AI · head to head
Rev vs Seldon
Rev
AI
Human and AI transcription, captions and subtitles priced per minute
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
Seldon
Machine Learning
Kubernetes model serving whose current version is licensed under the Business Source Licence
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Rev human transcription at 1.99 US dollars a minute means roughly 120 dollars an hour of audio, so a long-form interview series costs more in transcription than most teams assume before they run the arithmetic.; Seldon seldon Core v2 is under the Business Source Licence rather than Apache 2.0, so production use requires a commercial agreement, and a team that evaluated it believing it was open source discovers the licence is the blocker exactly when the project is ready to ship.
- They diverge on capability: Rev covers Human transcription, Seldon covers Kubernetes custom resources.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Rev and Seldon actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Rev
- Human transcription
- AI transcription
- Captions and subtitles
- Legal transcripts
- File analysis
- Clio integration
- Rev API
- Speaker identification
Only in Seldon
- Kubernetes custom resources
- Inference graphs
- Traffic strategies
- Open Inference Protocol
- Alibi Explain
- Alibi Detect
- Kafka-backed pipelines in v2
- Commercial control plane
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Rev
- A law firm that needs a deposition transcript in a court-acceptable page format with a fixed turnaround and a published per-page price it can bill to a matter.not Seldon
- A documentary or podcast producer costing a project in advance, because human transcription at a published per-minute rate makes the transcription line item a known number.not Seldon
- A broadcaster needing compliant human captions rather than machine captions, where accuracy is a regulatory requirement and not a convenience.not Seldon
- A team with high AI volume and occasional high-stakes files, using the subscription for the bulk and paying the discounted human rate only where accuracy matters.not Seldon
Seldon
- Serving an ensemble or a multi-stage inference path as one versioned deployment rather than as a chain of separate servicesnot Rev
- Running genuine production experiments where a share of live traffic goes to a candidate model and the results are comparednot Rev
- Regulated environments needing explanations and drift monitoring attached to the served model rather than bolted on laternot Rev
- Organisations with an established Kubernetes platform team who want serving expressed as manifests under existing deployment controlsnot Rev
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Rev
- Human transcription at 1.99 US dollars a minute means roughly 120 dollars an hour of audio, so a long-form interview series costs more in transcription than most teams assume before they run the arithmetic.
- AI minutes are allocated per seat per month and do not roll over, so bursty workloads, which is how most media production actually behaves, waste allowance in quiet months and run out in busy ones.
- The product direction has moved towards legal and investigative use, so a newsroom or media buyer is choosing a tool whose roadmap priority sits elsewhere.
- Foreign-language subtitles are priced from 6.49 to 15.99 US dollars per minute, an order of magnitude above transcription, which makes multi-language localisation of any volume of video expensive enough to change the plan.
- Human turnaround is stated in hours rather than guaranteed contractually on the published plans, so a hard broadcast or filing deadline needs an agreement beyond the standard terms.
Seldon
- Seldon Core v2 is under the Business Source Licence rather than Apache 2.0, so production use requires a commercial agreement, and a team that evaluated it believing it was open source discovers the licence is the blocker exactly when the project is ready to ship.
- Core v1 remains Apache 2.0 but is in maintenance, so taking the free route means running software that receives no new development while the architecture it belongs to moves on without it.
- Version 2 is a different system rather than a newer release, with different custom resources, a scheduler component and a Kafka-based pipeline model, so migrating from v1 is a re-implementation of every deployment manifest rather than an upgrade.
- Kafka is a dependency for v2 pipelines, so an organisation that does not already operate it takes on a distributed log with its own storage, retention, rebalancing and failure modes purely in order to serve models.
- Everything assumes Kubernetes fluency and the failure modes are Kubernetes failure modes, custom resource version mismatches, an operator that will not reconcile, admission webhooks and resource limits terminating an inference pod mid-request, so it needs a platform engineer rather than a data scientist.
