Descript pricing: what it costs and what is paywalled

Bottom line: Descript is free to start, then $16, $24 or $50 per person a month billed annually ($24, $35 or $65 billed monthly) for Hobbyist, Creator and Business. Each plan gives you monthly media hours and AI credits, and neither rolls over. Paraphrase is £13.99 a month (about £4.99 on the three year cycle) for 120 hours of transcription, with editing, AI cleanup and export using no credits (AI cleanup has a daily limit instead). They are not buying the same thing: Descript's plans buy a full production suite, Paraphrase's buys one narrow job.

Prices checked on 17 October 2026 on Descript's own pricing page and help centre. Vendors change pricing, so check before you buy.

What Descript costs

The page has a Monthly/Annual toggle, set to Annual by default, and says annual billing saves "up to 35%" over monthly.

Descript also offers discounts for students, educators and non-profits through a form, and says you can cancel from your subscription page.

Media hours and AI credits

This is the part that shapes what Descript actually costs you, so it is worth understanding before choosing a plan.

Media hours count what you bring in. Descript's FAQ says they "track uploaded media files and media recorded in Descript, regardless of whether they're transcribed". Its help centre adds that recordings in Rooms, screen, webcam and microphone recordings all count, and still images count as one second each.

AI credits count what you ask the AI to do. The help centre lists Underlord, Studio Sound, Remove filler words, Green Screen, Eye Contact, AI speech, avatars and generated video, and notes that chatting with Underlord uses "a few AI credits" per message. Descript says the cost of a tool you apply yourself "scales with the size of the job", that Studio Sound and Remove Filler Words cost at most 30 credits per file each time you apply them, and that Underlord has "no fixed price per action". So 400 credits covers at least 13 runs of either of those two tools, and how far it goes beyond that depends on what you run.

Neither rolls over. In Descript's words: "Unused Media minutes and AI Credits don't roll over into the next cycle." On Creator and Business you can buy top-ups, which are "available for one-time use without changing your subscription plan".

What you get for free

Descript's Free plan needs no card. Its FAQ says it "includes everything you need to record, edit and mix audio and video content", and it is genuinely usable for trying the product: 1 media hour a month, text-based editing, 5 GB of storage, and 2 hours of Rooms remote recording.

The limits that matter: exports are capped at 720p and carry a watermark, the 100 AI credits are one-time, and AI features such as Remove filler words, Studio Sound, Underlord, text to speech, Regenerate and voice clones are listed as "Limited".

What sits behind the paywall

From Descript's plan comparison:

Included on every plan, according to the page: transcription, multitrack transcription, detection of 8+ speakers, unlimited projects, unlimited audio export length, unlimited shareable pages, commenting and live collaboration, and in Rooms, screen sharing, cloud backup recordings and editor comments.

For someone editing spoken audio, the realistic entry point is Hobbyist: no watermark, 10 hours of media a month, and the AI tools unlocked within 400 credits.

How Paraphrase prices editing

Paraphrase does much less than Descript (it edits your own recording by its transcript and nothing else), and it prices around that one job. Prices are in pounds, from our live pricing on 17 October 2026.

• One credit transcribes one second of audio, and that is the only thing credits are spent on. Editing, AI cleanup and export use no credits, so re-editing and re-exporting the same recording cost nothing.
• Premium includes 120 hours of audio a month. Like Descript's allowance, it resets each billing period and does not roll over.
• AI cleanup has a daily limit instead of a credit cost: 30 a day on Premium, 3 a day on the free plan, resetting at midnight UTC. A cleanup that fails is not counted.
• Free plan: 15 minutes of transcription on signup, no card, projects up to 5 minutes.
• 7 day Premium trial on the monthly or annual cycle, card required.
• Credit packs on either plan, which never expire while the account is open: £3.99 for 4 hours, £12.99 for 13 hours 20 minutes, £34.99 for 40 hours.
• If a recording fails for a reason on Paraphrase's side, its credits are returned automatically.

The credits and plans page has the detail, and pricing has the current plans.

Comparing the two honestly

We are not going to boil the two down to one number each, because they do not buy the same thing. What is comparable is the shape:

• Descript's plans buy breadth. Video export up to 4K, Studio Sound, Rooms, screen recording, captions, translation, AI voices and team seats. If you use those, Paraphrase is not a substitute at any price.
• Descript measures two things, Paraphrase one. Descript counts media you bring in and AI work you run. Paraphrase's credits count seconds transcribed and nothing else, so running cleanup again (within its daily limit) or re-exporting in another format never touches your balance.
• The hours are different sizes. Descript Hobbyist includes 10 media hours a month and Creator 30. Paraphrase Premium includes 120 hours of transcription a month. If you edit a lot of spoken audio and nothing else, that gap matters more than the headline price.
• Per person versus per account. Descript prices per person, with Creator and Business scaling to teams. Paraphrase has no collaboration features at all, so it is a single-person tool.

There is a side-by-side comparison of how the two edit, and our Descript review covers what Descript is like beyond the price. If you are weighing other options too, see Descript alternatives.

Before paying anyone, try both on your own recording. Descript's Free plan and a free Paraphrase account both start without a card.