Agent skill

assemblyai-cost-tuning

Optimize AssemblyAI costs through model selection, feature budgeting, and usage monitoring. Use when analyzing AssemblyAI billing, reducing transcription costs, or implementing usage monitoring and budget alerts. Trigger with phrases like "assemblyai cost", "assemblyai billing", "reduce assemblyai costs", "assemblyai pricing", "assemblyai budget".

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Install this agent skill to your Project

npx add-skill https://github.com/jeremylongshore/claude-code-plugins-plus-skills/tree/main/plugins/saas-packs/assemblyai-pack/skills/assemblyai-cost-tuning

SKILL.md

AssemblyAI Cost Tuning

Overview

Optimize AssemblyAI costs through model selection, feature-aware billing, and usage monitoring. AssemblyAI charges per audio hour with add-on pricing for intelligence features.

Prerequisites

Actual Pricing (Pay-As-You-Go)

Speech-to-Text (Async)

Model Price per Hour Best For
Best (Universal-3) $0.37/hr Highest accuracy, production
Nano $0.12/hr High volume, cost-sensitive

Streaming Speech-to-Text

Model Price per Hour
Universal Streaming $0.47/hr

Audio Intelligence Add-Ons

Feature Additional Cost per Hour
Speaker Diarization $0.02/hr
Sentiment Analysis $0.02/hr
Entity Detection $0.08/hr
Auto Highlights Included
Content Safety $0.02/hr
IAB Categories $0.02/hr
Summarization Included (uses LeMUR)
PII Redaction $0.02/hr
PII Audio Redaction +processing time

LeMUR

Model Price per Input Token Price per Output Token
Default ~$0.003/1K tokens ~$0.015/1K tokens

Instructions

Step 1: Cost Estimation Calculator

typescript
interface CostEstimate {
  baseTranscriptionCost: number;
  featuresCost: number;
  totalCost: number;
  breakdown: Record<string, number>;
}

function estimateTranscriptionCost(
  audioHours: number,
  options: {
    model?: 'best' | 'nano';
    speakerLabels?: boolean;
    sentimentAnalysis?: boolean;
    entityDetection?: boolean;
    contentSafety?: boolean;
    iabCategories?: boolean;
    piiRedaction?: boolean;
  } = {}
): CostEstimate {
  const model = options.model ?? 'best';
  const baseRate = model === 'best' ? 0.37 : 0.12;
  const baseCost = audioHours * baseRate;

  const breakdown: Record<string, number> = {
    [`transcription (${model})`]: baseCost,
  };

  let featuresCost = 0;

  if (options.speakerLabels) {
    const cost = audioHours * 0.02;
    breakdown['speaker_labels'] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }
  if (options.sentimentAnalysis) {
    const cost = audioHours * 0.02;
    breakdown['sentiment_analysis'] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }
  if (options.entityDetection) {
    const cost = audioHours * 0.08;
    breakdown['entity_detection'] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }
  if (options.contentSafety) {
    const cost = audioHours * 0.02;
    breakdown['content_safety'] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }
  if (options.iabCategories) {
    const cost = audioHours * 0.02;
    breakdown['iab_categories'] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }
  if (options.piiRedaction) {
    const cost = audioHours * 0.02;
    breakdown['pii_redaction'] = cost;
    featuresCost += cost;
  }

  return {
    baseTranscriptionCost: baseCost,
    featuresCost,
    totalCost: baseCost + featuresCost,
    breakdown,
  };
}

// Example: 100 hours with Best model + diarization + sentiment
const estimate = estimateTranscriptionCost(100, {
  model: 'best',
  speakerLabels: true,
  sentimentAnalysis: true,
});
// Result: $37 (transcription) + $2 (speakers) + $2 (sentiment) = $41

Step 2: Model Selection Strategy

typescript
import { AssemblyAI } from 'assemblyai';

const client = new AssemblyAI({
  apiKey: process.env.ASSEMBLYAI_API_KEY!,
});

// Use Nano for high-volume, cost-sensitive workloads
// - 3x cheaper than Best ($0.12 vs $0.37)
// - Good enough for search indexing, keyword detection
const cheapTranscript = await client.transcripts.transcribe({
  audio: audioUrl,
  speech_model: 'nano',
});

