Podcast editing tools now fall into two camps. Some edit by text: you delete a word in the transcript and the audio disappears. Others work as a finishing pass: you upload a file and get back leveled, denoised audio. Most lists mix the two and never say which job a tool does, which makes the prices hard to compare.
This page sorts six tools by what they do, puts the numbers side by side, and works out a cost per hour of audio where the pricing allows it. Every price and limit below comes from the vendor's own pricing page, read on September 26, 2026, with the page linked in each section. Prices change often, so check the page before you buy.
How we compared these. We read published pricing and feature pages. We did not run hands-on listening tests, so we say nothing about how good any tool sounds. Where a figure is an inference, such as a monthly price worked out from a stated yearly discount, we say so. We are building Episodemate, an assistant for podcasters that is not released yet, and we have no commercial relationship with any tool here.
6
tools compared, from a free filter to a full editor
$0.90
lowest cost per hour of cleanup (Cleanvoice, 100-hour plan)
$16
cheapest full editor: Descript Hobbyist, billed yearly
2 h
free processing a month at Auphonic
The short version
| Tool | Job it does | Free plan | Paid from (yearly billing where offered) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Descript | Edit audio and video by editing text | 60 media minutes a month | $16 a month |
| Riverside | Record remotely, then edit by text | 2 hours of multitrack recording, one time | $24 a month |
| Async (formerly Podcastle) | Record, edit and generate media in one suite | Small lifetime allowance | $11.99 a month |
| Auphonic | Automatic leveling and noise reduction | 2 hours of processing a month | $11 a month |
| Cleanvoice | Removes filler words, silences and mouth sounds | Free trial, no card | $11 for 10 hours a month |
| Adobe Podcast Enhance | Cleans up a voice recording | Free | See below |
What each tool does
A ✓ means the vendor's page lists the feature. A — means the page did not list it, which is not proof it is missing.
| Feature | Descript | Riverside | Async | Auphonic | Cleanvoice | Adobe Enhance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Remote recording | — | — | — | |||
| Edit audio by editing text | — | — | — | |||
| Noise reduction or cleanup | — | |||||
| Filler word removal | — | — | ||||
| Transcription | — | |||||
| Free plan or trial |
Descript: the editor that works on the transcript
Descript is the tool most people mean by "AI podcast editor." You load audio or video, it transcribes, and you edit the text. Its AI tools include Studio Sound, Remove Filler Words, Shorten Word Gaps, Add Chapters, and a set of writing tools that draft social posts, blog posts and show notes from a transcript.
The plans, per Descript's page, with the lower price of each pair applying when billed yearly:
| Plan | Yearly | Monthly | Media hours a month | AI credits a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 1 hour | 100, one time |
| Hobbyist | $16 | $24 | 10 | 400 |
| Creator | $24 | $35 | 30 | 800 |
| Business | $50 | $65 | 40 | 1,500 |
The page shows both prices under a Monthly and Annual toggle and says annual saves "up to 35%," so we read the lower figure as the yearly price. Descript counts uploaded and recorded media as media hours whether or not you transcribe it, and it counts AI features against a separate credit balance. That distinction matters for podcasters: a weekly hour-long show uses roughly four to five media hours a month before you re-upload anything.
Descript also records remote guests. The free plan includes 2 hours of recording sessions, Hobbyist 5 hours a month, Creator 15 and Business 25. Audio export length is unlimited on every plan, while video exports through a web link cap at 1 hour on Free and Hobbyist.
Watch for: the free plan exports at 720p and gives you only "limited" versions of most AI tools, so it is a trial and not a working setup for a weekly show. Credits can run out before media hours do if you lean on the AI tools.
Riverside: recording first, editing second
Riverside starts from the recording. It records a separate track for each participant, and then lets you edit by text.
| Plan | Yearly | Monthly | Separate-track recording a month | Transcription |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 2 hours, one time | Not stated |
| Pro | $24 | $29 | 5 hours | Unlimited |
| Grow | $34 | $39 | 15 hours | Unlimited |
Pro adds text-based editing, silence and filler-word removal, Magic Clips, AI-written show notes, and podcast hosting with publishing to multiple platforms. Grow adds social scheduling, AI thumbnails, a newsletter tool and an MCP connection for AI assistants. Riverside also lists a Webinar plan at $79 yearly and a Business plan priced by contacting sales.
Watch for: the 5 hours on Pro is recording time, and a show with long interviews and retakes can use it fast. The free tier's 2 hours is a one-time allowance, not a monthly one.
Async (formerly Podcastle): a wider creative suite
Podcastle rebranded as Async in January 2026, according to the company's announcement, and the old domain now redirects there. The product still records, edits, transcribes and hosts podcasts, and has added video, image, voice and music generation.
