D 
Deepgram
Real-time speech-to-text and voice agent APIs for developers.
NOT REALLY
why this verdict
Keep it — OpenAI has not replaced it
OpenAI's version overlaps, but does not finish the voice & audio job, so this one is still worth keeping open.
- A named launch, not a vibe named, unlinked
- Whisper made decent transcription free. OpenAI, January 1, 2025 — no announcement link recorded yet.
- How much of the job it covers not the job editorial call
- Parts of it. The job still needs the tool to get finished.
- Is there a free way to do it? yes
- 2 of 2 listed replacements have a usable free tier: AssemblyAI and Whisper.
- What the call is worth nothing to cancel
- No paid entry tier tracked, so there is no subscription to cancel.
Reason composed from the fields above missing: announcement linked recorded: free replacement listed recorded: two or more escape hatches
- Threatened by
- OpenAI
- Since
- January 1, 2025
- List price
- free
- Per year
- —
The backstory
Whisper commoditised batch transcription, so Deepgram moved where Whisper is weak: streaming, low latency, telephony audio and diarisation at scale. Voice agents need words the instant they are spoken, and that is an engineering problem rather than a model download.
Escape hatches
A 
AssemblyAI Comparable API, strong models.
assemblyai.com open_in_new W 
Whisper Free and open weights.
openai.com open_in_new2 of 2 replacements have a usable free tier.