Live translation | $0.034 a minute (estimate) |
The gpt-4o models bill by tokens. OpenAI lists $2.50 input and $10.00 output per 1M tokens for gpt-4o-transcribe, and $1.25 and $5.00 for gpt-4o-mini-transcribe. The per minute figures for those are OpenAI estimates.
Our math: one hour of audio costs $0.36 on whisper-1, $0.27 on gpt-transcribe, and $0.18 on gpt-4o-mini-transcribe.
Text to speech
| Model | Price |
|---|---|
| tts-1 (deprecated) | $15 per 1M characters |
| tts-1-hd (deprecated) | $30 per 1M characters |
| gpt-4o-mini-tts (deprecated) | $0.60 per 1M text input tokens, $12.00 per 1M audio output tokens |
Our math: 100,000 characters cost $1.50 on tts-1 and $3.00 on tts-1-hd.
Realtime voice
GPT-Live sessions on gpt-live-1 cost $0.05 a minute, billed per second. Backend model and tool use bill on top. gpt-realtime-2.1 lists $32.00 per 1M audio input tokens and $64.00 per 1M audio output tokens. gpt-realtime-2.1-mini lists $10.00 and $20.00.
What we withhold
The OpenAI pricing page we read did not list a TTS model that is not marked deprecated, so we do not name a successor. We do not publish a per minute price for gpt-4o-mini-tts, because the docs we read price it in tokens. The openai.com/api/pricing page blocked our reader, so we used the platform docs.
Compare and track
See the Deepgram pricing guide, the AssemblyAI pricing guide, ElevenLabs pricing per minute, ElevenLabs API pricing, and the AI category. For other text to speech prices, see Amazon Polly pricing, Google Text-to-Speech pricing, and Cartesia pricing per minute.
FAQ
How much does OpenAI Whisper cost per minute? whisper-1 costs $0.006 a minute. OpenAI marks it deprecated. gpt-transcribe costs $0.0045 a minute.
What is the cheapest OpenAI transcription model? gpt-4o-mini-transcribe, at an estimated $0.003 a minute.
How much is OpenAI text to speech? tts-1 costs $15 per 1M characters and tts-1-hd $30. gpt-4o-mini-tts bills by tokens.
Is OpenAI Whisper deprecated? The whisper-1 model page carries a Deprecated label. Check the OpenAI deprecations page for dates.
How much does an hour of transcription cost on OpenAI? Our math: $0.36 on whisper-1, $0.27 on gpt-transcribe, and $0.18 on gpt-4o-mini-transcribe.
How we check
We read the OpenAI API pricing docs and model pages on October 26, 2026. Get an alert when an AI API price changes.
Checked 2026-10-26. Prices and policies change. Confirm on the source before you buy.
Sources
- https://platform.openai.com/docs/pricing
- https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/whisper-1
- https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/gpt-transcribe
- https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/tts-1
- https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/tts-1-hd
- https://platform.openai.com/docs/models/gpt-4o-mini-tts
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