Deepgram

Deepgram is a developer speech-to-text API known for speed and price. Its Arabic model, added in January 2026, exposes seventeen Arabic locale codes, including separate entries for Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait, the most granular Gulf list of any American vendor. A keyword-prompting feature lets you feed it names and terms, which the company says works across the dialects. Deepgram claims up to 40% fewer errors than competing systems on conversational Arabic across regional dialects, but does not name the competitors or the test set, so read that as a direction rather than a figure. It also notes that it normalised alef and ta-marbuta before scoring, which is standard but flattering. Pricing as of October 2026 is about 0.43 cents per minute for pre-recorded audio with a 200-dollar starting credit; data stays in US, EU or Indian regions, with self-hosting available.