Legal

Terms of Service

Last updated: October 18, 2026

1. What TranscribeCat Does

TranscribeCat turns audio or video into text with speaker labels. With pay-as-you-go transcription you pay $2 per hour, with a $2 minimum per file. Choosing pay-as-you-go does not start a subscription or recurring charge. Optional recording, Library and monthly-plan features are available only when offered to your account; their availability and limits are shown before you use them.

2. Accounts

You need an account to save files online or buy a transcription. Where available, browser recording can start before sign-in. Authentication is handled by Clerk. You are responsible for keeping your account credentials secure. You may request account deletion from your profile page or through the account controls of our sign-in provider. Deletion removes the account, its transcripts and stored audio in several steps; uncertain payments must be reconciled, and failed cleanup may require a retry or manual follow-up. Copies held by the transcription provider may remain while that work is resolved. Limited cleanup and safety records may also remain, including hashed file identifiers without automatic expiry; the privacy policy explains this separately. We also schedule dormant accounts for deletion: if you do not sign in for 12 months we email a deletion warning to the address on the account, and if you have still not signed in 30 days after that the account, transcripts and remaining stored audio become eligible for the daily cleanup job. Signing in at any point resets the clock. We do not delete an account for inactivity while it has an active paid Library period or a protected Library export grace period.

3. Payments

Payments are processed by Stripe. For pay-as-you-go transcription, after you review the price and approve payment we place an authorization (a hold) on your card, and we capture it only once your transcript is ready, at a rate of $2 per hour of audio with a $2.00 minimum per file. All amounts are in USD. Prices include any sales tax or VAT due where you are — the price you see is the price you pay. If a transcription fails, we cancel the authorization instead of capturing it: no money is taken from your account, and there is no refund to issue because no payment was completed. In the rare case where a payment was captured for a transcript we cannot deliver, we refund it to your original payment method.

4. Your Content

You retain full ownership of your files and transcripts. We use your content to provide the recording, storage and transcription features you choose. For an ordinary pay-as-you-go upload, choose deletion when the transcript is ready or a storage window up to 90 days, default 90 days. For a completed or failed job, the scheduled deletion date is the earlier of that window measured from upload and 90 days after your last sign-in. We attempt deletion on completion for the immediate choice, and the daily cleanup job processes audio due for removal. If a job never reaches a finished or failed state, audio becomes eligible for daily cleanup 24 hours after upload for the immediate choice and 30 days after upload otherwise. Failed cleanup is retried or needs manual follow-up, so these cutoffs do not guarantee completed erasure. Accessible transcripts remain in your account until you delete them or the account is deleted. A result awaiting successful payment is not yet accessible.

Where Library is available, saving an original and transcribing it are separate actions. Each saved original has its own storage choice and, where applicable, a deletion date shown in Library. Starting another transcription does not reset that date. Deleting an original removes its audio; deleting a transcript removes its text and edit history. The confirmation identifies which items you are deleting. A recording held only in your browser is a local draft, not a cloud backup: download it or finish saving it before leaving the device or clearing browser data.

If a monthly plan is offered, its checkout shows the recurring price, billing period, included time, storage limits and cancellation rules before you subscribe. Included time and storage are different allowances. Additional transcription requires your explicit approval of the displayed price; there are no automatic usage overages. For a batch, the review shows its items and maximum payment. Only successfully completed, funded results become accessible; failed items release their reserved time or unpaid authorization. Any captured payment for an undeliverable result is refunded.

Cancelling renewal leaves an already paid period available until its end. Where you explicitly chose to keep an original while paid, the normal last-sign-in audio limit does not shorten that choice. After paid access ends, those originals enter a 30-day export grace period; the deadline appears in Library. A shorter fixed deletion date you chose still applies. Requesting deletion of an original or the account starts the deletion process and is not undone by renewing. If removal cannot finish, the service reports the problem; you may need to retry or contact support, while queued cleanup is retried automatically. These optional plan terms do not enrol you in a plan or change the pay-as-you-go price.

5. Transcription Accuracy

Automatic transcripts can contain errors. Review them against the recording before relying on them, especially for important decisions.

6. Acceptable Use

You may not use TranscribeCat to transcribe content you do not have the right to process, or for any unlawful purpose. We reserve the right to suspend accounts that violate these terms.

7. Limitation of Liability

TranscribeCat is provided “as is” without warranties of any kind. We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the service. Our total liability is limited to the amount you paid for the specific transcription job in question.

8. Changes to These Terms

We may update these terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you via email or a notice on the site. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance of the new terms.

9. Contact

Questions about these terms? Reach us through our contact page.