Deepgram vs Scaleway: Token Pricing, Speed & Intelligence
Full comparison of Deepgram and Scaleway — live token pricing, latency, throughput, context window, strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases. Rates sourced from public APIs — verify before use.
Deepgram
Nova-3 speech-to-text API — real-time and batch transcription at low latency
Deepgram is a speech-to-text API provider specialising in low-latency audio transcription. Its Nova-3 model delivers real-time streaming transcription with high accuracy across accents and domains. Nova-3 Medical is tuned for clinical vocabulary. Deepgram also hosts Whisper Large for teams that need an open-weights baseline. Pricing is per audio hour rather than per token.
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.
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Live token pricing
Strengths and weaknesses
Deepgram
Scaleway
Key differentiators
Purpose-built speech-to-text API with Nova-3 at ~300 ms latency and a medical-domain variant — priced per audio hour rather than per token.
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
Deepgram FAQs
How is Deepgram priced?
Deepgram charges per audio hour rather than per token. Nova-3 is $0.218/hour, Nova-3 Medical is $0.435/hour, and Whisper Large is $0.218/hour. See deepgram.com/pricing for current rates.
What is Deepgram Nova-3?
Nova-3 is Deepgram's latest speech recognition model, offering high accuracy with approximately 300 ms P50 latency for real-time streaming. It supports 30+ languages and is optimised for conversational and call-centre audio.
Does Deepgram support real-time transcription?
Yes. Deepgram's streaming API delivers transcription results with ~300 ms latency, making it suitable for live captions, voice agents, and real-time call analytics.
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
Deepgram — Nova-3 speech-to-text API — real-time and batch transcription at low latency
Deepgram is a speech-to-text API provider specialising in low-latency audio transcription. Its Nova-3 model delivers real-time streaming transcription with high accuracy across accents and domains. Nova-3 Medical is tuned for clinical vocabulary. Deepgram also hosts Whisper Large for teams that need an open-weights baseline. Pricing is per audio hour rather than per token.
Purpose-built speech-to-text API with Nova-3 at ~300 ms latency and a medical-domain variant — priced per audio hour rather than per token.
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
Deepgram
- Nova-3 delivers industry-leading accuracy with ~300 ms P50 latency for real-time streaming
- Nova-3 Medical tuned for clinical and healthcare vocabulary
- Per-audio-hour pricing is predictable for high-volume transcription workloads
- Speech-to-text only — no LLM chat, image, or embedding models
- No per-token pricing; cost structure differs from general-purpose 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
Deepgram
- Speech-to-text only — no LLM chat, image, or embedding models
- No per-token pricing; cost structure differs from general-purpose LLM APIs
- Smaller ecosystem than general-purpose providers
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
Deepgram is a frontier lab, founded in 2015. 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 Deepgram if you need Real-time transcription. 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.