SpeechWeave vs OpenAI: drop the 25 MB limit and the markup

A drop-in replacement for OpenAI's transcription endpoint. Keep the official OpenAI SDK, retire your audio-splitting scripts, and pay wholesale rates.

Rates and limits verified October 2026.

	SpeechWeave	OpenAI	SpeechWeave advantage
Price per hour	Core standard: $0.09/hr Max standard: $0.24/hr Core deferred: $0.045/hr Max deferred: $0.12/hr	whisper-1: $0.36/hr gpt-4o-transcribe: about $0.36/hr gpt-4o-mini-transcribe: about $0.18/hr	Up to 75% lower than whisper-1, and deferred mode cuts it further
Max file size	512 MB per job, higher limits available on request	25 MB per file	20x larger files per job
Chunking large recordings	No splitting needed. Standard cap is 512 MB per job with higher limits on request.	Yes for longer recordings. OpenAI’s guide recommends splitting audio into chunks of 25 MB or less.	No splitting scripts to maintain
Switching effort	Change the base URL and API key	Native SDK	Keep your existing OpenAI code

Switch with one line

Keep the official OpenAI SDK. Change the base URL and API key, and the rest of your transcription code stays as is.

JavaScript

import fs from "node:fs";
import OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
	apiKey: process.env.SPEECHWEAVE_API_KEY,
	baseURL: "https://api.speechweave.com/v1", // the only change
});

const transcription = await client.audio.transcriptions.create({
	file: fs.createReadStream("long_meeting.mp3"),
	model: "core",
});

console.log(transcription.text);

Python

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
	base_url="https://api.speechweave.com/v1",  # the only change
	api_key="your_speechweave_api_key",
)

with open("long_meeting.mp3", "rb") as audio_file:
	transcript = client.audio.transcriptions.create(
		model="core",
		file=audio_file,
	)

print(transcript.text)

cURL

curl https://api.speechweave.com/v1/audio/transcriptions \
	-H "Authorization: Bearer $SPEECHWEAVE_API_KEY" \
	-F file=@long_meeting.mp3 \
	-F model=core

The drop-in route handles files up to your proxy limit (GET /v1/limits shows it). For full per-job uploads, use the SpeechWeave SDK, which has the same call shape.

When SpeechWeave is the right choice

Recorded audio at volume: Podcasts, calls, meetings, and interviews at Core $0.09/hr, deferred $0.045/hr, against $0.36/hr for whisper-1.
Large files, no splitting: Send full recordings up to 512 MB as one job through the SpeechWeave SDK. No splitter service, no words clipped at chunk boundaries.
Work that can wait: Deferred service mode runs background jobs at half the standard rate.
Audio privacy: Audio is deleted after every job and never used to train models.

SpeechWeave is purpose-built for recorded audio: podcasts, calls, meetings, and archives, where unit cost and file size decide your margins.