Universal-2 vs Nova-3
AssemblyAI's Universal-2 and Deepgram's Nova-3 both target speech generation, but they price and behave differently. Here is the side-by-side.
Pricing checked against provider documentation on . How we verify
The short answer
Universal-2 is the cheaper option — roughly 1.7x less on a blended workload, and it suits cheapest broad-language transcription. Nova-3 justifies its premium when you need real-time streaming transcription.
AssemblyAI • Universal
$0.00 / $
/ audio min (input / output)
Batch speech-to-text across 99 languages at the lowest per-minute rate among the established managed providers. Speech-understanding features — summarisation, topic detection, PII redaction — are billed on top, so compare the bundle rather than the base rate if you need them.
Deepgram • Nova
$0.00 / $
/ audio min (input / output)
Built for streaming rather than batch, with the low latency and concurrency handling that live captioning and voice agents need. Deepgram also sells a managed Voice Agent API on top, which bundles the LLM and TTS legs and prices per conversation minute rather than per transcription minute.
Input price
Nova-3 is 72% more expensive than Universal-2 on input tokens.
Specification comparison
| Attribute | Universal-2 | Nova-3 |
|---|---|---|
| Input (/ audio min) | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Output (/ audio min) | — | — |
| Cached input | — | — |
| Context window | — | — |
| Max output | — | — |
| Native reasoning | No | No |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | — |
| Relative latency | medium | low |
| Open weights | No | No |
| API model ID | universal-2 | nova-3 |
| Status | stable | stable |
Universal-2: Batch transcription. Speech-understanding add-ons are billed separately.
Nova-3: Batch pay-as-you-go rate for the monolingual model. Streaming is higher and quoted between $0.0048 and $0.0077/min depending on plan and source; multilingual adds roughly 20%. Confirm your tier in the console.
Choose Universal-2 if…
- Bulk media transcription
- Multilingual archives
- Meeting and call records
- Podcast and subtitle pipelines
Choose Nova-3 if…
- Live captioning
- Voice agents and IVR
- Real-time meeting transcription
- Call-centre analytics
Frequently asked
Is Universal-2 or Nova-3 cheaper?
Universal-2 is cheaper. On a blended 3:1 input-to-output workload it costs about 1.7x less than Nova-3.
Which has the larger context window, Universal-2 or Nova-3?
Both accept up to — tokens, so context is not a differentiator here.
Should I use Universal-2 or Nova-3?
Pick Universal-2 for cheapest broad-language transcription. Pick Nova-3 for real-time streaming transcription. If cost dominates the decision, Universal-2 wins; if you need the capability ceiling, benchmark both on your own evals before committing.