About OpenAI Whisper 1

Whisper-1 speech-to-text transcription trained on multilingual supervised audio, with a 25 MB upload limit per file.

transcriptionspeech to text

OpenAI Whisper 1 specs

Model ID: openai-whisper-1
Provider: OpenAI
Category: Transcription
Input: audio
Output: text
Endpoints: POST /v1/audio/transcriptions

OpenAI Whisper 1 API pricing

Live pay-as-you-go rates from the EmpirioLabs catalog. You are billed only for what you use, with no monthly minimum.

Type

Spec

Rate

Per Minute of Audio

per minute

$0.030

Compare on the full pricing page

How to call the OpenAI Whisper 1 API

OpenAI Whisper 1 runs through POST /v1/audio/transcriptions. The request returns a job_id right away; poll GET /v1/jobs/{job_id} until the job completes and read the output URLs from the result. Get an API key from the EmpirioLabs dashboard.

cURL: submit the job

curl https://api.empiriolabs.ai/v1/audio/transcriptions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $EMPIRIOLABS_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "openai-whisper-1",
    "audio_url": "https://example.com/meeting-recording.mp3"
  }'

cURL: poll for the result

curl https://api.empiriolabs.ai/v1/jobs/JOB_ID \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $EMPIRIOLABS_API_KEY"

Python

import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.empiriolabs.ai/v1/audio/transcriptions",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_EMPIRIOLABS_API_KEY"},
    json={
        "model": "openai-whisper-1",
        "audio_url": "https://example.com/meeting-recording.mp3",
    },
)
job = response.json()

# Generation runs as an async job. Poll until it completes.
import time
while True:
    status = requests.get(
        f"https://api.empiriolabs.ai/v1/jobs/{job['job_id']}",
        headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_EMPIRIOLABS_API_KEY"},
    ).json()
    if status.get("status") in ("completed", "failed"):
        print(status)
        break
    time.sleep(5)

Full OpenAI Whisper 1 API reference

OpenAI Whisper 1 API parameters

Request parameters supported by the OpenAI Whisper 1 API on EmpirioLabs. Defaults apply when a field is omitted.

Parameter	Type	Default	Range / values	Description
file	string	-	-	Audio file (multipart upload) OR use file_url for the JSON path.
file_url	string	-	-	Public URL to fetch audio from (alternative to file upload).
translate	boolean	false	-	If true, route to /audio/translations and translate to English instead of transcribing in source language.
timestamps	boolean	false	-	Convenience toggle. If true, sets response_format=verbose_json and includes word-level timestamp_granularities.
language	string	-	-	Optional ISO-639-1 language code. Auto-detected if omitted. Ignored when translate=true.
prompt	string	-	-	Glossary or prior context to bias the model.
response_format	enum	json	json, text, srt, verbose_json, vtt	Overridden to verbose_json when timestamps=true.
temperature	number	0	0 to 1	Sampling temperature.
timestamp_granularities	string	-	-	Comma-separated list: word, segment. Used when response_format=verbose_json.

OpenAI Whisper 1 API: common questions

How much does the OpenAI Whisper 1 API cost?

On EmpirioLabs, OpenAI Whisper 1 is billed pay as you go: Per Minute of Audio $0.030 per minute. The live rate card on this page always matches what the API charges.

Which endpoint does OpenAI Whisper 1 use?

OpenAI Whisper 1 is served through POST /v1/audio/transcriptions on api.empiriolabs.ai with standard bearer-token authentication.

Can I try OpenAI Whisper 1 in the browser before integrating?

Yes. The EmpirioLabs playground runs OpenAI Whisper 1 in the browser with the same parameters the API exposes, so you can test prompts before writing code.

How do I get a OpenAI Whisper 1 API key?

Create an EmpirioLabs account, then generate a key under API Keys in the dashboard. Billing is pay-as-you-go credits, so you only pay for the requests you make.

OpenAI Whisper 1 API