Soniox

Soniox is a speech AI platform that gives developers real-time transcription, live translation and text-to-speech in more than 60 languages through one API. Its main difference is that a single model covers every language, so a caller who drifts from English into Spanish and back stays in one transcript. It also prices transcription at around ten cents per hour, which is low for a commercial API.

What is Soniox used for?

Soniox is mostly used to add listening and speaking to software products. Words stream back as they are spoken instead of after each sentence, which matters for live interfaces.

• Live captions and transcripts for multilingual meetings, classes and calls
• Real-time two-way translation, for example between a support agent and a customer
• Transcription for voice agents, followed by a reply from its own text-to-speech model
• Cloning a voice from a short, clean sample and using it in every supported language
• Bulk transcription of recorded audio with speaker separation
• Personal note taking and voice typing through the Soniox apps

Who Soniox is best for

Soniox suits developers building products for international audiences, such as translation tools, global contact centers, telehealth platforms and education apps. Teams in India can use regional deployment for data residency. If you only work in English and want the widest set of third-party integrations, a larger vendor may be more convenient.

Soniox pricing

As of October 2026, Soniox bills API usage by tokens, which it translates to approximate hourly costs. Async file transcription works out to about $0.10 per hour and real-time streaming to about $0.12 per hour, with speaker diarization, language identification and smart formatting included. Speech translation is included in the real-time API at no extra charge, according to the pricing FAQ. Text-to-speech costs about $0.70 per hour of generated speech. The pricing page does not mention a free tier or signup credit, and the consumer apps are priced separately. Enterprise discounts and committed-use contracts are available through sales.

Limitations to keep in mind

• No free tier is advertised, so testing at scale means paying from the start
• Token-based billing is precise but harder to budget than a flat per-minute rate
• The ecosystem of prebuilt integrations is smaller than that of the largest vendors
• Voice cloning quality depends on supplying a clean reference clip

Soniox vs alternatives

Deepgram is the more established choice for English-heavy voice agents and has a wide partner network. AssemblyAI is strong on post-call analysis such as summaries and topic detection. ElevenLabs leads on expressive voices and offers its own transcription, but costs more per hour of audio. Cartesia is focused on fast text-to-speech for agents. Choose Soniox when multilingual or mixed-language accuracy and live translation are the core of your product and you want low transcription costs.

Tips for getting started with Soniox

Start with the real-time API and a recording that switches languages, since that is where the unified model shows its value. Test translation in two-way mode if you are building anything conversational. If you plan to clone a voice, record the reference in a quiet room, and make sure you have the speaker's consent before uploading.

Soniox FAQ

Is Soniox free?

Soniox does not advertise a free tier on its pricing page. API usage is billed by tokens, which works out to about $0.10 per hour for async transcription.

How many languages does Soniox support?

Soniox supports more than 60 languages for speech-to-text and text-to-speech, and its translation feature covers 3,600 language pairs.

Does Soniox offer real-time translation?

Yes. Translation is built into the real-time speech-to-text API, and the pricing FAQ says it is included at no extra cost.

What is the best alternative to Soniox?

Deepgram and AssemblyAI are the closest speech-to-text alternatives, while ElevenLabs is the usual choice if expressive voice output matters most.