Mandarin Chinese Transcription Apps: China Services and International Tools
Data checked:
Two questions come before price. First, Mandarin or Cantonese: some vendors list them separately (Amazon Transcribe, Sonix, Happy Scribe all list both), and a tool that only says “Chinese” usually means Mandarin. Second, where the audio can be processed: services built inside the Chinese ecosystem versus international clouds. Language entries below come from vendor pages; we have not tested recognition quality for Chinese on any tool.
Services built for Chinese meetings
| Tool | Paid from | Max length per file | Speaker labels | API |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feishu Minutes（飞书妙记） File transcription, Meeting notes, Live transcription | Not verified | Paid: Not verified | Yes | Not verified |
| iFLYREC（讯飞听见） File transcription, Live transcription | Not verified | Paid: 5 h | Yes | Not verified |
| Tencent Meeting Transcription（腾讯会议转写） File transcription, Meeting notes, Live transcription | Not verified | Free: Not verified Paid: 8 h | Yes | Not verified |
| Tongyi Tingwu（通义听悟） File transcription, Live transcription, API | Not verified | Paid: Not verified | Yes | Yes |
- Feishu Minutes（飞书妙记） transcribes uploaded audio and video and Feishu meeting recordings, groups speakers by voice, and exports TXT, SRT or a Feishu document. Standalone pricing was not verified; it is sold as part of Feishu.
- iFLYREC（讯飞听见） (iFlytek) takes imported files up to 5 hours and 2 GB with speaker separation, and names Japanese, English and Chinese. Current subscription prices were not verified.
- Tencent Meeting Transcription（腾讯会议转写） lives inside Tencent Meeting: live transcription is free for 10 minutes per meeting, uploads go up to 8 hours and 4 GB per file, and transcription beyond trials needs the meeting membership, whose current price was not verified.
- Tongyi Tingwu（通义听悟） (Alibaba) covers live transcription, uploads and speaker separation with a separately documented API. Its language list and web-app pricing were not verified, so confirm both before committing.
International services that list Mandarin
| Tool | Paid from | Languages | Max length per file | Trains on your data? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notta Meeting notes, File transcription, Live transcription | $13.49/mo $8.17/mo billed yearly (Pro) | ENJAZH 58 languages | Free: 3 min Paid: 5 h | Unclear |
| TurboScribe File transcription | $20/mo $10/mo billed yearly (Unlimited) | ENJAZH 98+ languages | Free: 30 min Paid: 10 h | No |
| Sonix File transcription | $25/mo $22.92/mo billed yearly (Core) | ENJAZH 54+ languages | Paid: Not verified | No |
| Happy Scribe File transcription, Meeting notes | £17/mo £8.50/mo billed yearly (Basic) | ENJAZH 150+ languages | Paid: Not verified | Only if you opt in |
| Otter.ai Meeting notes, File transcription, Live transcription | $16.99/mo $8.33/mo billed yearly (Pro) | ENJAZH 6 languages | Free: 30 min Paid: 4 h | Yes |
| Fireflies.ai Meeting notes, File transcription, Live transcription | $18/mo $10/mo billed yearly (Pro) | ENJAZH 100+ languages | Free: 150 min Paid: 150 min | No |
| Rev File transcription, Meeting notes | $29.99/mo $25.49/mo billed yearly (Essentials) | ENJAZH 37+ languages | Free: Not verified Paid: Not verified | Yes |
- Notta (58 languages) and TurboScribe (98+) list Chinese and take files up to 5 hours and 10 hours respectively on paid plans.
- Sonix lists Mandarin and Cantonese separately among 54+ languages, pay-as-you-go at $10 an hour.
- Happy Scribe lists Mandarin and Cantonese among 150+ languages.
- Otter.ai includes Chinese in its 6-language list.
- Fireflies.ai advertises 100+ languages, most labelled beta.
- Rev unlocks its 37+ languages (including Mandarin) on the Pro plan; the free 45 minutes a month are English only.
- Not options: Descript offers Chinese only for caption translation and dubbing, not transcription; Krisp (AI Meeting Notes) lists 16 languages without Chinese; Temi is English only.
For developers
Amazon Transcribe lists Mandarin and Cantonese and gives 60 free minutes a month for 12 months; Deepgram lists Chinese for Nova-3; ElevenLabs Speech to Text (Scribe) includes Chinese in its 99 languages; Google Cloud Speech-to-Text’s Chinese support was not verified in our check. Prices and training defaults are in speech-to-text API comparison.
Offline apps
Whisper’s language list includes Chinese, so on-device apps transcribe Mandarin and Cantonese with no uploads: MacWhisper (Mac), Vibe and Buzz (Mac/Windows/Linux, free and open source) and Aiko (Mac and iPhone). There is no minute allowance; speed depends on your hardware.
For Japanese, see Japanese transcription apps. Every tool above can be filtered by the Chinese flag in the directory.