The Descript price history, and where the changes landed
Table of Contents
Descript’s plan prices on 5 September 2026 are $16, $24 and $50 per person a month on annual billing, unchanged since this site’s 3 September check. The movement is underneath. From 17 November 2025 Descript migrated its old plans onto two metered currencies, and it has changed what its own tools draw from them at least five times since, none of it on the pricing page.
Which price generation you are on
Descript has sold three plan structures, and which one your drive sits on decides how much of this history applies to you.
Descript names all three itself
Legacy and Sunset are Descript’s own labels for the two older structures, both measured in transcription hours. The checkout links on Descript’s pricing page label the products sold today as hobbyist_v3, creator_v3 and business_v3, retrieved 5 September 2026.
Where your generation is written down
Your plan name appears at the top of the Plan tab in App Settings, per Descript’s legacy and sunset plan guide retrieved 5 September 2026. Each drive carries its own subscription, so one account can hold two drives sitting on two different generations.
Why the price can move without the pricing page moving
A Descript bill runs on three currencies and only one of them is printed on the pricing page.
The plan fee is the part that stays still
💵 Verified: $16, $24 and $50 per person a month on annual billing for Hobbyist, Creator and Business; $24, $35 and $65 monthly — Descript’s pricing page, retrieved 5 September 2026.
That plan fee buys an allowance of media minutes and AI credits. The pillar prices what those allowances are worth: the extra costs behind each Descript pricing tier.
The meters are the part that moves
🔍 Why It Works This Way: A media minute is spent when you bring media in; an AI credit is spent when a tool runs. Change how many credits a tool spends, and the cost of the same month of work changes while the published fee stays identical. Descript records those changes on its changelog, not on its pricing page, so nothing a buyer checks before subscribing shows them.
Where a meter runs dry, the cash price of more capacity is set separately, and only Creator and Business can buy it — our sibling article prices every Descript top-up bundle.
Every documented change since the meters arrived
Eight changes are recorded on Descript’s own public pages between December 2025 and August 2026. All eight were verified 5 September 2026 against Descript’s changelog.
The record
| Date | What changed | Currency it moved | Who hits this | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Dec 2025 | YouTube import switched off | Feature withdrawn, fee unchanged | Anyone importing from YouTube | 5 Sept 2026 |
| 6 Jan 2026 | Underlord v2; Descript reports about 20% fewer credits to fully edit a video | AI credits, down | Underlord users | 5 Sept 2026 |
| 10 Feb 2026 | Avatar models priced apart: about 20, 67 and 138 credits a minute | AI credits, spread | Avatar users | 5 Sept 2026 |
| 2 Mar 2026 | Media Library added; library media drew media minutes on transcription | Media minutes | Teams reusing files | 5 Sept 2026 |
| 17 Mar 2026 | Reversed: an already-uploaded library file added to a project draws no extra minutes | Media minutes, down | Teams reusing files | 5 Sept 2026 |
| 16 Apr 2026 | Hedra Character 2 switched off; Kling becomes the default avatar model | AI credits, up | Avatar users | 5 Sept 2026 |
| 11 Jun 2026 | Business Control Room producer slots raised from 3 to 10 | Entitlement, up, fee unchanged | Business drives | 5 Sept 2026 |
| 5 Aug 2026 | Underlord’s per-turn thinking ceiling doubled from 100 to 200 credits | AI credits, up | Heavy Underlord users | 5 Sept 2026 |
🗓️ Pricing verified 5 September 2026. Software pricing changes frequently — confirm on the vendor’s site before purchasing.
The change that cost the most
⚠️ This Costs You: On 10 February 2026 Descript listed its default avatar model at about 20 credits a minute and Kling v2 at about 67. On 16 April 2026 it switched the default model off and made Kling the default. A minute of avatar video therefore moved from roughly 20 credits to roughly 67 — about 3.3 times — with no change to any plan fee. That multiplication is App Compare HQ’s, from two dated Descript changelog entries; Descript presents the two facts eight weeks apart and never together.
What the Legacy and Sunset migration took away
From 17 November 2025, Legacy and Sunset subscribers were migrated automatically on their next billing date, per Descript’s legacy and sunset plan guide retrieved 5 September 2026.
