Pricing

Rating

Developer

Actor stats

Categories

Share

Wisprs — AI Transcription & Subtitle Generator (YouTube, Podcast, Audio)

Submit any YouTube video, podcast episode, or audio URL and get back a full text transcript, SRT/VTT subtitles, speaker-labeled segments, and structured content like show notes, chapters, or Twitter/X threads — saved to your Apify Dataset automatically.

The Wisprs Transcription Actor is powered by the Wisprs API, a production-grade async voice processing engine that transcribes audio from any publicly accessible URL. Unlike caption-scraping actors that fail on 30–40% of videos (music, Shorts, unlisted), Wisprs uses Whisper-based transcription and yt-dlp to cover 100% of video and audio URLs. Accuracy is excellent on clear audio; results vary by language, accent, and recording quality.

What does this Actor do?

1. Takes a list of YouTube, podcast, or audio/video URLs from your startUrls input
2. Submits each URL to the Wisprs transcription API (async job queue — no timeouts)
3. Polls until each job completes (typically 1–3 minutes per 15-minute video)
4. Exports the transcript in your chosen formats: TXT, SRT, VTT, JSON, or Markdown
5. Optionally generates structured content from the transcript via the Wisprs repurpose engine — podcast show notes, timestamped chapters, guest quotes, Twitter/X threads, or blog posts
6. Saves one dataset row per URL — ready for downstream automation

How do I transcribe a YouTube video to SRT subtitles?

Set exportFormats to include "srt" and run:

{
"startUrls":[{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOUR_VIDEO_ID"}],
"language":"auto",
"exportFormats":["srt","txt"],
"repurposeMode":"none"
}

Each dataset row will contain the full SRT file in transcript_srt and plain text in transcript_txt. Works for captionless videos, unlisted videos, and anything with audio.

How do I transcribe a podcast episode with speaker labels?

Enable diarize: true to get speaker-attributed segments:

{
"startUrls":[{"url":"https://your-podcast-host.com/episode.mp3"}],
"language":"auto",
"diarize":true,
"exportFormats":["txt","srt","vtt"]
}

Speakers are labeled "Host", "Guest", "Speaker 1", "Speaker 2", etc. Works best on clear two-speaker recordings; handles up to 6–8 speakers on clean audio.

How do I generate show notes, chapters, or a Twitter thread from a video?

Set repurposeMode to your desired output and the Actor transcribes first, then generates content from the real transcript:

{
"startUrls":[{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOUR_VIDEO_ID"}],
"exportFormats":["txt","srt"],
"repurposeMode":"show-notes"
}

Available modes: summary, show-notes, thread, chapters, quotes, blog.

How do I batch transcribe an entire podcast back-catalog?

Add all episode URLs to startUrls. The Actor processes them sequentially, saving each result to the Dataset as it completes — no timeout, no manual polling required:

{
"startUrls":[
{"url":"https://anchor.fm/.../episode-1.mp3"},
{"url":"https://anchor.fm/.../episode-2.mp3"},
{"url":"https://anchor.fm/.../episode-3.mp3"}
],
"exportFormats":["txt","md"],
"diarize":true
}

How do I use this with n8n, Make, or Zapier?

Pass a webhookUrl in your input. The Wisprs API will POST the completed job result to your endpoint as each transcription finishes — no need to poll from your workflow:

{
"startUrls":[{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOUR_VIDEO_ID"}],
"exportFormats":["txt","srt"],
"webhookUrl":"https://your-n8n-instance.com/webhook/YOUR_HOOK_ID"
}

The webhook payload includes transcriptionId, status, durationSeconds, language, and the full transcript text.

Using with AI agents (MCP)

This Actor is published on the Apify Store and automatically available as an MCP tool. AI agents using Claude Desktop, LangChain, CrewAI, or any MCP-compatible framework can discover and call this Actor with a single Apify MCP configuration — no custom integration required.

What data does the Actor return?

Each dataset row includes:

Wisprs vs caption-scraping transcription actors

How much does it cost?

Pricing is pay-per-event:

• $0.005 per transcription submitted (one-time per URL)
• $0.015 per audio minute processed (e.g. a 30-minute episode = $0.45)
• $0.075 per repurpose result generated (show notes, thread, etc.)

Example: 10 podcast episodes averaging 45 minutes each

• Submission: 10 × $0.005 = $0.05
• Audio minutes: 10 × 45 × $0.015 = $6.75
• Show notes (optional): 10 × $0.075 = $0.75
• Total: ~$7.55 for 10 complete episodes with show notes

The Apify free plan includes $5 of monthly credits — enough to transcribe 5–6 short videos at no cost.

Input

Supported URLs

• YouTube videos, Shorts, and playlist-linked videos
• Direct audio: mp3, wav, m4a, ogg, flac
• Direct video: mp4, webm, mov
• Podcast RSS episode links
• TikTok, Loom, Vimeo, and most public video/audio hosts

Language support

100+ languages with automatic detection. The detected language appears in each dataset row as language. Pass a specific ISO 639-1 code ("en", "es", "fr") to skip auto-detection and speed up processing slightly for known-language content.

Related Actors

• Wisprs — Podcast Show Notes Generator — podcast episodes → show notes, chapters, guest quotes with speaker diarization
• Wisprs — YouTube Content Repurposer — YouTube → Twitter thread, LinkedIn article, blog post, chapters
• Wisprs — Social Media Transcriber — TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts at $1.00/1k

FAQ

Do I need an OpenAI API key or a Wisprs account? No. No external API key or account required. The Actor handles authentication internally — you pay only via Apify credits.

Does it work for videos without captions? Yes. Unlike caption-scraping actors, Wisprs transcribes the audio directly using Whisper. It covers captionless videos, music videos, private-link Loom recordings, and anything with audio.

Is there a video length limit? No hard limit. The async job queue handles videos of any length. A 90-minute webinar typically completes in 5–10 minutes.

What if a job fails? The dataset row will have status: "failed". Check the Actor logs for details (unsupported format, private video, no audio, etc.).

Support

• Documentation: wisprs.co/docs
• Email: tosh@belvadigital.com
• Issues: report via the Apify Actor page

Submit a URL. Get subtitles, transcripts, and show notes. Done.