Universal-2 vs Scribe v2
AssemblyAI's Universal-2 and ElevenLabs's Scribe v2 both target speech generation, but they price and behave differently. Here is the side-by-side.
Pricing checked against provider documentation on . How we verify
The short answer
Universal-2 is the cheaper option — roughly 1.5x less on a blended workload, and it suits cheapest broad-language transcription. Scribe v2 justifies its premium when you need widest language coverage with diarization.
AssemblyAI • Universal
$0.00 / $
/ audio min (input / output)
Batch speech-to-text across 99 languages at the lowest per-minute rate among the established managed providers. Speech-understanding features — summarisation, topic detection, PII redaction — are billed on top, so compare the bundle rather than the base rate if you need them.
ElevenLabs • Scribe
$0.00 / $
/ audio min (input / output)
Transcription across 99 languages with speaker diarization and word-level timestamps, billed at $0.22 per audio hour. Worth knowing that ElevenLabs credits are shared across its products, so heavy text-to-speech use can eat into the same allowance your transcription draws from.
Input price
Scribe v2 is 48% more expensive than Universal-2 on input tokens.
Specification comparison
| Attribute | Universal-2 | Scribe v2 |
|---|---|---|
| Input (/ audio min) | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Output (/ audio min) | — | — |
| Cached input | — | — |
| Context window | — | — |
| Max output | — | — |
| Native reasoning | No | No |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | — |
| Relative latency | medium | medium |
| Open weights | No | No |
| API model ID | universal-2 | scribe-v2 |
| Status | stable | stable |
Universal-2: Batch transcription. Speech-understanding add-ons are billed separately.
Scribe v2: Published as $0.22 per audio hour. Entity detection adds $0.07/hour and keyterm prompting $0.05/hour. A realtime variant runs $0.39/hour (~$0.0065/min) at roughly 150 ms latency.
Choose Universal-2 if…
- Bulk media transcription
- Multilingual archives
- Meeting and call records
- Podcast and subtitle pipelines
Choose Scribe v2 if…
- Multilingual transcription with speakers
- Subtitling with word timings
- Interview and research archives
- Pipelines already using ElevenLabs voices
Frequently asked
Is Universal-2 or Scribe v2 cheaper?
Universal-2 is cheaper. On a blended 3:1 input-to-output workload it costs about 1.5x less than Scribe v2.
Which has the larger context window, Universal-2 or Scribe v2?
Both accept up to — tokens, so context is not a differentiator here.
Should I use Universal-2 or Scribe v2?
Pick Universal-2 for cheapest broad-language transcription. Pick Scribe v2 for widest language coverage with diarization. If cost dominates the decision, Universal-2 wins; if you need the capability ceiling, benchmark both on your own evals before committing.