Descript runs four plans, Free, Hobbyist, Creator, and Business, plus custom Enterprise pricing, with annual billing saving up to 35% over paying monthly. Here’s exactly what each tier includes, priced per person per month.
Descript Pricing Overview
Get a complete breakdown of all Descript plan tiers, features, and pricing options to find the right video and audio editing solution for your needs.
| Plan | Monthly Price | Annual Price | Media Hours/Month | Best For |
| Free | $0 | $0 | 1 hour (60 min) | Testing the platform |
| Hobbyist | $24 | $16 | 10 hours (600 min) | Solo creators, watermark-free exports |
| Creator | $35 | $24 | 30 hours (1,800 min) | Advanced AI-powered creativity |
| Business | $65 | $50 | 40 hours (2,400 min) | Team collaboration |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Larger teams needing security, SSO |
All prices shown are per person per month. Annual billing is where the “up to 35%” savings applies, monthly billing runs at the higher published rate.
Free Plan: $0
Descript’s Free plan requires no credit card and includes:
- 60 minutes (1 hour) of media processing per month
- 100 AI credits, one-time rather than monthly
- 720p export resolution, with a watermark
- Limited access to Underlord and other AI tools (Studio Sound, Green Screen, Eye Contact, Remove Filler Words, and more)
- 25-language transcription
- 5GB cloud storage
- Self-serve knowledge base support
This is genuinely enough to test whether text-based editing fits your workflow before spending anything, though the watermark and 1-hour cap mean it’s a trial-feel experience rather than something you’d run a real content operation on long-term.
Hobbyist Plan: $16/Month (Annual) or $24/Month (Monthly)
Built for one person elevating personal projects past the Free tier’s limits. Includes:
- 10 media hours (600 minutes) per month
- 400 AI credits per month
- 1080p export, watermark-free
- Full access to Underlord, Descript’s AI video co-editor
- AI tools including Studio Sound, Remove Filler Words, Create Clips, and more
- AI Speech with custom voice clones and video regenerate
- 1 person included (single seat)
Hobbyist is the natural upgrade once the Free plan’s watermark and 1-hour cap become limiting, but before you need a team or 4K exports.
Creator Plan: $24/Month (Annual) or $35/Month (Monthly), Most Popular
Descript’s most popular tier, marked for unlocking advanced AI-powered creativity. Includes everything in Hobbyist, plus:
- 30 media hours (1,800 minutes) per month
- 800 AI credits per month
- 4K export, watermark-free
- Full access to Underlord and 20+ additional AI tools
- Generate video with the latest AI models
- Unlimited access to the royalty-free stock media library
- Access to top-ups for additional media hours and AI credits
- Scales to a team of 3 (each additional seat billed separately)
The jump from Hobbyist to Creator is substantial: 3x the media hours, 2x the AI credits, 4K instead of 1080p, and meaningfully more AI tooling. If you’re producing content regularly rather than occasionally, Creator is where most serious solo creators and small teams land.
Business Plan: $50/Month (Annual) or $65/Month (Monthly)
Built for team collaboration, with everything in Creator, plus:
- 40 media hours (2,400 minutes) per month
- 1,500 AI credits per month
- Team-wide access to Brand Studio for consistent branding across projects
- Translate and dub video in 30+ languages with proofreading
- Generate custom avatars from a photo upload or text prompt
- Priority support with a Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- Access to top-ups for media hours and AI credits
- Scales to a team of 5 (each additional seat billed separately)
Business is the tier where genuine team features show up: shared branding, priority support with guaranteed response times, and enough media hours and AI credits to support multiple active projects across a small team simultaneously.
Enterprise Plan: Custom Pricing
For teams with more video to produce than editors to produce it, Enterprise includes:
- Custom-sized AI credits and media hours based on team needs
- Brand Studio with shared templates and company-wide brand guardrails
- AI and data controls, including the option to opt out of AI training on your content and custom data retention policies
- SOC 2 Type II compliance with SSO, SCIM, and audit logs
- Custom MSA, legal terms, and flexible billing, including options beyond credit card like ACH transfer
- Dedicated Customer Success Manager, onboarding, and priority response support
Enterprise pricing isn’t published, you’ll need to contact Descript’s sales team directly for a quote sized to your team’s actual usage and security requirements.
Which Plan Should You Choose?
Start on Free to test whether text-based editing fits your workflow before spending anything. Move to Hobbyist once you need watermark-free 1080p exports and more than an hour of monthly processing. Choose Creator if you’re producing content regularly and want 4K export plus significantly more AI tooling, it’s Descript’s most popular tier for good reason. Upgrade to Business once you need real team collaboration features: shared branding, priority support, and enough capacity to support multiple people working simultaneously. Enterprise makes sense once your team’s video output and security requirements outgrow what a self-serve plan can reasonably support.
Feature Breakdown: What Actually Changes Between Tiers
Transcription and languages: All paid tiers include 25-language transcription. Multi-speaker detection (8+) and multitrack transcription are available starting on paid plans.
Storage: Free gets 5GB, Hobbyist 100GB, Creator 1TB, Business 2TB of cloud storage.
File uploads: Maximum file size scales from 1GB (Free) up to 50GB (Business), with resolution support up to 5K and bit rate up to 1 Gbps on Creator and Business.