// Use Best for critical, accuracy-sensitive workloads
// - Medical transcription, legal proceedings, compliance
// - Supports word_boost for domain terminology
const accurateTranscript = await client.transcripts.transcribe({
  audio: audioUrl,
  speech_model: 'best',
  word_boost: ['specialized', 'domain', 'terms'],
  boost_param: 'high',
});

Step 3: Feature Budget — Only Enable What You Need

typescript
// EXPENSIVE: All features enabled ($0.37 + $0.16 = $0.53/hr)
const expensive = await client.transcripts.transcribe({
  audio: audioUrl,
  speech_model: 'best',        // $0.37/hr
  speaker_labels: true,         // +$0.02/hr
  sentiment_analysis: true,     // +$0.02/hr
  entity_detection: true,       // +$0.08/hr
  content_safety: true,         // +$0.02/hr
  iab_categories: true,         // +$0.02/hr
});

// CHEAP: Only what's needed ($0.12 + $0.02 = $0.14/hr)
const cheap = await client.transcripts.transcribe({
  audio: audioUrl,
  speech_model: 'nano',         // $0.12/hr
  speaker_labels: true,         // +$0.02/hr
  // Skip features you don't use
});

Step 4: Usage Tracking

typescript
class AssemblyAIUsageTracker {
  private totalAudioHours = 0;
  private totalCost = 0;
  private transcriptionCount = 0;

  track(audioDurationSeconds: number, model: 'best' | 'nano', features: string[]) {
    const hours = audioDurationSeconds / 3600;
    this.totalAudioHours += hours;
    this.transcriptionCount++;

    const estimate = estimateTranscriptionCost(hours, {
      model,
      speakerLabels: features.includes('speaker_labels'),
      sentimentAnalysis: features.includes('sentiment_analysis'),
      entityDetection: features.includes('entity_detection'),
      contentSafety: features.includes('content_safety'),
      iabCategories: features.includes('iab_categories'),
      piiRedaction: features.includes('redact_pii'),
    });

    this.totalCost += estimate.totalCost;

    return estimate;
  }

  getSummary() {
    return {
      totalAudioHours: this.totalAudioHours.toFixed(2),
      totalCost: `$${this.totalCost.toFixed(2)}`,
      transcriptionCount: this.transcriptionCount,
      avgCostPerTranscription: `$${(this.totalCost / this.transcriptionCount).toFixed(4)}`,
    };
  }
}

Step 5: Cost Reduction Strategies

Strategy Savings Trade-off
Use Nano instead of Best 68% cheaper Slightly lower accuracy
Disable unused features Up to $0.16/hr Missing insights
Cache transcript results Eliminate re-fetch costs Stale data risk
Use LeMUR instead of per-feature AI Often cheaper for summaries Different output format
Pre-filter audio (skip silence) Proportional savings Requires preprocessing
Batch with webhooks No savings, but better throughput More complex architecture

Step 6: Budget Alerts

typescript
const MONTHLY_BUDGET = 100; // $100
const tracker = new AssemblyAIUsageTracker();

// After each transcription
const estimate = tracker.track(transcript.audio_duration ?? 0, 'best', ['speaker_labels']);
const summary = tracker.getSummary();

if (parseFloat(summary.totalCost.replace('$', '')) > MONTHLY_BUDGET * 0.8) {
  console.warn(`Budget warning: ${summary.totalCost} of $${MONTHLY_BUDGET} used`);
  // Send alert to Slack, email, etc.
}

Output

  • Accurate cost estimation with feature-level breakdown
  • Model selection strategy (Best vs. Nano)
  • Feature budgeting to eliminate unnecessary costs
  • Usage tracking with budget alerts
  • Cost reduction strategies ranked by impact

Error Handling

Issue Cause Solution
Unexpected high bill Entity detection enabled everywhere Audit features per endpoint
Nano accuracy too low Wrong model for use case Switch critical paths to Best
Budget exceeded No monitoring Implement usage tracker + alerts
Double billing Re-transcribing same audio Cache transcript IDs, check before submitting

Resources

Next Steps

For architecture patterns, see assemblyai-reference-architecture.

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