Castmagic vs mercuryScribe
Castmagic
castmagic.io
mercuryScribe
mercuryscribe.comSide by side
| Figure | Castmagic | mercuryScribe |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $1.58/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · Podcast Transcription Software | 7.9 (#13) | 8.8 (#6) |
| Headquarters | Henderson, Nevada, United States | Nashville, Tennessee, USA |
| Intended users | The maker describes Castmagic as serving podcast hosts, video streamers, long-form creators, agencies, content teams, and podcast networks. | The maker describes it as built for researchers and suitable for journalists, podcasters, organizations, educators, accessibility groups, and professionals. |
| Support | The pricing page lists live chat support on Hobby, Starter, and Team, with priority support for Team and dedicated support for Business & Scale. | Professional services include installation help, team training, workshops, and private server setup with GPUs. |
| Transcription | The features page says transcription supports 60+ languages and includes speaker labels, timestamps, translation, and exports such as SRT, VTT, PDF, and DOCX. | It uses Faster Whisper to transcribe speech and pyannote models to distinguish speakers. |
Plans
Castmagic
- Hobby$19 a year
- Starter$579 a year
- Business & Scale$699 a month
- Team$1,669 a year
In their own words
Castmagic
Castmagic converts long-form audio and video into transcripts and drafts such as show notes, summaries, blogs, social posts, and newsletters. Transcription supports more than 60 languages, with speaker labels, timestamps, translation, and SRT, VTT, PDF, and DOCX exports. Recurring prompts, brand voice settings, and custom prompts can generate a content set when recordings arrive. Studio creates image carousels, captioned clips in 9:16, 1:1, or 16:9 formats, and audiograms. Its content strategist answers questions across recordings, cites source moments, and drafts weekly content plans. The library connects with Zoom, Loom, Google Drive, RSS, and Zapier, and imports from YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TikTok, Instagram, Vimeo, Twitch, Reddit, and Wistia. A REST API imports recordings and retrieves transcripts and generated content; a Claude connector can access a library. The iOS app records into a space or captures voice memos. Castmagic runs on web, iOS, and API. Plans start at $19/mo (annual), with no free plan. Listed hour allowances are 30 for Hobby, 100 for Starter, and 400 for Team.
mercuryScribe
mercuryScribe is a locally run web interface for transcribing audio and video, with transcript editing and document export. It uses Faster Whisper for speech transcription and pyannote models to distinguish speakers. Users can edit transcripts in a browser, save changes as VTT files, and generate HTML or DOCX files containing speaker names and timestamps. The FAQ says audio, transcripts, and metadata are not sent to external services; the models are obtained from Hugging Face. Users need a Hugging Face access token and must accept terms for the required models. MAXQDA support is included by default, and custom integrations can be developed. The maker documents Docker, Windows package, and Python package installation options. The software is free and open source under the MIT license for personal, academic, or commercial use, and is listed for Linux, macOS, Windows, and web. The maker describes it as built for researchers and also suitable for journalists, podcasters, organizations, educators, accessibility groups, and professionals. Professional services include installation help, training, workshops, and private server setup with GPUs.