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AI Voice & Speech Comparison

AssemblyAI vs. Hume AI

At a glance

At a glance

AssemblyAI

Best for

Best for developers who need accurate transcription, speech insights or voice agents behind a pay-as-you-go API.

  • Small and mid-sized
  • Enterprise

Hume AI

Best for

Best for apps and content that need expressive, emotionally aware speech and real-time voice interactions.

  • Freelancers
  • Small and mid-sized
  • Enterprise

Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.

Full Comparison

Criterion AssemblyAI Hume AI
Starting price lower value From $0.15 / hour of audio Pay-as-you-go, no subscription tiers. Pre-recorded speech-to-text is $0.15 / hour on Universal-2 and $0.21 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro; streaming is $0.15 / hour on Universal-Streaming and $0.45 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime; the Voice Agent API is $4.50 / hour, billed per second of connected conversation. Add-ons such as speaker diarization ($0.02 / hour) and medical mode ($0.15 / hour) are charged on top. Free tier; paid from $3 / month Paid tiers are metered by monthly TTS characters and EVI minutes.
Free trial $50 in free credits, no credit card required, covering up to 185 hours of pre-recorded or 333 hours of streaming transcription Free tier with 10,000 TTS characters and 5 minutes of EVI per month
Commercial use Yes, usage-based Yes
Output Transcripts, structured speech insights and live voice agent conversations Expressive text-to-speech (Octave) and empathic speech-to-speech (EVI)
API Yes, REST APIs and SDKs Yes
Voice cloning No, the platform covers speech recognition and voice agents rather than voice creation Yes, from about 15 seconds of audio
Real-time use Yes, streaming speech-to-text and a Voice Agent API, alongside batch transcription of pre-recorded files Yes, Octave 2 streaming with latency as low as about 100ms
Languages 99 languages for pre-recorded audio on Universal-2, 18 on Universal-3.5 Pro; six on Universal-Streaming Multilingual and 18 on Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime; translation across 100+ languages Octave 2 in 11 languages
Speech-to-speech and dubbing Yes, the Voice Agent API runs speech-to-speech conversations by orchestrating speech-to-text, an LLM and text-to-speech at one all-inclusive rate Yes, the EVI empathic voice interface
Editing and controls Speaker identification, diarization, custom formatting, key phrase extraction and guardrails for PII redaction, profanity filtering and content moderation Voice design from text prompts (English), plus emotional expression from context
Consent and trust SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS and a HIPAA BAA included at no premium; EU region available at identical US pricing for GDPR Cloning requires filling out a legal agreement confirming you hold the rights or consent for the sample, and use is bound by Hume's Terms of Use and Ethical Guidelines
MCP-ready stated Yes No
Deployment Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based
Support Not stated Community forum
Onboarding Documentation and knowledge base Documentation and knowledge base
Company size Small and mid-sized, Enterprise more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise

Compare more tools

Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.

The short version

Key Differences

  • Starting price AssemblyAI From $0.15 / hour of audio Hume AI Free tier; paid from $3 / month
  • Free trial AssemblyAI $50 in free credits, no credit card required, covering up to 185 hours of pre-recorded or 333 hours of streaming transcription Hume AI Free tier with 10,000 TTS characters and 5 minutes of EVI per month
  • Company size AssemblyAI Small and mid-sized, Enterprise Hume AI Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
  • MCP-ready AssemblyAI Yes Hume AI No
  • Commercial use AssemblyAI Yes, usage-based Hume AI Yes

Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.

The trade-offs

Strengths and Limitations

AssemblyAI

Strengths

  • Pay-as-you-go with no subscription and $50 in free credits to start
  • 99 languages for pre-recorded transcription on Universal-2
  • Compliance certifications and an EU region at no price premium
  • Official MCP server exposes transcription and transcript search to AI agents

Limitations

  • A developer API, not a ready-made studio or editor
  • No voice cloning or voice creation
  • Speech Understanding add-ons are billed on top of the base rate, so cost stacks per request
  • Streaming is billed for as long as the connection stays open, not for the audio sent, and multichannel files are billed per channel
  • Universal-3.5 Pro covers 18 languages against 99 on the older Universal-2

Hume AI

Strengths

  • Expressive, emotionally aware speech
  • Voice cloning from about 15 seconds and voice design from text prompts
  • Low-latency streaming for real-time voice agents

Limitations

  • Voice design and acting instructions are English only or still in preview
  • Character and EVI-minute caps scale the monthly cost

Plans

Pricing

AssemblyAI

  • Pay-as-you-go From $0.15 / hour No subscription. Pre-recorded transcription $0.15 / hour on Universal-2 and $0.21 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro, streaming $0.15 / hour on Universal-Streaming and $0.45 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime, Voice Agent API $4.50 / hour. Add-ons are billed on top: speaker diarization $0.02 / hour, medical mode $0.15 / hour, keyterms prompting $0.05 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro and included on Universal-2. Free accounts get 5 new streams per minute, pay-as-you-go accounts 100.
  • Custom Not stated Contact sales for custom rate limits, higher concurrency and volume discounts. HIPAA BAA, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 compliance at no premium, and an EU region at identical US pricing.
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Hume AI

  • Free $0 10,000 TTS characters and 5 minutes of EVI per month.
  • Starter $3 / month 30,000 TTS characters and 40 minutes of EVI per month.
  • Creator $14 / month 140,000 TTS characters and 200 minutes of EVI per month; 50% off the first month.
  • Pro $70 / month 1M TTS characters and 1,200 minutes of EVI per month.
  • Scale $200 / month 3.3M TTS characters and 5,000 minutes of EVI per month.
  • Business $500 / month 10M TTS characters and 12,500 minutes of EVI per month.
  • Enterprise Not stated Custom pricing with unlimited usage.
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What users say

Review Scores · opens after launch

AssemblyAI

Ease of use
Not rated yet
User interface
Not rated yet
Onboarding
Not rated yet
Support and service
Not rated yet
Value for money
Not rated yet
Features
Not rated yet

No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.

Hume AI

Ease of use
Not rated yet
User interface
Not rated yet
Onboarding
Not rated yet
Support and service
Not rated yet
Value for money
Not rated yet
Features
Not rated yet

No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.

Where this comes from

Where this comes from

AssemblyAI https://www.assemblyai.com · checked against the official source on 2026-08-30

Hume AI https://www.hume.ai · no check date recorded yet

This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.