The vendor’s own position on price
Descript’s wording is that most customers would not see a price change, though some Legacy or Sunset prices could increase to match current pricing. It gives its reason on the same page: its costs and delivered value had risen and the older prices no longer covered them.
What the old structure actually held
| Plan | Transcription hours | AI allowance | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hobbyist, Legacy and Sunset | 10 per editor per month | 20 uses per month | 5 Sept 2026 |
| Creator, Legacy | 30 per editor per month | Unlimited uses | 5 Sept 2026 |
| Creator, Sunset | 30 per editor per month | 120 minutes text-to-speech, 100 Regenerate uses | 5 Sept 2026 |
| Business, Sunset | 40 per editor per month | 300 minutes text-to-speech | 5 Sept 2026 |
⚠️ This Costs You: Legacy and Sunset drives could buy extra transcription hours at $2 each, verified 5 September 2026. Those purchases were non-refundable, and unused hours did not carry over at migration. Anyone who stocked up before their billing date paid for capacity that was deleted on arrival.
What Descript has never published
Three figures are missing from this record, and the reason each is missing matters more than a guess would.
The date the current plans took effect
Descript states no changeover date on any page retrieved 5 September 2026. Its legacy and sunset guide carries one date, 17 November 2025, and that is the migration, not the launch. Several third-party sites report 23 September 2025; we have found no first-party page that says so and are not publishing it as fact.
The prices of the retired plans
We hold no archived capture of Descript’s pricing page from before the change, so this article publishes no pre-change figure. Independent sites report incompatible sets. Dated captures and exact figures go here when we have them.
Education, non-profit and Enterprise
Descript confirms a discounted education and non-profit rate and publishes no number for it. Enterprise has never carried a public figure. We are not estimating either one.
How to check where you stand
Two checks take a minute each and settle whether any of this affects your bill.
Read your plan tab, then your usage tab
✅ Do This: Open App Settings and read the plan name at the top of the Plan tab. If it says Legacy or Sunset, the migration has not reached your billing date yet and the table in the previous section is still what you are paying for. If it does not, you are on the current structure and the meters above are what moves your cost.
Watch the changelog, not the pricing page
Every change in the record above appeared on Descript’s changelog first and on its pricing page never. A buyer checking the pricing page quarterly would have seen nothing move in nine months. Run your own volume through both meters with our Subscription Cost Calculator, or take the 90-day price watch.
🧾 Not Tested: We did not open a Descript account, paid or free, and we hold no Legacy or Sunset subscription. That means we could not see a real invoice, a plan tab, or a credit balance before and after any change listed above. Every figure here comes from Descript’s public pricing page, help centre and changelog, captured 5 September 2026. The history is reconstructed from those dated pages, not observed as it happened.
Descript price history questions, answered
1. Has Descript raised its prices?
Its published plan fees have not moved across this site’s checks on 3, 4 and 5 September 2026. What its tools draw from the meters has.
2. When did Descript change its pricing model?
Descript publishes no changeover date. The earliest first-party date on the record is 17 November 2025, when migration began.
3. What is a Descript Legacy or Sunset plan?
Descript’s two older plan structures, measured in transcription hours. Both began migrating automatically from 17 November 2025.
4. Did my price change when I was migrated?
Descript’s wording is that most customers would not see a change, though some Legacy or Sunset prices could rise to match current pricing.
5. What happened to my unused transcription hours?
They did not carry over at migration, and the $2-an-hour purchases were non-refundable, per Descript’s legacy guide retrieved 5 September 2026.
6. Have Descript’s AI costs changed?
Yes, in both directions. Underlord got cheaper per edit in January 2026; the default avatar model got dearer in April 2026.
7. Do avatars cost more than they used to?
The default model moved from about 20 credits a minute to about 67 on 16 April 2026, per Descript’s changelog.
8. What did Descript’s old plans cost in dollars?
Descript publishes no figure for its retired plans and this article publishes none. Dated captures go here when we have them.
9. Where can I see Descript’s price changes myself?
Descript’s public changelog carries each dated entry. Its pricing page carries today’s figure with no history attached.
What the record shows
Nine months of documented change and not one of them appeared where a buyer would look for it. Descript’s plan fees have held across every check this site has made; the cost of using the plan has moved five times, in both directions, on a page most buyers never open.
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