Happy Scribe is one of the most established names in AI transcription and subtitling, with broad language coverage (150+), a human-verified transcription option for accuracy-critical work, and 15+ export formats at the Pro tier including FCPXML, VTT, STL, XML, and EDL. If you're searching for a Happy Scribe alternative, you're usually hitting one of three gaps: cost (the per-seat model adds up for teams), accuracy on harder audio (accented, code-switched, or multi-speaker recordings that Happy Scribe doesn't break out per-language), or you need live multilingual captions shown to an event audience, each attendee in their own language.
Subanana plays in that narrower transcription + live-caption space, with a specific strength in messy real-world audio: mixed-language and code-switched recordings, accented speech, and Asian languages (Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, and Cantonese among them).
This post compares each tool using its own published documentation (pricing pages, features pages, integration lists), pulled in May 2026 and rechecked against the same pages before this update. No fabricated head-to-head test; both tools have free tiers, and your own audio is the right way to test accuracy.
Roundup context: Best AI Meeting Transcription Tools 2026 →. This post is the Happy Scribe deep dive.
TL;DR
- Pick Happy Scribe if you need broad language coverage with no specific code-switched or Asian-language requirement, want the option of human-verified transcription for high-accuracy projects, need STL / XML / EDL exports for broadcast or established subtitle workflows, or value an established brand with 6M+ users.
- Pick Subanana if your audio is in an Asian language or mixes languages (per-language STT model routing across 95+ supported languages; on paid plans, Multiple-languages mode transcribes one file in up to 10 languages), run live multilingual events with audience-facing captions, or want one shared minute pool for a whole workspace.
- The shape of the choice: Happy Scribe is the established multilingual transcription + subtitling specialist with a human-verified safety net. Subanana is narrower: multilingual transcription tuned for harder, code-switched audio, plus live event captioning. Both can transcribe, but their strengths point at different jobs.
Pricing snapshot (May 2026)
Happy Scribe (per seat, USD)
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (effective /mo) | AI minutes/mo | Meeting cap | Export | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | — | 10-min trial | 45 min/recording | TXT, SRT | 1 |
| Basic | $17 | $8.50 | 120 min | 90 min | TXT, SRT, PDF, DOCX | 1 |
| Pro | $29 | $19 | 600 min | unlimited | 15+ formats (incl. VTT, STL, XML, FCPXML, EDL, HTML, MP4) | 3 (extra seats $19-$29/mo) |
| Business | $89 | $59 | 6,000 min | unlimited | 15+ formats | 5 (extra seats $19-$29/mo) |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | unlimited | All + custom workflows | Unlimited |
Add-on minute credits: $0.20/min. Human proofreading: from $2.00/min (Business: $1.90/min).
Subanana (per workspace, USD)
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (effective /mo) | File limit | Annual minute allocation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | — | 8 hr/file, 30 GB (first 15 min of each file transcribed) | — |
| Lite | $18 | $9 | 8 hr/file, 30 GB | 720 min/yr |
| Pro | $30 | $18 | 8 hr/file, 30 GB | 2,160 min/yr |
| Max | $75 | $50 | 8 hr/file, 30 GB | 7,200 min/yr |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | Contact sales | Custom | Custom |
Per-workspace pricing. Free tier doesn't allow subtitle/transcript download; paid tiers enable downloads. Subanana minutes don't roll over across billing cycles.
The two pricing models are different shapes. Happy Scribe charges per seat with monthly minute pools that DO carry implicit reset behaviour (per their pricing page, allocations are per-month). Subanana charges per workspace, with monthly or annual minute allocations depending on billing. At similar prices (see the tables above) Happy Scribe includes more minutes: Happy Scribe Basic gives 120 minutes a month and Happy Scribe Pro gives 600 minutes a month. On Subanana, Lite gives 720 minutes a year, about 60 a month, and Pro gives 2,160 a year, about 180 a month. Subanana's case is not lower cost per minute; it is language handling, bilingual export and live captioning.
