Scriptube charges in credits, not per-batch flat fees. A transcript costs 1 credit per video, translation adds a small amount on top if you use it, and you can check the exact cost of a batch before you submit it. Here's what everything costs and how to estimate it in advance.
What things actually cost
| Action | Cost |
|---|---|
| YouTube transcript (video with captions) | 1 credit per video â charged every time it's submitted, even if already stored |
| Reading or exporting a video you already processed | Free |
| Translation to English (Google) | 12 credits per 1,000 characters (Starter plan and above) |
| Translation YouTube already provides | Free beyond the video's 1 credit |
| Auto-translated track in another language (e.g. German from a Russian video) | 1 extra credit (Starter plan and above) |
| AI transcription for videos with no captions (ElevenLabs) | Coming soon â not available yet |
The rule worth remembering: every video submitted is charged 1 credit, whether Scriptube has seen it before or not. That's also why results can come back instantly â the system already has the text and doesn't need to fetch it again, but the credit still reflects that it's now stored in your account. Once it's there, reading it again or exporting it in a different format is free.
How many credits you get
Every plan includes a monthly credit allowance. Credits are the only limit: there are no plan caps on batch size, videos per day, or parallel batches.
| Plan | Credits/month |
|---|---|
| Free | 20 |
| Starter | 500 |
| Pro | 2,000 |
| Business | 6,500 |
| Unlimited | 20,000 |
Full current prices are on /ui/pricing; annual billing is 10x the monthly price instead of 12x.
Topping up with credit packs
If you run out mid-month, credit packs top up your balance and never expire:
| Pack | Credits | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Micro | 120 | $3 |
| Standard | 300 | $7 |
| Bulk | 700 | $15 |
| Max | 1,500 | $30 |
Plan credits vs. credit packs
Each plan's credit allowance is a monthly number, shown as "credits/month" in the table above â it's tied to your billing cycle. Credit packs are a separate, one-time top-up: 120, 300, 700, or 1,500 credits for a flat price, and unlike the plan allowance, pack credits never expire. If you process more some months than others, topping up with a pack avoids paying for a higher plan tier year-round just to cover an occasional spike.
Where to check your balance
Your current credit balance is visible on your dashboard at a glance, so you can see where you stand before submitting a large batch rather than finding out mid-batch. If a batch would take you over your balance, the estimate step catches that before you pay rather than after.
Estimate before you pay
Before you submit a large batch, check what it will actually cost. The dashboard shows a cost estimate at submission time, and the API exposes the same check directly:
curl -X POST https://scriptube.me/api/v1/transcripts/estimate \
-H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"urls": ["https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"], "translate_to_english": false}'
Run the estimate with the same urls and flags you plan to submit with â including translate_to_english if you're translating â so the number reflects the full cost, not just the base transcript credits.
Why per-video pricing instead of a flat batch fee
Charging per video, rather than a flat fee per batch, means the cost scales directly with what you actually get: one video costs one credit whether you submit it alone or as part of a thousand-video channel batch. There's no minimum batch charge and no discount for bundling â the estimate endpoint reflects exactly that, video by video.
A worked example
Say you submit 10 videos, none processed before, and translate all of them to English with Google translation averaging 2,000 characters each. The transcript cost is 10 credits (1 per video). Translation adds roughly 24 credits per video (12 credits per 1,000 characters à 2), so about 240 credits for translation. Total: around 250 credits for the batch â well within a Pro plan's 2,000 monthly allowance. If a video's translation happened to already be provided by YouTube itself, that video's translation would be free, only the 1 transcript credit applies.
How to do it in Scriptube
- Paste your URLs into the dashboard batch field.
- Check the cost estimate it shows before confirming â it reflects translation and any other options you've selected.
- Submit. Credits are deducted as videos process.
- If you're low, top up with a credit pack or wait for your plan's monthly refresh.
Bringing your own keys
If you're on Pro or above, Scriptube also supports bringing your own ElevenLabs or Google Translate API keys (BYOK) instead of relying solely on Scriptube's. It's a separate setup from the credits system described here â see BYOK: what keys, why, and how it's charged for the details.
Related reading
For translation specifically, see translating a transcript into any language and the translate_to_english flag in detail. If you're running large playlists or whole channels where cost adds up fast, keeping a playlist up to date and channel transcripts at scale both build on the same estimate-first approach.
Why estimate instead of just tracking spend after the fact
Credits get deducted as a batch processes, not all at once up front, so a large batch that partially fails still only charges for what actually ran. Estimating beforehand is about avoiding surprises on batches you haven't submitted yet â especially ones with translation involved, since character-based translation costs are harder to eyeball than a flat per-video rate.
See the full plan breakdown and credit packs at /ui/pricing, or sign up free to try the estimate endpoint yourself.