Async's pricing page lists these plans, with a "save 40% with yearly plans" banner. The prices below are the yearly rates.
| Plan | Yearly price a month | Audio transcription | Remote multitrack recording |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 2 hours, lifetime | 1 hour, lifetime |
| Essentials | $11.99 | 10 hours | 2 hours |
| Pro | $23.99 | 25 hours | 20 hours |
| Teams | $49.99 per creator | 100 hours | 50 hours |
Every paid tier includes AI audio enhancement (Magic Dust, noise reduction, silence removal) and cloud storage that podcast publishing draws from. Most of the credit table on the page covers video and image generation, which a podcaster who only makes audio will not use.
Watch for: the plans are built around AI credits shared across audio, video and image work. If you only need an audio editor, you are paying for a suite. From the yearly discount of 40%, the Essentials monthly price works out to about $20, which is our arithmetic and not a price the page states.
Auphonic: a finishing pass, priced by the hour
Auphonic is the simplest model here. You upload a finished mix, and it applies an intelligent leveler, noise and reverb reduction, loudness targets, and filler and silence cutting. Its free plan processes 2 hours of audio a month, and free productions carry an Auphonic jingle.
Its paid plans are credit buckets. On the yearly setting, with dollar prices:
| Recurring plan | Hours a month | Price a month | Cost per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | 9 | $11 | $1.22 |
| M | 21 | $25 | $1.19 |
| L | 45 | $52 | $1.16 |
| XL | 100 | $113 | $1.13 |
| XXL | 250 | $245 | $0.98 |
You can also buy one-time credits that never expire, from $12 for 5 hours ($2.40 an hour) to $171 for 100 hours ($1.71 an hour). Multilingual speech recognition and automatic show notes and chapters are paid-plan features, and they are not in the free tier.
Watch for: Auphonic does not give you a timeline to cut a bad take. It is the last step before publishing, so you still need an editor for content changes.
Cleanvoice: fillers and mouth sounds, cheap
Cleanvoice removes filler words, silences, stutters, mouth sounds and breath sounds automatically. It also lists transcription and summaries.
| Model | Price | Cost per hour |
|---|---|---|
| Pay as you go | $11 for 5 hours | $2.20 |
| Pay as you go | $45 for 30 hours | $1.50 |
| Monthly | $11 for 10 hours | $1.10 |
| Monthly | $30 for 30 hours | $1.00 |
| Monthly | $90 for 100 hours | $0.90 |
Credits roll over, up to three times your plan limit on subscriptions, and there is a free trial with no card. It is the cheapest per hour of the paid options here for a single-purpose cleanup.
Watch for: like Auphonic, it is a processor and not an editor. Automatic filler removal also cuts words the host meant, so listen before you publish.
Cost per hour of audio cleanup
Processors priced by the hour, at full use of each plan
- Cleanvoice, 100 h plan$0.90
- Cleanvoice, 30 h plan$1.00
- Cleanvoice, 10 h plan$1.10
- Auphonic XL, 100 h$1.13
- Auphonic L, 45 h$1.16
- Auphonic M, 21 h$1.19
- Auphonic S, 9 h$1.22
- Cleanvoice pay as you go$1.50
Our arithmetic from vendor pricing pages, September 26, 2026. Auphonic on yearly billing.
Adobe Podcast Enhance: the free voice filter
Adobe Podcast's Enhance Speech describes itself as a free AI filter for cleaning up spoken audio. Adobe's page gives no limits, but third-party reviews from 2026, such as The Podcast Consultant's guide, report a 30-minute, 500 MB cap per file and about an hour of processing a day on the free tier, with a Premium plan at $9.99 a month. Treat those numbers as reported, not confirmed, and check Adobe's site.
Watch for: it aims to make a bad recording sound better. A clean studio recording may need nothing from it, and heavy processing can leave voices sounding thin.
Which one should you pick?
| If you... | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Edit a weekly show and want to cut by reading | Descript | Text editing, filler removal and chapters in one place, from $16 a month yearly |
| Record remote guests every week | Riverside | Local separate tracks, unlimited transcription and hosting in one plan |
| Only need clean, level audio | Auphonic or Cleanvoice | Priced by the hour, about $1 an hour |
| Have a tight budget | Adobe Enhance plus Auphonic free | Both have free tiers, with the limits above |
| Want audio, video and generated media in one place | Async | Broadest suite, but credit-based |
If you are choosing between the two most common picks, our Descript vs Riverside comparison goes deeper. For the wider picture, see the full list of AI tools for podcasters by job.
Questions people ask
What is the best free AI podcast editor? No free plan covers a weekly show completely. Descript's free plan gives 60 media minutes a month, Auphonic processes 2 hours a month with a jingle, and Adobe Enhance is free with reported daily limits. Combining a free editor with a free cleanup tool gets you furthest.
Can AI edit a podcast without me listening? It can remove fillers and silences and level the volume automatically. It cannot judge which tangent to cut or fix a wrong fact, so plan on at least one listen.
Do I need an editor if I already record in Riverside? Riverside includes text-based editing and filler removal on Pro, so you may not. Some hosts still run the final mix through a processor for loudness targets, and Auphonic lists loudness specifications as a core feature.
Where do show notes fit in? Descript and Riverside both draft them from the transcript. We compare the dedicated options in our show notes tools guide.