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Deepgram Pricing Explained (2026): Speech-to-Text, Voice Agent API and What a Month Really Costs

Deepgram bills by the second of audio, with no minimums on Pay As You Go and $200 of free credit to start. Speech-to-text, text-to-speech and its all-in-one Voice Agent API are each priced separately. Every figure below is from deepgram.com/pricing (rate tables, plan comparison and FAQ), read October 21, 2026.

Deepgram's streaming prices are on promotion right now. Budget on the regular rate, add up the add-ons you'll switch on, and the bill won't surprise you when the promo ends.

Deepgram's Nova-3 streaming is $0.0048 a minute right now, at a limited-time promotional rate. Here's every Deepgram price line (speech-to-text, add-ons, text-to-speech and the Voice Agent API), what 1,000 to 100,000 minutes a month cost, and the free credit, Growth plan and concurrency rules that change the bill.

What you pay for on every Deepgram minute

  • Streaming speech-to-text

    $0.0048–$0.0078/min

    Pay As You Go: Nova-3 Monolingual $0.0048 (regular $0.0077), Nova-3 Multilingual $0.0058 (regular $0.0092), Flux English $0.0065 (regular $0.0077) and Flux Multilingual $0.0078. Deepgram marks the streaming rates as limited-time promotional prices. Flux is its model for voice agents, with built-in turn detection.

  • Add-ons

    +$0.0013–$0.0020/min each

    Only if you switch them on: redaction $0.0020, keyterm prompting $0.0013, entity detection $0.0017 and speaker diarization $0.0020 a minute on streaming (diarization is included on pre-recorded audio). Smart formatting is included.

  • Phone line

    Not from Deepgram

    Deepgram's pricing page lists no telephony. The call itself is billed by your carrier or voice platform.

  • Total per minute

    about 0.5¢ to 0.8¢

    Streaming transcription only, Pay As You Go, at today's promotional rates. Add-ons, text-to-speech and the Voice Agent API are separate.

What a month costs on Deepgram’s own numbers

  • 1,000 min/month

    Nova-3 streaming ($0.0048)
    $4.80
    Flux English ($0.0065)
    $6.50
    Voice Agent Standard ($0.075)
    $75.00
    Voice Agent Advanced ($0.163)
    $163.00

  • 5,000 min/month

    Nova-3 streaming ($0.0048)
    $24.00
    Flux English ($0.0065)
    $32.50
    Voice Agent Standard ($0.075)
    $375.00
    Voice Agent Advanced ($0.163)
    $815.00

  • 10,000 min/month

    Nova-3 streaming ($0.0048)
    $48.00
    Flux English ($0.0065)
    $65.00
    Voice Agent Standard ($0.075)
    $750.00
    Voice Agent Advanced ($0.163)
    $1,630.00

  • 25,000 min/month

    Nova-3 streaming ($0.0048)
    $120.00
    Flux English ($0.0065)
    $162.50
    Voice Agent Standard ($0.075)
    $1,875.00
    Voice Agent Advanced ($0.163)
    $4,075.00

  • 50,000 min/month

    Nova-3 streaming ($0.0048)
    $240.00
    Flux English ($0.0065)
    $325.00
    Voice Agent Standard ($0.075)
    $3,750.00
    Voice Agent Advanced ($0.163)
    $8,150.00

  • 100,000 min/month

    Nova-3 streaming ($0.0048)
    $480.00
    Flux English ($0.0065)
    $650.00
    Voice Agent Standard ($0.075)
    $7,500.00
    Voice Agent Advanced ($0.163)
    $16,300.00

Pay As You Go rates times minutes, with no platform fee. The first two columns are transcription only, at today's promotional rates (at the regular $0.0077, both cost $7.70 per 1,000 minutes). The Voice Agent API columns include speech-to-text, the LLM and text-to-speech, billed on websocket connection time. Add-ons and your phone line come on top, and new accounts spend the $200 free credit first. Want your own volume and carrier? Try the cost calculator.