Where Happy Scribe wins
These come first because they are real strengths sourced from Happy Scribe's published pages.
1. Broader published language list
Happy Scribe states 150+ languages for transcription and 80+ for translation on its pricing page. Subanana also publishes 95+ languages for translation, but doesn't currently publish a public list of 150+ for transcription. For workflows that depend on rare-language coverage, Happy Scribe's broader list is more searchable up-front.
2. Human-verified transcription option
Happy Scribe offers human proofreading as a paid service (from $2.00/min, Business $1.90/min). For accuracy-critical work (legal depositions, broadcast subtitles, pharma), having a documented human-verified path inside the same product is a real advantage. Subanana is currently AI-only; if you need human-verified output, you'd need a separate vendor or in-house QC step.
3. Established subtitle export breadth (STL, XML, EDL)
Happy Scribe Pro lists all formats (15+), including VTT, STL, XML, FCPXML, EDL, HTML and MP4. Subanana's subtitle editor exports SRT, VTT, TXT, DOCX, XLSX, Markdown, and FCPXML (Final Cut Pro titles). Final Cut Pro users get FCPXML from either tool, so FCPXML doesn't separate the two. For broadcast workflows that depend on STL, or edit pipelines built on XML or EDL, Happy Scribe is the closer fit: it exports those formats directly, while a Subanana user would export SRT and convert downstream.
4. SDH (Subtitles for Deaf and Hard of Hearing) workflow
Happy Scribe explicitly supports SDH subtitles, including speaker identification and non-speech audio cues (e.g. [applause], [door slams]). For accessibility-required content (broadcast, public-sector, education compliance), Happy Scribe's published SDH workflow is a documented advantage.
5. Brand maturity (6M+ users, 41,000+ teams)
Happy Scribe's site claims "trusted by 6m+ users and 41,000+ teams." For procurement contexts where vendor maturity matters, this is a real signal. Subanana is younger.
Where Subanana wins
1. Asian-language audio gets a benchmarked model per language; mixed-language files get their own mode
Happy Scribe lists 150+ languages but doesn't break out per-language model selection or methodology for the harder cases: accented speech, multi-speaker recordings, or code-switched audio that mixes languages. Subanana doesn't publish per-language accuracy numbers either. Instead it benchmarks STT models and routes to the best one for each source language, with Asian languages (Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Cantonese) treated as first-class targets rather than long-tail entries. For Asian and long-tail languages specifically, that routing matters because general "150 languages" claims rarely translate to production-grade quality on the long tail. Files that mix languages work differently: on paid plans, Multiple-languages mode transcribes one file in up to 10 languages. Your own audio is the right way to confirm either.
2. User glossary with per-project term pinning
Subanana lets you supply a glossary to pin the spellings of brand names, product names, people, and jargon. A workspace list applies everywhere, and custom lists attach per project; you can add terms one-by-one, paste a batch, or bulk-import from XLSX / CSV, and mark each term Universal (same in every language) or language-specific. The same lists apply to transcription and subtitle projects, and the workspace glossary is copied into live-caption sessions. Happy Scribe also offers a user-supplied glossary (CSV import, applied at workspace level, with multiple glossaries and multi-language assignment gated to its Business plan), but it doesn't advertise the per-project list granularity Subanana offers, so workspaces that handle several clients or product lines with different vocabularies have to swap one workspace-wide glossary in and out.
3. Spoken-to-written conversion for languages that need it
For languages with a wide gap between how people speak and how text is written, Subanana lets you choose a written-form output, so colloquial speech comes out as clean written text. Cantonese is the clearest example (e.g. spoken "我哋 call 完之後 follow up" becomes written Chinese). Happy Scribe doesn't advertise a spoken-to-written conversion step, which some professional contexts require.
