Deepgram vs Hume AI

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors.

The short answer

Entry price: Deepgram from $0.0043/min, Hume AI from $3/mo — different billing units, so no direct winner
Free plan: Both have one
Public API: Both have one
Best fit: Deepgram: Engineering teams building real-time transcription or voice agents who want published per-minute rates · Hume AI: Teams building voice agents that must react to a caller's emotional state
Trust score: About even — Deepgram 94, Hume AI 91

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

DeepgramLow-latency speech recognition and voice agent API

Hume AIAPIs and evaluation tools for emotionally intelligent voice AI: TTS, speech-to-speech and emotion measurement

Side by side

Fact	Deepgram	Hume AI
Category	Speech-to-Text & Transcription	Voice Agents & Phone AI
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starts at	$0.0043/min	$3/mo
Public API	Yes	Yes
Trust score	94 / 100	91 / 100
Platforms	API	Web, API
Company	Deepgram, Inc.	Hume AI, Inc.
Launched	2015	2021
Last verified	Sep 6, 2026	Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Deepgram

Deepgram is the pick when you are building the pipeline yourself and the per-minute number matters: streaming Nova-3 at under half a cent a minute, published rates for every model and mode, and a $200 credit that does not expire make it easy to size a bill before signing anything. It is an API, not a product — there is no transcription app to hand to a non-developer, and the voice agent tier is priced per connected minute, so idle sessions cost money.

Pros

Rates are public down to a fraction of a cent, per model and per mode
$200 starting credit with no card and no expiry is enough to benchmark seriously
Streaming and batch share one API, and the Voice Agent API saves wiring STT, LLM and TTS together
Founded 2015 and Series C funded, with self-hosted deployment on enterprise terms

Cons

Streaming rates are marked as limited-time promotional, so the published number may rise
Voice Agent minutes are billed on WebSocket connection time, including silence
Growth pricing starts at a $4,000 annual prepay, with nothing between pay-as-you-go and that

Hume AI

The most research-driven option for voice AI that needs to detect or convey emotion, with expressive TTS, a speech-to-speech interface and unusual assets like emotion scoring and voice leaderboards. The catch is a visible strategic pivot toward evaluation and data products, which puts long-term emphasis on its developer voice APIs in question.

Pros

Emotion measurement across 48+ categories is a rare capability
Entry pricing at $3/month with a usable free tier
Unlimited voice cloning on all plans
SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and HIPAA options at enterprise level

Cons

Homepage now leads with evaluation/data products, not the developer APIs
EVI concurrency is capped at lower tiers
Per-minute speech-to-speech costs add up for long calls

Which one fits

Choose Deepgram if you need

Engineering teams building real-time transcription or voice agents who want published per-minute rates
Contact-centre and meeting products with enough audio volume for the Growth discount to justify a prepaid year
Developers who want speech-to-text, text-to-speech and an agent runtime from one vendor and one key

Choose Hume AI if you need

Teams building voice agents that must react to a caller's emotional state
Developers wanting expressive TTS with cloning on a cheap entry tier
Voice AI labs needing simulation, human feedback and benchmarks