Packages and add-ons

  • Pay As You Go

    $200 free credit

    No minimums, no expiration and no card required to start. Up to 150 streaming (WSS) and 50 REST speech-to-text connections, 5 for Deepgram Whisper Cloud, 45 for text-to-speech, 45 for the Voice Agent API and 10 for Audio Intelligence. Community and Discord support. Auto-load is on by default: it reloads $100 when your credit falls to $10, and you can turn it off.

  • Growth

    $4K+/year

    Pre-paid credits for the year, redeemed against usage, at up to 20% off. Up to 225 streaming connections and 60 for text-to-speech and the Voice Agent API. Overages are billed at your Growth rate plus 10%, every Monday, with a card on file; buying a new Growth plan early (“early renew”) avoids the premium.

  • Enterprise

    Contact sales

    Custom concurrency, volume discounts, custom model training and dedicated account management. Self-hosted containers for your own VPC or on-premise hardware (NVIDIA GPUs), and a BAA for customers handling health data.

  • Pre-recorded transcription

    From $0.0043/min

    Nova-3 Monolingual $0.0043 ($0.0036 on Growth), Nova-3 Multilingual $0.0052 ($0.0043), Whisper Large $0.0048. Speaker diarization is included. Older models stay available for existing deployments: Nova-2 streaming $0.35/hr, Enhanced $0.99/hr, Base $0.87/hr.

  • Text-to-speech

    From $0.0150/1K characters

    Billed per 1,000 characters of input text: Flux TTS $0.0450, Aura-2 $0.030, Aura-1 $0.0150 ($0.0405, $0.027 and $0.0135 on Growth). Until December 31, 2026, every $1 spent on Flux TTS earns $1 in credits, up to $500, on Pay As You Go and Growth.

  • Voice Agent API

    $0.050–$0.163/min

    Speech-to-text, LLM and text-to-speech in one, billed on websocket connection time. Pay As You Go: Standard $0.075, Standard with your own TTS $0.065, Custom with your own LLM $0.059, your own LLM and TTS $0.050, Advanced $0.163, Advanced with your own TTS $0.122. Growth: $0.068, $0.051, $0.041, $0.146 and $0.110 (no Growth rate listed for own LLM only).

  • Audio Intelligence

    Per 1K tokens

    Summarization $0.0003 per 1,000 input tokens and $0.0006 per 1,000 output tokens ($0.00024 and $0.00048 on Growth), on top of the transcription. Topic detection, sentiment analysis and intent recognition are listed alongside.

How it compares on published pricing

  • Deepgram logoDeepgram
    Starting price
    Nova-3 streaming $0.0048/min ($0.29/hr); $200 free credit
    Best for
    Streaming speech-to-text for voice agents
  • AssemblyAI logoAssemblyAI
    Starting price
    Streaming from $0.15/hr; $50 free credits
    Best for
    Low-cost streaming and batch transcription
  • Speechmatics logoSpeechmatics
    Starting price
    From $0.24/hr pay as you go (as low as ~$0.12/hr with discounts)
    Best for
    Multilingual transcription with language switching
  • Soniox logoSoniox
    Starting price
    ~$0.10/hr async; ~$0.12/hr real-time
    Best for
    Very low-cost speech-to-text
  • Gladia logoGladia
    Starting price
    Async from €0.16/hr; real-time €0.68/hr
    Best for
    Real-time multilingual transcription

Pricing explained, line by line:AssemblyAI pricing →

STT models compared

See all voice models · Latency and prices as each vendor publishes them.

