Sonix

Automated transcription and translation with per-hour pricing published up front

As of 31 August 2026, Sonix starts at $10/month. A self-service transcription tool that publishes both subscription and pay-as-you-go rates, including the overage rate, which almost nobody in this market does. Softwr lists it under Translation. Sonix is made by Sonix, Inc., available on Web, API.

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Overview

What Sonix does

Sonix transcribes audio and video automatically, then offers a browser-based editor where the transcript, the media and the speaker labels stay synchronised so corrections are quick. It supports transcription in over fifty languages and translation of the resulting transcript into a similar number, and exports to subtitle formats, Word, PDF and editing timelines. There is no human correction service: the human is you, in the editor. The distinguishing thing is pricing transparency rather than technology. Sonix publishes a pay-as-you-go rate of $10 an hour with no subscription, three subscription tiers from $25 to $80 a month, and the crucial number that competitors hide, which is that additional hours beyond the monthly allowance cost the same $10 an hour on every tier. That makes total cost calculable in advance, and it makes the subscription tiers easy to evaluate: the Core plan at $25 for five hours is only worth buying over pay-as-you-go for the storage and features, because the hours alone cost $50. Buyers are journalists, researchers, podcasters, qualitative research teams and small media operations who need accurate-enough transcripts they will edit themselves, in more languages than a domestic-market tool covers. It is not the right product for anyone with a contractual accuracy obligation, because there is no service level and no human correction tier at consumer prices. The 99 percent accuracy figure the vendor cites is a best-case measurement on clean single-speaker audio; overlapping speech, accents and background noise degrade it in the ordinary way.

What people use it for

A journalist transcribing interviews in several languages who needs the transcript searchable and quotable within minutes rather than accurate to a contract
A qualitative research team coding focus group transcripts, where speaker separation and an editable transcript matter more than a certified accuracy figure
A podcast producer generating subtitle files and show notes from each episode without adding a human transcription supplier
A small documentary team subtitling foreign-language footage where transcription and translation in one tool avoids a second vendor

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Sonix.

Monthly hour allowances are small relative to the subscription price: the $25 Core plan includes five hours, which at the published $10 overage rate means the subscription is only worth buying for storage and features rather than for the hours.
Unused hours do not accumulate into a meaningful reserve, so an irregular workload of a heavy month followed by a quiet one pays overage in the first and wastes allowance in the second.
There is no human correction tier at self-service prices, so anyone with an accessibility or legal accuracy obligation has to add a separate supplier or a member of staff to the workflow.
The cited 99 percent accuracy is a best-case figure on clean single-speaker audio, and overlapping speakers, strong accents, technical vocabulary and room noise degrade it enough that editing time, not transcription cost, becomes the real expense.
Storage is capped per plan at 25GB to 100GB, and video files consume it fast, so long-running teams end up deleting source media or upgrading a tier for storage they do not otherwise need.

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Sonix

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

Sonixvs
Verbit
Verbit: If you need a contracted accuracy level with professional human correction and live captioning
Sonixvs
Descript
Descript: If the transcript exists to drive video and podcast editing rather than as the deliverable
Sonixvs
Otter.ai
Otter.ai: Better suited to live meeting capture and notes than to file-based media transcription in many languages

Pricing

What Sonix costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Pay As You Go

$10 /mo

$10 per hour transcribed
No subscription
30 minutes free to trial without a card

Core

$25 /mo

5 hours a month of transcription and translation
25GB storage
$275 a year if billed annually
Extra hours at $10

Advanced

$50 /mo

20 hours a month
50GB storage
$550 a year if billed annually
Extra hours at $10

Pro

$80 /mo

40 hours a month
100GB storage
$880 a year if billed annually
Extra hours at $10

Enterprise

On request

SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR compliance handling
Dedicated support with response targets
Quoted

Capabilities

Features

Automated transcription
Speech-to-text in over fifty languages with speaker separation and timestamps
Translation
Transcript translation into over fifty languages from the same interface
Synchronised editor
Browser editor where text, audio and speaker labels stay in sync while you correct
Subtitle export
SRT, VTT and burned-in subtitle output plus Word, PDF and editing timeline formats
Custom dictionary
Names, jargon and acronyms added ahead of transcription to reduce correction work
Search across media
Full-text search over a library of transcribed files
Pay-as-you-go option
$10 per hour with no subscription for occasional use
Enterprise compliance
SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR handling available on the enterprise tier

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

What does Sonix cost per hour?

$10 an hour on pay-as-you-go, and $10 an hour for any usage beyond the monthly allowance on every subscription tier. That overage rate is published, which is unusual in this market.

Is there human transcription?

No. Sonix is automated transcription plus an editor for you to correct. If you need a contracted accuracy level, this is the wrong category of product.

How accurate is it really?

The 99 percent claim assumes clean, single-speaker, standard-accent audio. Multi-speaker recordings with background noise land noticeably lower, and the cost shows up as your editing time.

How many languages?

Transcription in over fifty languages and translation into a similar number, which is wider than most self-service competitors.

Keep looking

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Sonix, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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