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What happens when you hit your free-tier limit

3 min readAccount & PlansLast updated 15 June 2026

Step-by-step guide

1

What the Starter limit is

Starter is the free tier and includes 5 transcripts. Once you have used your full allowance, you have reached the free-tier limit. You can always see how many you have used and how many remain on the Plan & Usage tab in Settings.

2

What happens when you hit the limit

New transcription jobs are paused. When you try to transcribe another video, instead of starting a job the app shows a message telling you that you have reached your Starter limit and offers an upgrade. Nothing is charged and nothing breaks — you simply cannot start new transcripts until you have more capacity.

3

Your existing transcripts stay available

Hitting the limit never deletes anything. Every transcript you have already created remains fully available to view, search, and export (TXT, PDF, SRT, ZIP). The only thing the limit affects is creating NEW transcripts.

4

How to get more

You have two options:

Upgrade to a paid plan. Pro and Studio have much higher monthly allowances, and upgrading raises your limit immediately so you can keep transcribing straight away. Go to the Pricing or Plan & Usage page and choose a plan.
Wait for your cycle to reset, if the plan you are on has a recurring monthly allowance.

Starter’s allowance is a total, so if you need ongoing capacity, upgrading is the way forward.

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What happens when you hit your free-tier limit — YT Transcriber Knowledge Base