TL;DR
You can transcribe phone calls four ways: your phone's built-in feature (no extra cost on Pixel 10 phones), an upload tool such as Fireflies ($10 a seat a month, billed annually in USD), a speech-to-text API such as Sarvam (₹30 an audio hour), or a calling platform that transcribes every call on a business number. For teams, the hidden cost of standalone tools is staff time spent uploading.
There are four ways to get phone calls transcribed in India: your phone's built-in feature (no extra cost on Pixel 10 phones, and on iPhones for English calls), an upload tool such as Fireflies ($10 a seat a month, billed annually in USD), a speech-to-text API such as Sarvam (₹30 an audio hour), or a calling platform that records and transcribes calls on a business number. For one person making a few calls, the phone is enough; for a team, the hidden cost of standalone tools is staff time, about 31 hours a month of uploading in our 3-person example below.
"Standalone" here means the transcription tool is separate from the phone system: the call happens in one place and the text is made in another. "Integrated" means the calling app records and transcribes the call itself.
The four routes at a glance
| Route | Cost | Who can see the text | Main catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phone's built-in feature | No extra cost on supported phones | Only that phone's owner | Hindi only on Pixel 10; iPhone transcribes English |
| Upload tool (Fireflies, Otter) | $8.33–$19.99 a seat a month, annual, USD | Anyone you share it with | Someone uploads every recording; Otter has no Hindi |
| Speech-to-text API (Sarvam, Google) | ₹30 an audio hour on Sarvam | Whoever builds the tool | Needs a developer and a source of recordings |
| Calling platform (TalkEasy, CallHippo) | ₹3,000 a user a month on CallHippo, billed yearly | Anyone with access to the account | Business calls must go through its app |
How we compared: prices and features from each provider's official page, checked in September 2026. Prices exclude 18% GST unless stated; USD prices are billed in USD.
1. Your phone's built-in feature
- Google Pixel 10 series: Call Notes transcribes and summarises calls in Hindi and English in India. The other person is notified, summaries are in English only, and everything stays on the phone.
- iPhone: record a call from the call screen, and the recording is saved in the Notes app with a transcript in supported languages. English (India) is on Apple's list; Hindi is listed for recording but not for transcription.
- Samsung Galaxy S25: turn on call recording, then "Auto transcribe recorded calls" under Transcript assist. Samsung notes that accuracy may vary.
- Truecaller (Android app, not built in): set as your default dialer, it records calls and offers voice-to-text transcripts and summaries.
This is the right answer for a single person. For a team it breaks down, because each transcript lives on one person's phone.
2. An upload tool
Record the call on the phone, then upload the audio file to a transcription service.
- Fireflies.ai: transcription in 100+ languages, and a Free plan that accepts uploads, with 400 minutes of storage per team. Pro is $10 a seat a month billed annually ($18 monthly) with 8,000 minutes of storage per seat. Business is $19 billed annually ($29 monthly) with unlimited storage.
- Otter.ai: Pro is $8.33 a user a month billed annually ($16.99 monthly); on 24 September 2026 Otter showed half price for India-issued credit cards. Pro allows only 10 file imports a month; Business ($19.99 billed annually) allows unlimited imports. Otter supports six languages, and Hindi is not one of them.
3. A speech-to-text API
For businesses with a developer, raw transcription is cheap. Sarvam charges ₹30 an audio hour (₹45 with speaker labels) and is built for Indian languages and mixed Hindi-English speech. Plivo's call transcription is ₹0.81 a minute.
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text costs $0.016 a minute and Deepgram's Nova-3 multilingual model $0.0052 a minute, both billed in USD.
You still need the recordings, somewhere to store them, and a screen where the team reads the result.
4. A calling platform with built-in transcription
The team calls from a business-number app, and the app records and transcribes the calls, so there is nothing to upload.
- TalkEasy by GrowEasy: calls run on a shared business number, and TalkEasy transcribes each recorded call and writes a summary with the requirement, objections, next follow-up and outcome, usually within a couple of minutes.
- CallHippo: Professional at ₹3,000 a user a month billed yearly (₹3,900 monthly) includes calling minutes, call recording and call transcription; Ultimate at ₹3,800 adds call summaries.
Worked example: 3 salespeople, 25 calls a day each
Illustrative team. Your call counts and lengths will differ, so swap in your own numbers.