What to check before you choose

  • Budget on the regular price. Deepgram labels its streaming rates limited-time promotional prices: Nova-3 Monolingual is $0.0048 now against $0.0077 regular, Multilingual $0.0058 against $0.0092, and Flux English $0.0065 against $0.0077. At 10,000 minutes a month, Nova-3 Monolingual is $48 today and $77 at the regular rate.
  • Nova-3 or Flux? Flux is built for voice agents, with turn detection built in, and costs $0.0017 a minute more than Nova-3 at today's prices ($17 per 10,000 minutes). At regular prices the English versions are the same $0.0077.
  • Add-ons can double the bill. On streaming, redaction and speaker diarization add $0.0020 a minute each, so turning on both adds $0.0040 to a $0.0048 Nova-3 minute. Diarization is included on pre-recorded audio.
  • The Voice Agent API is the bundled option. Standard at $0.075 a minute covers listening, the LLM and speaking, and bringing your own LLM or voice lowers the rate (down to $0.050 with both). It's billed on websocket connection time, and the phone line isn't included. ElevenLabs Agents is $0.08 a minute plus the LLM, and Vapi's calculator puts its default stack at about 8.2 to 12.9¢ before carrier fees.
  • Check concurrency before launch. Pay As You Go allows up to 150 streaming connections and 45 for the Voice Agent API; Growth lifts that to 225 and 60. Deepgram's FAQ says requests over your limit may be queued or rejected.
  • Compare per hour against other speech APIs. Nova-3 streaming is $0.29 an hour today. On their own pricing pages, re-checked today, AssemblyAI streaming starts at $0.15 an hour, Soniox real-time is about $0.12, Speechmatics starts at $0.24 an hour (files) and $0.30 real-time, and Gladia real-time is €0.68 an hour. For trying them out, Deepgram's $200 free credit compares with $50 at AssemblyAI, $100 at Speechmatics and €50 at Gladia.

Questions people ask

How much does Deepgram cost per minute?

Speech-to-text starts at $0.0048 a minute ($0.29 an hour) for Nova-3 streaming on Pay As You Go, a limited-time promotional rate (regular $0.0077). Flux, Deepgram's voice agent model with built-in turn detection, is $0.0065 a minute in English. The Voice Agent API, which bundles speech-to-text, the LLM and text-to-speech, starts at $0.075 a minute on its Standard tier. Billing is per second, and new accounts get $200 in free credit.

Is Deepgram free to start?

Yes. Every new account gets $200 in free credit with no card required, and it doesn't expire. Deepgram says that's about 43,000 minutes of Nova transcription. At the Voice Agent API's Standard rate of $0.075 a minute, it covers about 2,667 minutes. Promotional and free credits can't be transferred between accounts.

How much does Deepgram's Voice Agent API cost?

On Pay As You Go: Standard $0.075 a minute, Standard with your own text-to-speech $0.065, Custom with your own LLM $0.059, your own LLM and text-to-speech $0.050, Advanced $0.163 and Advanced with your own text-to-speech $0.122. It's billed on websocket connection time, and Growth rates are lower (Standard $0.068).

What's the difference between Pay As You Go and Growth?

Pay As You Go has no commitment and bills on usage. Growth starts at $4,000 a year in pre-paid credits and gives up to 20% off and more concurrency (225 streaming connections against 150). Going over your Growth credits costs your Growth rate plus 10%, billed weekly, unless you renew early.

How is Deepgram text-to-speech priced?

Per 1,000 characters of input text: Aura-1 $0.0150, Aura-2 $0.030 and Flux TTS $0.0450 on Pay As You Go, slightly less on Growth. Until December 31, 2026, Deepgram adds $1 in credits for every $1 spent on Flux TTS, up to $500.

Does Deepgram round up or charge for silence?

Deepgram says it uses true per-second billing, so a 14-second file is billed as 14 seconds. Multichannel audio is billed per channel: a 10-minute stereo file counts as 20 minutes.

Is Deepgram HIPAA compliant?

Deepgram says it is SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified and HIPAA compliant, and it signs Business Associate Agreements for Enterprise customers. It also offers an EU endpoint (api.eu.deepgram.com) and self-hosted deployment on Enterprise.

Ready to look closer? See Deepgram’s full listing and price history → Or weigh the options in Deepgram Alternatives for Speech-to-Text Compared.

Not sure which fits? Answer a few quick questions in the finder →

Deepgram vs AssemblyAI →Deepgram vs Speechmatics →Deepgram vs ElevenLabs →

Prices from vendors' official pricing pages, checked October 21, 2026. Not sponsored; order isn't a ranking.