Quickstart

Get a key

Create an account at speechrouter.ai, verify your email (that unlocks the $2 welcome credit), and mint an API key in the console. Keys look like sk_sr_… — send them as a Bearer token.
Transcribe a file
Terminal window
curl -s https://api.speechrouter.ai/v1/audio/transcriptions \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPEECHROUTER_API_KEY" \ -F model=deepgram/nova-3 \ -F file=@meeting.wav
import { SpeechRouter } from 'speechrouter' const sr = new SpeechRouter({ apiKey: process.env.SPEECHROUTER_API_KEY }) const result = await sr.transcribe({ model: 'deepgram/nova-3', file: new Blob([await fs.promises.readFile('meeting.wav')]), }) console.log(result.text)
from speechrouter import SpeechRouter sr = SpeechRouter(api_key=os.environ["SPEECHROUTER_API_KEY"]) with open("meeting.wav", "rb") as f: result = await sr.transcribe(model="deepgram/nova-3", file=f) print(result["text"])

Stream live audio

JavaScript
Python

import { SpeechRouter } from 'speechrouter'

const sr = new SpeechRouter({ apiKey: process.env.SPEECHROUTER_API_KEY })
const stream = sr.listen({
  model: 'soniox/stt-rt-v5',
  fallbacks: ['deepgram/nova-3'],   // automatic mid-stream failover
  sampleRate: 16000,
})

stream.on('transcript', (t) => {
  if (t.is_final) console.log(t.text)
})

// feed 16-bit PCM chunks as they arrive from your mic / telephony leg
stream.sendAudio(pcmChunk)

from speechrouter import SpeechRouter

sr = SpeechRouter(api_key=os.environ["SPEECHROUTER_API_KEY"])
async with sr.listen(model="soniox/stt-rt-v5",
                     fallbacks=["deepgram/nova-3"]) as stream:
    await stream.send_audio(pcm_chunk)          # 16-bit PCM
    async for event in stream:
        if event["type"] == "transcript" and event["is_final"]:
            print(event["text"])

Switch models

Every model is a slug: provider/model. Change the slug, keep everything else:

deepgram/nova-3            fastest general English
soniox/stt-rt-v5           60+ languages, session-billed
openai/gpt-4o-transcribe   LLM-grade accuracy
speechmatics/melia-1       56-language code-switching batch

The full, live list with prices: GET /v1/models or the providers section.