No — Sonix is not free in 2026. New accounts get 30 free transcription minutes, after which pay-as-you-go costs $10 per audio hour and the Premium subscription runs $22 per user/month plus $5 per audio hour (subscription tiers drop the effective rate to $5.00, $2.50, or $2.00 per hour on Core, Advanced, and Pro). For criminal-defense work, Evidence Copilot is the purpose-built alternative at $39/user/month for solo attorneys with 15 media-processing hours included and published pricing across every plan.
Bottom line: Sonix is a solid, affordable general transcription service — but it is not free, and it is not a legal-evidence workflow. For defense teams reviewing bodycam, jail calls, and discovery, Evidence Copilot's defense-specific workspace at $39/user/month fits the job better; for plain audio-to-text projects, Sonix's $10/hour pay-as-you-go is hard to beat.
TL;DR
- Sonix is not free: every new account gets 30 free transcription minutes, then pay-as-you-go is $10 per audio hour prorated to the second.
- Sonix's Premium subscription costs $22 per user/month plus $5 per audio hour; its Core, Advanced, and Pro tiers drop the effective rate to $5.00, $2.50, and $2.00 per hour respectively.
- A Sonix subscription beats pay-as-you-go from 2.5 hours a month, the point where Core's $25 equals 2.5 pay-as-you-go hours.
- Sonix claims up to 99% accuracy (85–98% depending on audio quality) and returns a 30-minute file in about 3 minutes.
- Every Sonix plan includes speaker labels, timestamps, subtitles, translation into 54+ languages, a browser editor, and SOC 2 Type 2 security.
- Sonix is a general transcription platform — it has no case workspace, no evidence citations, no report-vs-bodycam inconsistency signals, and no redaction workflow for discovery turnover.
- Evidence Copilot starts at $39/user/month (Solo, 15 media-processing hours) with a 7-day full-access trial, no card required, and a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Head-to-head
| Dimension | Sonix | Evidence Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $10/hour pay-as-you-go; Premium $22/user/mo + $5/hour; Core $25/mo (5 hrs); Advanced and Pro drop the effective rate to $2.50 and $2.00/hour | Solo $39/user/mo (15 hrs); Firm $99/user/mo (60 hrs); PD Office $750/attorney/yr (100 hrs); overage capped at 3x included hours |
| Free tier / trial | 30 free transcription minutes for new accounts — a one-time trial, not a free plan | 7-day full-access Firm-level trial, no card required; 14-day money-back guarantee on every paid planwinner |
| Ease of use | Browser editor with synced playback; testimonials repeatedly cite simplicity and minimal editingwinner | Upload by web or email (per-case inbound address); case workspace with activity feed, roles, and timeline |
| Features | Transcription, translation (54+ languages), subtitles, AI analysis (entity detection, sentiment, topics), click-to-redact audio muting | Transcription with diarization, OCR, AI evidence agent with citations, auto-signals, redaction (video/audio/image/PDF), multi-camera sync, playbooks, timeline/tasks, exports, MCP serverwinner |
| Legal-evidence workflow | General transcription marketed to law enforcement; no case workspace, no evidence citations, no inconsistency signals | Defense-specific: grounded citations to the exact video second or PDF page, report-vs-bodycam signals, Suppression Motion Prep, Miranda Timeline, exhibit packswinner |
| Integrations | Zapier, Dropbox, Google Drive, Adobe Premiere, Audition, Final Cut Pro, Avid, ATLAS.ti, NVivo, MaxQDA, plus API | MCP server for Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor (read-only, org-scoped, revocable); two-way email intake |
| Setup | Sign up, get 30 free minutes, upload a file — minutes to first transcript | Verify email, start 7-day full-access trial, pick a plan after; upload by web or email attachment |
| Security | SOC 2 Type 2, AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2/1.3 in transit, SSO/SAML, role-based access controls, audit trailswinner | Originals immutable, every redaction and action audited, AI output marked pending human review, per-member export permissions, revocable org-scoped MCP access |
Scores
Sonix
sonix.ai ↗Sonix is an automated AI transcription, translation, and subtitling platform serving over 6.2 million users who have transcribed more than 14.2 million hours of content. Uploads are transcribed in minutes — a 30-minute file returns in roughly 3 minutes — with claimed accuracy of up to 99% (85–98% depending on audio quality), and every word is editable in a browser editor that syncs playback with text. Every plan includes automatic speaker labels, timestamps, subtitles, and translation into 54+ languages on the same hours. Beyond transcription, Sonix offers AI analysis tools including thematic analysis, entity detection, sentiment analysis, and topic detection with summaries. It integrates with Zapier, Dropbox, Google Drive, Adobe Premiere, ATLAS.ti, NVivo, MaxQDA, and offers an API billed the same way as the standard platform. Security includes SOC 2 Type 2 certification, TLS 1.2/1.3 encryption in transit, AES-256 at rest, role-based access controls, SSO/SAML support, and audit trails. Sonix markets itself to law enforcement for evidence transcription — including click-to-redact audio muting — but it is a general-purpose transcription tool, not a case-management or evidence-review workspace for defense teams.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Pay As You Go (Standard) | $10/hour | Single user, no subscription; $10 per audio/video hour prorated to the second; no surcharge for speakers, noise, or rush |