Pricing, plan by plan
Rev
Free- FreeFree
- 45 AI transcription and caption minutes per month
- Up to 5 files analysed
- No human transcription included
- Essentials$25.49/month
- 5,000 AI minutes per seat per month
- Up to 3 seats
- 10 per cent discount on human transcription, captions and subtitles
- Pro$47.99/month
- 10,000 AI minutes per seat per month
- Up to 5 seats
- 15 per cent discount on human work
- Unlimited$undefined/month
- Unlimited AI minutes
- Up to 500 files analysed at once
- Dedicated account specialist
Seldon
Free- Seldon CoreFree
- Open source
- Kubernetes deployment
- Model serving
- Seldon DeployFree
- Enterprise features
- GUI
- Monitoring
Which should you pick?
Choose Rev if
- You need human transcription.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android, API.
- You also want ai transcription.
Choose Seldon if
- You need kubernetes custom resources.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux.
- You also want inference graphs.
Questions people ask
- Is Rev or Seldon better?
- Neither clearly leads. Rev starts at Free and Seldon at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Rev or Seldon?
- Rev starts at Free and Seldon at Free.
- Does Rev or Seldon run on more platforms?
- Rev runs on Web, iOS, Android, API. Seldon runs on Linux.
- Can I use Rev for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Rev best used for?
- Rev is most often used for a law firm that needs a deposition transcript in a court-acceptable page format with a fixed turnaround and a published per-page price it can bill to a matter., a documentary or podcast producer costing a project in advance, because human transcription at a published per-minute rate makes the transcription line item a known number., a broadcaster needing compliant human captions rather than machine captions, where accuracy is a regulatory requirement and not a convenience., a team with high ai volume and occasional high-stakes files, using the subscription for the bulk and paying the discounted human rate only where accuracy matters.. Of those, a law firm that needs a deposition transcript in a court-acceptable page format with a fixed turnaround and a published per-page price it can bill to a matter. and a documentary or podcast producer costing a project in advance, because human transcription at a published per-minute rate makes the transcription line item a known number. are not what Seldon is typically brought in for.
- What can Rev do that Seldon cannot?
- Rev covers Human transcription, AI transcription, Captions and subtitles, Legal transcripts. Seldon covers Kubernetes custom resources, Inference graphs, Traffic strategies, Open Inference Protocol.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Rev: How much is human transcription?
1.99 US dollars per minute with a stated accuracy target above 99 per cent, typically returned within 12 hours. Subscribers get 10 to 15 per cent off.
Seldon: Is Seldon open source?
Partly, and this is the thing to check before you build on it. Core v1 is Apache 2.0 but in maintenance. Core v2 was moved to the Business Source Licence in 2024, which allows evaluation but not unlicensed production use. Verify the current licence of each component you intend to run, including MLServer and the Alibi libraries.
Rev: Is there a free tier?
Yes, 45 AI minutes per month and up to 5 files analysed, with no human transcription included.
Seldon: What is the difference between v1 and v2?
Architecture, not just version number. v2 introduces a scheduler, a different set of custom resources and Kafka-backed pipelines. Manifests, mental model and operations all change, so treat a move as a project.
Rev: Do unused AI minutes roll over?
No. The allowance is per seat per month and resets, which penalises irregular workloads.
Seldon: Do I need Kubernetes?
Yes. It is a Kubernetes-native system and there is no meaningful deployment without a cluster and someone competent to run it.
Rev: Can it do subtitles in other languages?
Yes, across seventeen languages, priced from 6.49 to 15.99 US dollars per minute, considerably more than transcription.
Seldon: What is MLServer?
Seldon's Python inference server implementing the Open Inference Protocol, usable inside Seldon deployments or on its own. Check its current licence alongside Core's, since the company has moved projects onto the Business Source Licence.
Rev: Is Rev still a good choice for newsrooms?
It works, but the subscription tiers are now positioned around legal and investigative workflows, so a newsroom should compare it against a tool built specifically for journalism.
Seldon: Do I have to run Kafka?
For v2 pipelines, yes. If you only need single models served, that dependency is a large amount of infrastructure for the benefit, and a simpler serving layer may be the better answer.
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