TurboScribe Transcription: Free Limits, MP4 Video, and What to Do with Long Audio

TurboScribe is a web transcription tool built on OpenAI's Whisper speech recognition models. It converts audio and video to text in 98+ spoken languages, translates transcripts into 134+ languages, and includes a "Transcribe to English" upload toggle. Every user picks among three Whisper models: Cheetah (74M-parameter base model for speed), Dolphin (244M-parameter small model for balanced speed and context), and Whale (the default 1.55B-parameter large-v2 model for highest accuracy on names and jargon).

Is TurboScribe safe? Founded by Leif Foged in the United States, TurboScribe states in its Security and Privacy FAQ that uploads use HTTPS/SSL, sit encrypted at rest with AES-256 on servers it controls without third-party transcription APIs, aren't used to train AI models, and stay in your account until you delete them — whereas on Audo AI, free preview results are deleted after 1 hour, and signed-in files after 24 hours. Negative Trustpilot reviews mostly cite subscription renewals and slow support replies rather than security.

On the free plan, three limits appear right away: mandatory account sign-up, uploading one file at a time into the Lower Priority queue ("Wait longer before your files are transcribed") with no API, and a hard 30-minute ceiling per file.

TurboScribe draws a hard line at 30 minutes on Free, while Audo AI bills by the minute with no subscription and takes recordings up to 10 hours:

• TurboScribe Free ($0, sign-up required)

  3 transcripts a day, up to 30 minutes per file, 1 file at a time in the Lower Priority queue, across Cheetah, Dolphin, and Whale modes.

• TurboScribe Unlimited ($20/month or $120/year)

  $20/mo monthly or $10/mo billed $120 yearly for one person (sharing logins is prohibited). Lifts the 3-a-day and 30-minute caps to 10-hour, 5-GB files, adds 50-file batch uploads in the Highest Priority queue, and adds bulk exports. Free transcripts already download as standard text and subtitle files.

• Audo AI Transcribe (pay-as-you-go, no subscription)

  Audo AI transcribes the first 2 minutes of any file free, 3 times a day, with no sign-up. Signed in, Audo AI takes audio and video up to 10 hours and 10 GB with no daily cap, auto-detects 60 languages, and labels up to 8 speakers; recent hour-long recordings came back in under 2 minutes. Whole files cost $1.80/hr ($0.03/min) at the list rate, $1.44/hr on the $10 pack, or $1.13/hr on the $100 pack, from non-expiring credits, plus a Free API, REST API, and MCP server.

A 45-minute meeting, 60-minute interview, or two-hour seminar fails on TurboScribe Free. You can transcribe the full file in one pass on Audo AI, slice it into 30-minute parts, or buy Unlimited:

• Transcribe the full 1- to 10-hour recording in one go with Audo AI

  Drop the complete recording into Audo AI's Transcribe audio (or Interview transcription and Podcast transcription). A 60-minute interview costs $1.80 ($1.13 on the $100 pack), and a 2-hour seminar costs $3.60 ($2.25 on the $100 pack). Speaker 1 through Speaker 8 stay consistent from start to finish, SRT/VTT timestamps stay continuous, and clicking any word plays that exact second.

• Split the file into 30-minute parts with Cut audio

  Divide a 90-minute recording into three 30-minute segments with Audo AI's Cut audio (free up to 1 hour, 10 times a day, no sign-up) and upload them one by one on TurboScribe Free. Watch for two snags: speaker numbering resets on each chunk — so Speaker 1 and Speaker 2 flip whenever speaking order changes — and every SRT restarts at 00:00:00.

• Pay $20/month for TurboScribe Unlimited

  Unlocks 10-hour, 5-GB files and 50-file batches. The $20 monthly plan pays off above about 11.1 hours a month against Audo AI's $1.80/hr list rate, and the $10/mo annual plan above about 5.6 hours; a single 90-minute interview still costs a full $20 month unless you cancel before renewal.

Searches for "turboscribe mp4" split between TurboScribe's separate YouTube-to-MP4 downloader and converting local MP4 videos to text. Audo AI doesn't extract audio from YouTube or streaming platform pages: download the MP4 or M4A file and upload it. Audo AI takes MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, and AVI files up to 10 GB, double TurboScribe Unlimited's 5 GB cap, and developers and agents can also pass a direct HTTPS link to a media file through the API or MCP server.

• 10 GB MP4 uploads, SRT files, and burned-in subtitles

  Every video run on Audo AI returns clean SRT captions (also available via SRT file generator), speaker-tagged VTT, speaker-turn TXT, and word JSON — or open Auto captions to burn styled subtitles straight onto the MP4.

• Why TurboScribe calls Restore Audio "a last resort"

  Under "More Settings", TurboScribe's Restore Audio toggle adds 2 to 3 minutes per hour and warns: "Recommended only as a last resort for files with poor audio." Generative speech restoration before transcription can invent words when voices overlap over café clatter or HVAC hum.

• Clean up noise or quiet voices first on Audo AI, without regenerating speech

  Before Transcribe audio, run Audo AI's non-generative Remove noise ($3.00/hr), which filters hum and clatter and keeps every consonant true to the recording, and Balance audio ($1.20/hr) to lift a quiet guest. Keep Audio enhancer, which regenerates speech, for muffled or echoey voices that are otherwise unintelligible.

On a two-hour multi-speaker interview, advertised monthly minute pools on rival tools often hide tighter per-file upload walls:

• Audo AI ($3.60 for a 2-hour interview, or $2.25 on the $100 pack)

  Audo AI is pay-once from $5 with no subscription, takes 10-hour / 10-GB files signed in with up to 8 speakers in 60 languages (recent hour-long recordings came back in under 2 minutes), and adds REST API and MCP server automation.

• Notta AI and Otter.ai (90-minute Pro upload walls)

  Notta Free shows only the first 3 minutes per file with exports locked, and Notta Pro ($13.49–$13.99/mo monthly) cuts off files at 90 minutes. Otter Basic allows just 3 lifetime file imports (30 minutes max) in 6 languages, and Otter Pro ($16.99/mo monthly) also stops at 90 minutes.

• Happy Scribe, Sonix, and Rev ($10/hr to $25+/mo)

  Happy Scribe gives one 10-minute trial, then bills $17/mo Basic (120 minutes) plus $12.00/hr overage. Sonix charges $10.00/hr pay-as-you-go ($20.00 for two hours — 5.5× Audo AI's $3.60), and Rev AI Essentials ($25.49/mo) includes just 45 English AI minutes.

Pay-as-you-go wins for uneven project schedules; flat subscriptions or broadcast editors win in three cases:

• TurboScribe Unlimited ($20/month or $120/year)

  When one person transcribes more than about 11.1 hours every month on the $20 monthly plan ($20 ÷ Audo AI's $1.80/hr list rate; 13.9 hours at $1.44/hr on the $10 pack, 17.8 hours at $1.13/hr on the $100 pack), or more than about 5.6 to 8.9 hours a month on the $10/mo annual plan; or needs languages among TurboScribe's 98+ outside Audo AI's 60, pastes YouTube URLs, uploads 50 files at once, or needs direct DOCX and PDF exports.

• Sonix or Happy Scribe Pro

  When a broadcast or post-production team needs shared browser commenting plus Avid Media Composer, Premiere Pro XML, or Final Cut Pro FCPXML timeline exports.

• TurboScribe Free ($0)

  When every recording is under 30 minutes, you upload at most 3 a day one at a time, and Lower Priority waits don't slow you down.