4. Model choice in the AI chat, on every plan
Subanana's AI agent chat, inside both the meeting editor and the subtitle editor, lets you pick which model answers your questions about a recording, on every plan including free, from a list that grows as new models ship. Happy Scribe also lets you choose the model in its AI chat, but only from its Pro plan up; its Free plan uses an auto-selected model. Subanana's meeting summary itself runs on a model Subanana picks for you. For teams that have opinions about model behaviour on specific meeting types (technical standups vs. customer interviews vs. legal depositions), this matters.
5. Live multilingual translation with audience-facing captions
Subanana runs real-time captioning + translation for live events with an audience-facing shareable link: attendees scan a QR code and each picks one display language for the live captions on their phone, either the original, or any of the up to 5 translation targets the host pre-configured for the event. For conferences, university lectures, or multilingual board meetings, Subanana is purpose-built for the scenario. Live captioning runs on Max (or with top-up credits).
6. Bilingual SRT export
Subanana exports a single SRT file containing both the source transcription and the translated text (one above the other per cue). For bilingual content (English subtitles over another language or vice versa), this saves a downstream merge step. Happy Scribe's documentation does not advertise a single dual-track SRT, so check whether it fits before relying on it for bilingual on-screen subtitles.
7. One shared minute pool per workspace
Subanana prices per workspace: members of a workspace share one minute pool and can share projects, with owner, admin and member roles. There is no self-serve team plan yet, so adding teammates to a workspace is arranged with our team rather than by a self-serve invite. Happy Scribe prices per seat: Pro includes 3 seats and Business 5, and extra seats can be added at $19-$29 a month, so you do not have to change plan to add a person. Because Happy Scribe also includes far more minutes at a comparable price, a small team that mainly needs minutes may pay less there; Subanana's workspace model fits teams that value a shared pool and the language and live-caption features above.
8. Different storage philosophy
Happy Scribe doesn't appear to publish a separate workspace storage cap; its limits are framed as monthly AI minutes. Subanana also doesn't impose a workspace storage cap. It caps per-file size only: 30 GB per file on every plan, including free (on free, only the first 15 minutes of each file is transcribed). Both tools avoid Descript-style tiered storage ceilings, so this is roughly parity rather than a clear win for either.
Side-by-side feature table
| Feature | Happy Scribe Pro | Subanana Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | ✅ 10-min AI trial + 45-min meeting recordings | ✅ 30 GB / 8 hr per file; first 15 min of each file transcribed |
| Mixed-language / code-switched handling | Not broken out per-language | Multiple-languages mode on paid plans (up to 10 languages per file); single-language files get a benchmarked per-language model |
| Spoken-to-written conversion (e.g. Cantonese) | Not advertised | ✅ |
| User glossary / term pinning | ✅ workspace-level (CSV; multiple glossaries on Business) | ✅ Workspace + per-project (XLSX/CSV, universal or per-language) |
| Human-verified transcription | ✅ (paid add-on, from $2.00/min) | ❌ AI-only |
| Bilingual SRT (single file, dual-track) | Not advertised | ✅ |
| SDH (deaf / hard-of-hearing subtitles) | ✅ | Not advertised |
| Speaker diarization | ✅ | ✅ |
| Translation languages | 80+ | 95+ (same list used for transcription) |
| Transcription languages | 150+ | 95+ (multi-model routed, no single vendor; same list as translation) |
| Export formats | 15+ (incl. VTT, STL, XML, FCPXML, EDL, HTML, MP4) | SRT, VTT, TXT, DOCX, XLSX, Markdown; FCPXML from the subtitle editor; MP4 with burned-in subtitles |
| Pricing model | Per seat | Per workspace |
| Storage model | Monthly AI minutes pool | No aggregate cap; per-file limit only (30 GB on every plan, including free; free transcribes the first 15 min of each file) |
So which should you pick?