Stock media search: Free limits you to the first 5 search results in the royalty-free library, Hobbyist to 12, while Creator and Business get unlimited access.
Seats: Free and Hobbyist include 1 seat. Creator scales to a team of 3, Business to a team of 5, both with additional seats billed separately beyond the included count.
Translation and dubbing: Caption translation covers 61 languages across all paid tiers; audio dubbing covers 30 languages, but proofreading and native-sounding AI speakers (14 languages) are Business and Enterprise features specifically.
What Are Media Hours and AI Credits?
Descript meters usage two separate ways. Media hours track how much footage you import or record into Descript each month, whether or not you transcribe it. AI credits track your usage of AI-specific features: Underlord, Studio Sound, Green Screen, Eye Contact, generated media, and avatars. These don’t scale together, a short project using heavy AI tooling can burn through credits fast while barely touching your media hour allowance, so budget for both separately rather than assuming one number covers your actual usage pattern.
Annual vs. Monthly Billing
Descript’s annual billing saves up to 35% compared to paying monthly, the exact percentage varies slightly by plan (Hobbyist saves 33%, Creator saves about 31%, Business saves about 23%). Subscriptions process automatically to your provided card according to your selected billing cycle.
If you need custom invoicing, like ACH transfer, that’s only available through the Enterprise sales team, not on self-serve plans.
Discounts for Students, Educators, and Non-Profits
Descript offers special rates for students, educators, and non-profit organizations. You’ll need to fill out a dedicated form on Descript’s site to apply, rather than it applying automatically at checkout.
How Descript’s Pricing Compares to Competitors
Against other text-based and AI video editors like Adobe Podcast, Riverside, or standalone AI clip tools, Descript’s pricing sits in the mid-range rather than at either extreme.
It’s more expensive than pure transcription or clip-generation tools that do one job narrowly, but cheaper than assembling a full stack of separate recording, editing, and repurposing tools individually.
The value case strengthens the more of Descript’s workflow you actually use, recording through Rooms, editing with text and Underlord, generating supplementary media, and repurposing into clips, since that’s the exact combination that would otherwise require three or four separate subscriptions.
Real-World Cost Examples
To make the tiers concrete, here’s what a few common team sizes and use cases would actually pay on annual billing:
- Solo podcaster, moderate output: Creator plan at $24/month covers 30 media hours, more than enough for a weekly podcast plus some social clip repurposing.
- Small marketing team of 3: Creator plan at $24/person/month, with the team’s 3 included seats covering everyone without additional per-seat charges.
- Growing content team of 5: Business plan at $50/person/month, unlocking Brand Studio for consistent branding across five people producing video simultaneously.
- Team of 8 or more, or with strict security requirements: Likely needs Enterprise, since Business tops out at 5 included seats before additional per-seat costs apply, and Enterprise adds SSO/SCIM and custom AI data controls larger organizations often require.
Top-Ups: What Happens When You Run Out
If you exceed your plan’s media hours or AI credits mid-month, Descript lets you purchase top-ups rather than forcing an immediate plan upgrade. This is a genuinely reasonable approach for teams with occasional high-usage months, a big launch, a conference recording, without needing to commit to a permanently higher tier for the other eleven months of steadier use.
Pros & Cons: Descript Pricing
Pros
- Genuinely usable Free plan with no credit card required
- Clear, published pricing for Free through Business, no guessing at costs like some competitors
- Annual billing delivers real, meaningful savings (up to 35%) over monthly
- Top-ups available on paid plans rather than forcing an immediate full-tier upgrade for occasional overages
- Student, educator, and non-profit discounts available
Cons
- Media hours and AI credits are metered separately, adding real complexity to estimating your actual monthly cost
- Additional seats on Creator and Business are billed separately, so team pricing isn’t as simple as the per-person headline suggests
- Enterprise pricing isn’t published, requiring a sales conversation to get a real number
- The jump from Free’s 1 hour to Hobbyist’s 10 hours is large, but the price jump alongside it may feel steep for very light, occasional users
FAQs: Descript Pricing
What are media hours and AI credits?
Media hours track uploaded or recorded media processed in Descript each month, regardless of whether it’s transcribed. AI credits separately track usage of AI features like Underlord, Studio Sound, and generated media or avatars.
Do I need to enter a credit card to try Descript?
No. The Free plan includes everything you need to record, edit, and mix audio and video content without providing payment details.
How are subscription payments processed?
Hobbyist, Creator, and Business subscriptions charge automatically to your provided card based on your selected billing cycle. Enterprise customers needing custom invoicing options, like ACH transfer, should contact the Enterprise sales team directly.
Do you offer special rates for students, educators, or non-profits?
Yes, Descript offers discounted rates for these groups. You’ll need to fill out a dedicated application form on their site rather than it applying automatically.
How does Descript protect my data and privacy?
Your project information stays confidential, even from Descript’s own team, and the company is SOC 2 Type II compliant, audited annually by a third party with the report available on request.
How do I cancel my Descript subscription?
You can cancel directly from your Descript subscription page at any time. You can also delete your account entirely and permanently remove your data from Descript’s servers.
I’m interested in an Enterprise plan. Where can I learn more?
Contact Descript’s sales team directly to discuss Enterprise pricing and features sized specifically to your team’s usage and security needs.