Cleanvoice vs Descript Comparison 2026
Cleanvoice takes a finished recording and strips the ums, mouth sounds and dead air out automatically, billed by the hour at $11 a month for ten hours with no free tier. Descript turns a recording into a document you edit like text, removes filler words the same way, and adds studio sound and short-form exports, with a free tier and a $19-a-month Hobbyist plan above it. One is a cleanup pass you run before publishing; the other is where the whole edit happens.
Filler words and mouth sounds removed
Edit video and podcasts by editing the transcript
At a glance
- Cleanvoice starts cheaper, at $11.
- Only Descript has a free tier.
Side by side
Cleanvoice | Descript | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $11 | From $19 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free trial, then paid | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | None |
| API |
Cleanvoice
Filler words and mouth sounds removed
Cleanvoice takes a finished recording and strips out the parts nobody wants to hear: filler words, mouth sounds, breaths and dead air. It handles video podcasts as well as audio and hands back a timeline export you can drop into whatever you edit in. Billing counts hours of audio processed rather than seats, so an occasional show is cheap to run. Credits bought outright stay valid for two years.
Our note
Buying by the hour rather than by the seat is the right shape for a fortnightly show, and it is why this beats a general editor's subscription for that use. Descript is the better buy if you want to edit the words as well as clean them.
Descript
Edit video and podcasts by editing the transcript
Descript turns a recording into a document and lets you cut it like text, which is much faster than a timeline for anything talking-head or interview based. Filler word removal and studio sound are the features people stay for. It struggles with long multi-camera projects.
Our note
Why people weigh these two
- Descript instead of Cleanvoice
- Descript reaches the same clean episode by a different route, editing podcast audio by editing the transcript; it has a free tier and paid plans from $19.
- Cleanvoice instead of Descript
- Cleanvoice only strips filler words and mouth sounds from a recording, from $11 with a trial and no free tier, cheaper when transcript editing itself is not the job.
Which one should you pick
Buy Cleanvoice if a show is already well recorded and just needs the ums, breaths and dead air removed before it goes out, and you would rather pay by the hour of audio than by the seat. There is no free tier, only a no-card trial, and the result exports as a timeline for whatever editor you already use.
Buy Descript if you want to cut the actual words, not just clean the sound around them: delete a sentence in the transcript and it leaves the video too. The free tier is enough to try a real episode before committing to the $19-a-month Hobbyist plan, and Overdub and short-form exports are features Cleanvoice does not attempt at all.
Common questions
- Does Descript also remove filler words like Cleanvoice does?
- Yes, Descript strips every um and uh across a project in one pass, the same job Cleanvoice is built entirely around. The difference is that Descript also lets you cut the words themselves by editing a transcript, which Cleanvoice does not do.
- Which one has a free plan?
- Descript does, with limited transcription hours and watermarked exports. Cleanvoice has no free tier, only a trial that states no card is required without naming a length.
- How is Cleanvoice priced compared to Descript?
- Cleanvoice charges by the hour of audio processed: $11 a month covers ten hours. Descript charges by seat regardless of hours: $19 a month for Hobbyist. A show recording ten hours a month costs about the same on either, but Cleanvoice gets cheaper in a quiet month and Descript does not.
- Can Cleanvoice edit video, not just audio?
- Yes, the same cleanup passes run on video podcasts as well as audio. Descript edits video too, but through the transcript-based timeline rather than an automated cleanup pass.
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.