Pick Happy Scribe if:
- You need 150+ language coverage with no specific code-switched or Asian-language requirement
- Human-verified transcription is required for some of your work (legal, broadcast, compliance)
- You need STL, XML, EDL, or other broadcast / video-pro export formats
- SDH subtitles for accessibility compliance are a hard requirement
- Vendor maturity is a procurement consideration
Pick Subanana if:
- A meaningful portion of your work is mixed-language, code-switched, or Asian-language audio (Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Cantonese among them; files that mix languages use Multiple-languages mode on paid plans)
- You run live multilingual events that need audience-facing captions
- You need bilingual SRT in a single file
- You want one shared minute pool across a workspace rather than per-seat billing
If your audio is already in Happy Scribe's comfort zone (broad language coverage, a human proofreader on standby, STL/EDL exports for an existing broadcast pipeline), there's no reason to switch. Subanana earns its place specifically when the audio itself is the hard part: accented or Cantonese/Mandarin/Japanese/Korean recordings where a single generic model tends to slip, or files that mix languages, which paid plans handle with Multiple-languages mode (up to 10 languages per file).
FAQ
Is Subanana cheaper than Happy Scribe?
For solo users on light usage, the two free tiers are different shapes. Happy Scribe gives a 10-minute AI trial plus unlimited 45-min meeting recordings; Subanana's free tier allows up to 3 uploads per month, accepts files up to 30 GB / 8 hours per file (same per-file limit as paid), with only the first 15 minutes of each file transcribed. Both let you test the product. For paid usage at moderate volume, Subanana Lite (~$9/mo annual, about 60 minutes a month) and Happy Scribe Basic ($8.50/mo annual, 120 minutes a month) are close in price, but Happy Scribe includes twice the minutes, and at Pro it is 600 a month against Subanana Pro's 180 on average. So Subanana is generally not cheaper per minute. For teams, Happy Scribe sells extra seats at $19-$29 a month, while Subanana prices per workspace.
Does Happy Scribe handle mixed-language or Cantonese audio?
Happy Scribe lists "150+ languages" but doesn't break out per-language STT routing in its public docs. Cantonese and other Asian languages are presumably included in the long list, but how it handles them, including code-switching with English, isn't detailed on their site. Subanana doesn't publish a per-language accuracy figure either; instead it benchmarks STT models and routes to the best one for each source language, with Asian languages treated as first-class targets. For files that mix languages, Subanana's paid plans offer Multiple-languages mode (up to 10 languages per file). Test it on your own audio to confirm.
Can I migrate from Happy Scribe to Subanana?
Yes. Subanana imports audio and video files in mp4, mov, m4a, mp3, ogg, webm. Happy Scribe lets you export your recordings, which you can re-process in Subanana. Existing transcripts can be exported as TXT or DOCX from Happy Scribe and used as reference.
Does Subanana offer human-verified transcription?
Not currently. Subanana is AI-only. If you need human-verified output for legal, broadcast, or compliance contexts, Happy Scribe's human-proofreading service (from $2.00/min) is the right fit. For most non-compliance use cases (meeting transcripts, podcast subtitles, video subtitling), Subanana's AI output is sufficient, especially with a glossary pinning your brand and jargon terms.
What about live event captioning?
Subanana includes real-time captioning + translation with an audience-facing shareable link (QR code; attendees see live captions in their chosen language on their phones). For conferences, lectures, multilingual events, this is a different product category and Subanana is purpose-built for it.
Can I export to FCPXML or STL with Subanana?
Yes for FCPXML, on paid plans (file downloads unlock on paid plans). Subanana's subtitle editor exports FCPXML for Final Cut Pro (you pick the frame rate; each file holds one language), alongside SRT, VTT, TXT, DOCX, XLSX, and Markdown. For STL, XML, or EDL workflows, export SRT from Subanana and convert it downstream, or use Happy Scribe, which exports those formats directly.
Related comparisons
If you're comparing several transcription tools, see also:
- Subanana vs Otter: meeting-tool focus
- Subanana vs Fireflies: CRM-native vs multilingual
- Subanana vs Descript: creator studio vs transcription specialist
Try Subanana free →. No payment method required.