| Premium | $22/mo | $5 per audio hour on top of $22 per user/month; multi-user subscription |
| Core | $25/mo | 5 transcription hours + 5 AI Workspace hours/month; effective rate $5.00/hour; breakeven vs pay-as-you-go at 2.5 hours/month |
| Advanced | — | Effective rate $2.50/hour; adds full-text search, speaker voiceprints, version history, user permissions, shared folders |
| Pro | — | Effective rate $2.00/hour; up to 40 transcription hours + 100 AI Workspace hours/month; adds webhooks, billing admin, per-user quotas, medical model, SOC 2 report access |
Pros
- Transparent, published pricing: $10/hour pay-as-you-go with no surcharge for difficult audio, multiple speakers, or rush turnaround
- Extremely fast — a 30-minute file returns in about 3 minutes
- Strong claimed accuracy (up to 99%) with every word editable in the browser
- Broad language support: 53+ languages for transcription, 54+ for translation
- Generous integration surface including Zapier, Adobe Premiere, research tools, and an API
- SOC 2 Type 2 certification with AES-256 encryption and audit trails
Cons
- Not free — the 30 free minutes are a one-time trial, not a free plan
- General transcription tool, not a legal-evidence workflow: no case workspace, no citations into video moments, no defense-specific analysis
- No report-vs-bodycam inconsistency detection or Brady/Giglio review tooling
- Video redaction is limited to click-to-redact audio muting — no frame-accurate video, image, or PDF redaction
- Accuracy depends on audio quality (85–98%), so noisy bodycam and jail-call audio will need manual correction in the editor
Evidence Copilot
evidencecopilot.com ↗Evidence Copilot is a grounded evidence-review workspace built for US criminal-defense attorneys, law clerks, defense investigators, and public-defender offices. Upload the discovery dump — bodycam video, interrogation footage, jail calls, 911 audio, police reports, photos, and scanned documents up to 2 GB per file by web upload or email attachment — and get timestamped, diarized transcripts (Deepgram Nova with word-level timestamps), OCR'd document text from scans and photo evidence, and an AI evidence agent that answers questions with clickable citations into the exact second of video or page of the PDF. On ingest, every new file is compared against earlier evidence in the case, surfacing candidate inconsistencies — report vs bodycam, statement vs call audio — as unreviewed signals. Purpose-built playbooks cover Suppression Motion Prep, Miranda Timeline, and Exhibit List Builder, and one click produces a grounded case brief. Redaction is frame-accurate for video, word-precise for audio, and available for images and PDFs, with originals always immutable and every action audited. Multi-camera sync links bodycam, dashcam, and interview-room footage to a single master clock. An MCP server lets attorneys query cases from Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Claude Code, or Cursor. Every AI output is marked AI-generated and pending human review; the product never makes legal conclusions.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Solo | $39/mo | Per user/month; 15 media-processing hours included; full workspace, no feature tiers |
| Firm | $99/mo | Per user/month; 60 media-processing hours included; full workspace, no feature tiers |
| PD Office | $750/yr | Per attorney/year; 100 media-processing hours included; full workspace, no feature tiers |
Pros
- Purpose-built for criminal-defense discovery review, not generic transcription
- Every AI answer cites the exact source moment — video second or PDF page — so citations are verifiable
- Auto-signals flag report-vs-bodycam and statement-vs-call inconsistencies on ingest
- Published pricing with no sales wall, and overage hard-capped at 3x included hours so runaway intake cannot overbill
- 7-day full-access trial with no card, plus a 14-day money-back guarantee on every paid plan
- Full workspace on every plan — no feature tiers gating redaction, playbooks, or the evidence agent
Cons
- Defense-only by design — prosecutors and law enforcement are not the audience
- Newer and narrower than general transcription platforms; no 54-language translation suite
- Media-processing hours are included per plan, so very high-volume months rely on metered overage (capped at 3x)
Is Sonix free in 2026?
