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AssemblyAIvsScaleway

AssemblyAI vs Scaleway: Token Pricing, Speed & Intelligence

Full comparison of AssemblyAI and Scaleway — live token pricing, latency, throughput, context window, strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases. Rates sourced from public APIs — verify before use.

AssemblyAI

Universal-2 speech-to-text with speaker diarisation and audio intelligence

AssemblyAI provides a speech-to-text and audio intelligence API. Its Universal-2 model offers high-accuracy transcription with built-in speaker diarisation, sentiment analysis, topic detection, and PII redaction. The Nano model targets cost-sensitive batch workloads. Pricing is per audio hour.

TranscriptionSpeaker diarisationSentiment analysisPII redactionMeeting intelligence
Proprietary models

Scaleway

B300-SXM GPU instances — French sovereign cloud, Generative APIs with 1M free tokens

Scaleway is a French cloud provider offering GPU compute and LLM inference with the strongest EU data sovereignty credentials. The Generative APIs catalog includes GLM-5.2 (€1.80/€5.50), Mistral Medium 3.5 (€1.50/€7.50), Qwen3.8-27B (€0.60/€3.30), DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (€0.40/€0.80), gpt-oss-120B (€0.15/€0.60), and Llama 3.3 70B (€0.90/€0.90). All new customers get 1M free tokens. GPU instances include B300-SXM, H100, L40S, and L4.

European complianceFrench data sovereigntyGDPROpen-sourceGPU computeDedicated inference
Open-weight hostHosts open weights

Key metric comparison

AssemblyAI
Scaleway
Cheapest input ($/1M)

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Cheapest output ($/1M)

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Peak throughput

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Best latency (TTFT)

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Intelligence score

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Context window

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Live token pricing

Strengths and weaknesses

AssemblyAI

Universal-2 includes speaker diarisation, sentiment, topics, and PII redaction out of the box
Audio intelligence features reduce need for post-processing pipelines
Nano tier at $0.10/hour for cost-sensitive batch transcription
LeMUR feature enables LLM-powered Q&A over transcribed audio
Speech and audio only — no general-purpose LLM or image models
Per-hour pricing model differs from token-based LLM APIs
Advanced audio intelligence features add cost on top of base transcription

Scaleway

1M free tokens for all new customers — best free tier in Europe
B300-SXM GPU instances — latest NVIDIA Blackwell hardware in Europe
Live model catalog: GLM-5.2, Mistral Medium 3.5, Qwen3.8-27B, DeepSeek V4 Flash, gpt-oss-120B
French cloud — strongest EU data sovereignty credentials
Serverless and dedicated deployment options
Low latency (<200ms TTFT) for European end-users
Smaller model catalog than US-based inference providers
Lower throughput than speed-optimised providers
Less developer tooling than OpenAI or Anthropic

Key differentiators

AssemblyAI

Universal-2 bundles transcription with speaker diarisation, sentiment, topic detection, and PII redaction — plus LeMUR for LLM-powered audio Q&A — in a single API call.

Scaleway

The strongest European data sovereignty credentials — French company, French data centres, 1M free tokens for new customers, B300-SXM GPU instances, and <200ms TTFT for European users.

Frequently asked questions

AssemblyAI FAQs

How is AssemblyAI priced?

AssemblyAI charges per audio hour. Universal-2 is $0.37/hour and Nano is $0.10/hour. Additional audio intelligence features (diarisation, sentiment, PII redaction) are priced separately. See assemblyai.com/pricing for current rates.

What is Universal-2?

Universal-2 is AssemblyAI's flagship transcription model with built-in speaker diarisation, sentiment analysis, topic detection, and PII redaction. It is designed for meeting intelligence and call analytics use cases.

What is LeMUR?

LeMUR (Leveraging Large Language Models to Understand Recorded Audio) is an AssemblyAI feature that lets you run LLM-powered Q&A, summarisation, and action-item extraction directly over transcribed audio without building a separate pipeline.

Scaleway FAQs

What models does Scaleway Generative APIs offer?