The volume. 3 people × 25 calls × 4 minutes = 300 minutes a day, or 5 hours. Over 25 working days that is 7,500 minutes (125 hours) and 3 × 25 × 25 = 1,875 recordings a month.
Upload tool.
- Fireflies Pro: 3 × $10 = $30 a month, billed annually. Each seat adds 7,500 ÷ 3 = 2,500 minutes a month, so the 8,000-minute storage per seat fills in about 3 months.
- Fireflies Business, with unlimited storage: 3 × $19 = $57 a month, billed annually.
- Otter Pro is ruled out: 10 imports a month against 625 recordings per person.
- Staff time: if finding and uploading each recording takes 1 minute, that is 1,875 minutes, about 31 hours a month.
API.
- Sarvam: 125 hours × ₹30 = ₹3,750 a month, or 125 × ₹45 = ₹5,625 with speaker labels.
- Google Cloud: 7,500 minutes × $0.016 = $120 a month, billed in USD.
- Deepgram: 7,500 minutes × $0.0052 = $39 a month, billed in USD.
- Add the developer's time to build and maintain the pipeline.
Calling platform.
- CallHippo Professional: 3 × ₹3,000 = ₹9,000 a month billed yearly, or 3 × ₹3,900 = ₹11,700 on monthly billing. Calling minutes are included.
- CallHippo Ultimate, if you want summaries as well as transcripts: 3 × ₹3,800 = ₹11,400 a month billed yearly.
| Route | Cash cost a month | Staff time a month |
|---|---|---|
| Fireflies Business (upload) | $57, billed annually in USD | About 31 hours of uploading |
| Sarvam API | ₹3,750, or ₹5,625 with speaker labels | Developer build, then upkeep |
| CallHippo Professional | ₹9,000 billed yearly, calls included | None after setup |
One more line the table leaves out: with the upload and API routes, the calls themselves still run on each person's mobile plan, and phone-made recordings sit on three separate handsets.
What happens after each call
Standalone (upload) workflow:
- The salesperson calls from their own SIM with the phone's recorder on. Google's Phone app and the iPhone both tell the other person the call is being recorded.
- After the call, they find the recording file on the phone.
- They upload it to the transcription tool and pick the language.
- They wait for the transcript, then copy the next step into the CRM or sheet.
- If the manager needs it, they share the transcript or paste it into a group.
Integrated workflow:
- The salesperson calls from the business-number app. A recording announcement plays.
- After the call, the platform produces the transcript and summary. On TalkEasy this usually takes a couple of minutes.
- The salesperson acts on the next step. Because the call is logged against the business number, the manager can find it in the call history later.
Steps 2 to 5 of the standalone flow are where busy teams stop. On a day with 30 calls, the upload is the step that gets skipped.
When a standalone tool is the better choice
- You are one person with a handful of calls a week. Your phone's built-in feature or a free upload plan is enough.
- Your calls happen on Zoom or Google Meet. Meeting notetakers like Fireflies and Otter are built for that.
- You have a backlog of existing recordings to process in one go.
- You have a developer and need a specific engine, for example Sarvam for Indian languages.
- Your team can't change numbers because customers already know each person's mobile.
When an integrated platform is the better choice
- Three or more people share leads, and a manager wants to see calls without asking.
- You want every call captured, not just the ones someone remembered to upload.
- You want business and personal calls apart. On a business-number app like TalkEasy, business calls stay separate from personal ones.
- Customers should reach one number, whoever is on duty.
Before you choose, three related guides:
- Accuracy: if your customers speak Hindi or Hinglish, run our 20-minute Hinglish transcription test on any tool first.
- Logs vs text: if you need call logs and recordings more than text, see call tracking and recording vs transcription.
- Analysis: for patterns across many calls, see conversation intelligence vs call transcription.
For the business number itself, what a business phone number costs in India compares providers.
Transcripts and summaries without the uploading
TalkEasy by GrowEasy records calls on your business number, transcribes each recording and writes a call summary with the next follow-up, so nobody has to find, upload or copy anything. It suits teams that sell by phone and want their calls on record. It is not the right tool for Zoom meetings or for building your own transcription pipeline; use a meeting notetaker or an API for those.
See how TalkEasy's AI call summaries work
Last reviewed 24 September 2026.