Sonix pricing for legal work
What you actually get for the money
Which should you pick?
FAQs
Is Sonix free in 2026?
No. Sonix gives every new account 30 free transcription minutes — enough for one 30-minute file at $0 — but there is no free plan. After the trial, pay-as-you-go costs $10 per audio hour prorated to the second, and the Premium subscription runs $22 per user/month plus $5 per audio hour. Subscription tiers (Core, Advanced, Pro) lower the effective rate to $5.00, $2.50, and $2.00 per hour respectively.
How much does Sonix cost for transcribing legal evidence like bodycam footage?
At Sonix's standard rate, a 10-hour bodycam dump costs $100 on pay-as-you-go, or $50 in transcription hours on the Premium plan plus the $22/user/month platform fee. Sonix markets itself for law-enforcement evidence transcription with speaker identification and click-to-redact audio muting, but the output is a transcript — the case-organization, citation, and inconsistency-review work stays with you.
What is the cheapest way to get Sonix?
If you transcribe under 2.5 hours a month, pay-as-you-go at $10/hour is cheaper. From 2.5 hours a month, Sonix's own math shows the Core subscription at $25/month for 5 hours wins, and the effective per-hour rate keeps falling through Advanced ($2.50/hour) and Pro ($2.00/hour) as allowances scale to 40 transcription hours and 100 AI Workspace hours per month.
Does Sonix work for criminal-defense discovery review?
Sonix handles the transcription step well — fast turnaround, automatic speaker labels, an editable browser transcript — but it is a general transcription platform, not a defense workflow. It has no case workspace tying the police report to the bodycam video, no citations into the exact video moment, no report-vs-bodycam inconsistency signals, and no frame-accurate video or PDF redaction for discovery turnover. Evidence Copilot is built specifically for that review workflow, with every AI answer citing the exact source moment and every output marked pending human review.
What does Evidence Copilot cost compared to Sonix?
Evidence Copilot publishes its pricing: Solo is $39/user/month with 15 media-processing hours included, Firm is $99/user/month with 60 hours, and the PD Office tier is $750/attorney/yr with 100 hours. Overage is metered and hard-capped at 3x included hours. Every plan includes the full workspace — there are no feature tiers — and new accounts start on a 7-day full-access trial with no card, backed by a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Does Sonix have a free trial?
Yes — every new Sonix account starts with 30 free transcription minutes, which Sonix notes is enough to transcribe a 30-minute interview for $0. It is a one-time trial rather than a recurring free tier. Evidence Copilot's trial is longer in scope: 7 days of full-access (Firm-level) use with no credit card, and a 14-day money-back guarantee on every paid plan.
Sources
- Pricing: The most affordable speech-to-text platform | Sonix
- How Much Does Transcription Cost in 2026? Complete Pricing Guide | Sonix
- Compare Sonix Plans: Every Feature Side by Side (2026) | Sonix
- Otter.ai vs. Rev vs. Sonix: Pricing, Features, and How to Choose in 2026
- Best Court-Admissible Transcription Software For Law Enforcement
- Sonix.ai vs Verbit: Best Transcription Software in 2026
- Customer Testimonials | Sonix
- Review of Sonix transcription service
- Evidence Copilot — grounded evidence review for criminal defense