Descript vs Hello8

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

Free plan: Both have one
Public API: Descript has one; not confirmed by us for Hello8
Higher Trust score: Descript — 96 vs 81 for Hello8
Best fit: Descript: Podcasters and interview shows where the edit is driven by what was said · Hello8: Video and communications teams that publish subtitled content in several languages and review it in-house
Platforms: Descript: macOS, Windows, Web · Hello8: Web

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

DescriptEdit video and podcasts by rewriting the transcript

Hello8Subtitle studio that transcribes and translates video, then has an AI reviewer flag errors for you to accept or fix

Side by side

Fact	Descript	Hello8
Category	AI Video Editing	Subtitles & Captions
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starts at	$16/mo	—
Public API	Yes	Not confirmed
Trust score	96 / 100	81 / 100
Platforms	macOS, Windows, Web, API	Web
Company	Descript	Hello8 SASU
Launched	2017	—
Last verified	Oct 16, 2026	Oct 15, 2026

What our research says

Descript

Descript is the right tool when your footage is people talking and you would rather edit a document than a timeline. Anyone cutting to music, working frame-accurate, or grading footage will fight it the whole way.

Pros

Transcript-first editing genuinely collapses the time to a rough cut for spoken content
Studio Sound rescues bad room audio well enough to skip a re-record
The API is included with any paid plan rather than sold as a separate tier
One project holds recording, editing, captions, translation and publishing

Cons

Two independent meters, media hours and AI credits, so either can strand you mid-month
The API cannot export a media file directly, you still download through the app
Entry paid tier is single-seat and capped at 10 media hours
Free tier watermarks exports, so it is a demo rather than a usable tier

Hello8

Hello8 sits between raw auto-captioning and a localisation agency: machine transcription and translation, followed by an AI pass that points at the lines most likely to be wrong so an editor only reviews those. That is a real time saver for teams that already check subtitles by hand, and the European hosting suits EU buyers. The catch is cost: the reviewer bills five credits a minute, so a reviewed hour of video eats most of a Starter allowance.

Pros

AI Reviewer comments on likely errors line by line, with one-click accept or dismiss
90-plus languages for transcription and translation
Exports SRT, VTT, ASS, TXT or an MP4 with burned-in subtitles
Optional linguist review when a file must be right
Data processed on European cloud infrastructure under GDPR terms

Cons

The AI Reviewer costs 5 credits per minute, so reviewed video burns credits six times faster than transcription alone
Video-length caps per plan: 5 minutes free, 30 minutes on Starter
Prices quoted in euros only, so the dollar cost moves with the exchange rate

Which one fits

Choose Descript if you need

Podcasters and interview shows where the edit is driven by what was said
Course, demo and webinar recordings that need a fast, clean pass
Teams with no trained editor who still have to ship weekly video
Automating repetitive transcribe-clean-caption pipelines through the API

Choose Hello8 if you need

Video and communications teams that publish subtitled content in several languages and review it in-house
EU organisations that want subtitle data processed on European infrastructure
Editors who want suspect lines flagged rather than reading every subtitle from scratch