assemblyai-cost-tuning

name	assemblyai-cost-tuning
description	Optimize AssemblyAI costs through model selection, feature budgeting, and usage monitoring. Use when analyzing AssemblyAI billing, reducing transcription costs, or implementing usage monitoring and budget alerts. Trigger with phrases like "assemblyai cost", "assemblyai billing", "reduce assemblyai costs", "assemblyai pricing", "assemblyai budget".
allowed-tools	Read, Grep
version	1.5.0
license	MIT
author	Jeremy Longshore <[e-mail]>
tags	["saas","ai","speech-to-text","assemblyai","transcription","cost"]
compatibility	Designed for Claude Code

AssemblyAI Cost Tuning

Overview

Optimize AssemblyAI costs through model selection, feature-aware billing, and usage monitoring. AssemblyAI charges per audio hour with add-on pricing for intelligence features.

Prerequisites

• Access to AssemblyAI billing dashboard at https://www.assemblyai.com/app
• Understanding of current usage patterns

Actual Pricing (Pay-As-You-Go)

Speech-to-Text (Async)

Model	Price per Hour	Best For
Best (Universal-3)	$0.37/hr	Highest accuracy, production
Nano	$0.12/hr	High volume, cost-sensitive

Streaming Speech-to-Text

Model	Price per Hour
Universal Streaming	$0.47/hr

Audio Intelligence Add-Ons

Feature	Additional Cost per Hour
Speaker Diarization	$0.02/hr
Sentiment Analysis	$0.02/hr
Entity Detection	$0.08/hr
Auto Highlights	Included
Content Safety	$0.02/hr
IAB Categories	$0.02/hr
Summarization	Included (uses LeMUR)
PII Redaction	$0.02/hr
PII Audio Redaction	+processing time

LeMUR

Model	Price per Input Token	Price per Output Token
Default	~$0.003/1K tokens	~$0.015/1K tokens

Instructions

Step 1: Cost Estimation Calculator

interface CostEstimate {
  baseTranscriptionCost: number;
  : ;
  : ;
  : <, >;
}

 ():  {
   model = options. ?? ;
   baseRate = model ===  ?  : ;
   baseCost = audioHours * baseRate;

   : <, > = {
    []: baseCost,
  };

   featuresCost = ;

   (options.) {
     cost = audioHours * ;
    breakdown[] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }
   (options.) {
     cost = audioHours * ;
    breakdown[] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }
   (options.) {
     cost = audioHours * ;
    breakdown[] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }
   (options.) {
     cost = audioHours * ;
    breakdown[] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }
   (options.) {
     cost = audioHours * ;
    breakdown[] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }
   (options.) {
     cost = audioHours * ;
    breakdown[] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }

   {
    : baseCost,
    featuresCost,
    : baseCost + featuresCost,
    breakdown,
  };
}


 estimate = (, {
  : ,
  : ,
  : ,
});