AssemblyAI vs Grain Comparison 2026
Both cover transcription & show notes. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
At a glance
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
AssemblyAI | Grain | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Not listed | From $15 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing (they differ) | Usage-based | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | None |
| Runs on (they differ) |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
AssemblyAI
Speech to text you call as an API
AssemblyAI is a speech to text API rather than an app: you send audio and get back a transcript, with speaker labels and summarisation available on the same call. Both pre-recorded and live streaming are covered, and the free tier is generous enough to build something real before paying anything. It is bought by people writing software, not by people who want a transcript this afternoon.
Our note
At fifteen cents an hour the price is not the thing to agonise over, so pick on accuracy for your audio and on whether you want speaker labels in the same call. Deepgram is the direct comparison and the two trade places depending on the recording.
Only on this side
- Covers captions & subtitles
- Works with Podcast
Grain
Notes and clips from calls, free tier included
Grain records and transcribes meetings, writes notes and lets a moment be clipped out and shared without anybody rewatching the recording. Its free plan carries unlimited meetings and unlimited notetaker seats, capped at forty-five minutes each and thirty days of history, which is a real working tier rather than a demo. Paying removes both limits and adds custom prompts. The conversational intelligence in the higher tiers is aimed at sales teams and does nothing for a solo creator.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.