Whisper 1 API
OpenAI
Speech to textTranscribes a recording into words
OpenAI’s hosted transcription endpoint. OpenAI does not say which version of Whisper it runs, so the accuracy measured for Whisper Large v3 is not a figure you can assume applies here — we hold no score of our own for it.
- Type
- Closed
- Price
- $0.006
List price · per minute of audio · OpenAI · machine-readable source ↗
Our take
Written Sep 1, 2026Whisper 1 API is OpenAI's hosted-only speech-to-text service, available through two cloud providers at identical per-minute rates. It offers predictable pricing for teams already on Azure or OpenAI infrastructure, though no accuracy or speed data is available to judge its performance.
Pick this for budget cloud transcription when you are already embedded in OpenAI or Azure infrastructure and want identical pricing across both. Skip it if you need verified accuracy figures, speed benchmarks, or language coverage beyond English — none of these are measured in our data.
The case for it
- Low and predictable per-minute pricing across both major providers, with no premium for either host.
- Simple audio-to-text workflow with no output token pricing to calculate.
The case against it
- No verified performance data: accuracy unmeasured on all recording types, speed unmeasured, and no language coverage listed.
- Proprietary weights only — no local deployment option.
How good is it?
We hold no score for this model.
The Open ASR Leaderboard is where a model that turns speech into text gets measured, and Whisper 1 API is not on it — so we hold no accuracy figure for it, rather than a poor one.
Where to rent it
Prices checked 2 hours ago — each listing carries its own date.
OpenAI, direct
The lab is also the cheapest we hold. The strip above and this offer are the same one, so nothing on this page undercuts OpenAI on — of context.
- per minute of audio
- $0.006
- Context served
- —
- Throughput
- Not measured
| Provider | Price per minute of audio | Context | Throughput | Trains on prompts | Logs prompts | Zero retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Azure AIDirect | $0.006checked 2 hours ago | not reported | not measured | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| OpenAIDirect | $0.006checked 2 hours ago | not reported | not measured | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
Microsoft Azure AIAcross the 2 listings we hold: 0 say they do not train on prompts, 0 say they do and 2 do not say. 0 appear in the zero-retention registry we check; the rest are unknown to us.
What each host's API supports
From the parameter list each endpoint publishes. Streaming is omitted: nothing we hold reports it, for any model.
| Provider | Tool calling | JSON output | Strict schema |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Azure AIDirect | |||
| OpenAIDirect |
Tool calling: 0 of 2 listings say yes, 2 publish no parameter list. JSON output: 0 of 2 listings say yes, 2 publish no parameter list. Strict schema: 0 of 2 listings say yes, 2 publish no parameter list.
When we formed this view
Recent changes
What moved
first indexed by our pipelineEach date is the day we first saw the change, or the day the maker announced it.
What we do not know about this model yet
- No independent board has scored it, so we hold no quality figures at all.
- 2 of 2 listings publish no parameter list, so what their API accepts is unknown to us.
- Nothing we hold says whether an endpoint streams, so we do not show it either way.
- 2 of 2 listings do not say whether they train on prompts.
- We hold no cached-input rate for any of its listings.
- We hold no batch or off-peak rate for any of its listings.
Licence and identifiers
What the licence allowsWe hold no licence record for this model. Inside are the identifiers you need to pull it — its Hugging Face repo where we have one, our slug and a machine-readable card.
Licence
We hold no licence row of this model's own. A source states its weights are not published, so the determination that governs it is the one for closed weights, API access only.
Identifiers
- Takes in, gives back
- Audio in, text out
- Catalogue slug
- openai-whisper-1