Scaleway's Generative APIs catalog includes GLM-5.2 (€1.80/€5.50), Mistral Medium 3.5 (€1.50/€7.50), Qwen3.8-27B (€0.60/€3.30), DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (€0.40/€0.80), gpt-oss-120B (€0.15/€0.60), Llama 3.3 70B (€0.90/€0.90), and more. All prices per 1M tokens.

Does Scaleway offer free tokens?

Yes. Every new Scaleway customer gets 1,000,000 free tokens to use across any Generative APIs model. Billing starts from the 1,000,001st token.

What GPU hardware does Scaleway offer in 2026?

Scaleway offers B300-SXM GPU instances (latest NVIDIA Blackwell), H100 SXM and PCIe, L40S, and L4 GPU instances. B300-SXM is one of the first Blackwell deployments available in Europe.

Provider resources

AssemblyAI

Provider page
Website
PricingDocs

Scaleway

Provider page
Website
PricingDocs

AssemblyAI — Universal-2 speech-to-text with speaker diarisation and audio intelligence

AssemblyAI provides a speech-to-text and audio intelligence API. Its Universal-2 model offers high-accuracy transcription with built-in speaker diarisation, sentiment analysis, topic detection, and PII redaction. The Nano model targets cost-sensitive batch workloads. Pricing is per audio hour.

Universal-2 bundles transcription with speaker diarisation, sentiment, topic detection, and PII redaction — plus LeMUR for LLM-powered audio Q&A — in a single API call.

Scaleway — B300-SXM GPU instances — French sovereign cloud, Generative APIs with 1M free tokens

Scaleway is a French cloud provider offering GPU compute and LLM inference with the strongest EU data sovereignty credentials. The Generative APIs catalog includes GLM-5.2 (€1.80/€5.50), Mistral Medium 3.5 (€1.50/€7.50), Qwen3.8-27B (€0.60/€3.30), DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (€0.40/€0.80), gpt-oss-120B (€0.15/€0.60), and Llama 3.3 70B (€0.90/€0.90). All new customers get 1M free tokens. GPU instances include B300-SXM, H100, L40S, and L4.

The strongest European data sovereignty credentials — French company, French data centres, 1M free tokens for new customers, B300-SXM GPU instances, and <200ms TTFT for European users.

Key strengths compared

AssemblyAI

  • Universal-2 includes speaker diarisation, sentiment, topics, and PII redaction out of the box
  • Audio intelligence features reduce need for post-processing pipelines
  • Nano tier at $0.10/hour for cost-sensitive batch transcription
  • Speech and audio only — no general-purpose LLM or image models
  • Per-hour pricing model differs from token-based LLM APIs

Scaleway

  • 1M free tokens for all new customers — best free tier in Europe
  • B300-SXM GPU instances — latest NVIDIA Blackwell hardware in Europe
  • Live model catalog: GLM-5.2, Mistral Medium 3.5, Qwen3.8-27B, DeepSeek V4 Flash, gpt-oss-120B
  • Smaller model catalog than US-based inference providers
  • Lower throughput than speed-optimised providers

Key weaknesses compared

AssemblyAI

  • Speech and audio only — no general-purpose LLM or image models
  • Per-hour pricing model differs from token-based LLM APIs
  • Advanced audio intelligence features add cost on top of base transcription

Scaleway

  • Smaller model catalog than US-based inference providers
  • Lower throughput than speed-optimised providers
  • Less developer tooling than OpenAI or Anthropic

Provider category context

AssemblyAI is a frontier lab, founded in 2017. Scaleway is a cloud, founded in 1999. The category difference means these providers serve partially overlapping use cases — compare the model lists and pricing tables above to find the best fit for your specific workload.

How to choose between them

Choose AssemblyAI if you need Meeting intelligence. Choose Scaleway if you need 1m free tokens for all new customers — best free tier in europe. For high-volume production workloads, run a cost comparison using the token pricing table above with your actual prompt/completion token ratio — the cheapest provider depends heavily on your input-to-output token ratio.