Currently, using voice notes and transcription in Heptabase consumes your monthly AI credits. However, you can still use the voice note feature limitlessly even after your credits run out.

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You can transcribe video, audio, and podcast cards using Heptabase’s AI credits. There is no single fixed number of transcription hours for every account: the amount you can transcribe depends on the estimated cost and your remaining credits, which may also be used by other AI features.

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Before starting, Heptabase checks whether your available credits can cover the estimated transcription cost. This includes eligible on-demand usage when it is enabled and has remaining allowance. A transcription is blocked if the available amount is insufficient, not simply because it would use up your monthly credits.

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When you need more credits

If you need more transcription than your included credits cover, you can enable eligible on-demand AI usage with a spending limit, or use your own OpenAI API key. On-demand usage is billed through Heptabase; with your own API key, transcription usage is billed by OpenAI under your API account.

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Use your own OpenAI API key

You can go to Settings -> AI features -> Use my AI API keys and enter your OpenAI API key. After that, your own API key will be used when you transcribe.

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We use OpenAI's Whisper 1 model, and you can check your usage information on your OpenAI dashboard. (Usage usually shows up after a little while.)

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Retrieving an existing YouTube caption track is different from transcribing audio with Whisper. Captions depend on what is available for the video; seeing text from a YouTube video does not necessarily mean an audio transcription was run. The transcription credit check above applies when starting an audio transcription.