Happy Scribe vs tl;dv Comparison 2026
Both cover transcription & show notes. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Transcripts and subtitles in 60-plus languages
Recordings and notes from every call, free to start
At a glance
- Happy Scribe starts cheaper, at $8.50.
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Happy Scribe | tl;dv | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $8.50 | From $18 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | None | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Yes |
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.
Happy Scribe
Transcripts and subtitles in 60-plus languages
Happy Scribe does machine transcription and subtitles, and will sell you a human pass over the top when the machine is not good enough. The export list is long, including the subtitle formats an editor actually needs. Minutes are metered per year rather than per month, which suits lumpy production.
Only on this side
- Covers captions & subtitles
- Works with YouTube
- Works with Podcast
tl;dv
Recordings and notes from every call, free to start
tl;dv records Zoom, Meet and Teams calls, transcribes them in more than thirty languages and writes the notes, with the recording and the transcription uncapped even on the free plan. What the free plan meters is the AI on top: ten meetings of notes and ten questions. Paying removes that ceiling and adds templates, action items and a search across every transcript. This is aimed at calls rather than at published audio, so a podcaster wants a transcription service instead.
Our note
Stay on free until the ten AI-note meetings run out, because the capture is identical and most people discover they only want notes on a fraction of their calls. Compare against Grain on the free tiers rather than the paid ones: the two draw the free line in different places and which suits you depends on whether your calls are long or many.
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.