Cockatoo
AI platform that turns audio and video into text across 90+ languages, then translates, subtitles and summarizes it. Aimed at journalists, researchers, podcasters and teams. Permanent free plan; Pro from USD 11.99 per month billed annually.
What is Cockatoo?
Cockatoo is an AI transcription and translation platform built by Cockatoo Inc., a company founded in 2023 and headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. Its job is narrow and clearly stated: turn recorded speech into usable text. You upload an audio or video file - the site says all audio and video types are supported, listing MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC, OGG and AAC alongside MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV and WebM - and the service returns a transcript you can read, correct and export.
The headline figures are vendor claims, not independent measurements. The homepage advertises up to 99.8% accuracy, describing it as surpassing human performance, while the features page adds a 95% accuracy quality guarantee. Speed is stated two incompatible ways on the same site: the homepage promises one hour of audio in two to three minutes, roughly 30x faster than doing it yourself, whereas the features page promises up to 50X human speed, one hour in five minutes. Language coverage is given as 90+ languages, with 95 actually named on the support site and a published per-language ranking that puts English, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Italian in the top band, at 96-99.7%.
The product comes in four blocks: AI Transcription; AI Translation for documents (PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, TXT) and for transcripts; Cockatoo Drive for encrypted cloud storage; and a Voice Notes app on iOS, with an AI notes and writing editor on top. Transcription adds speaker identification, punctuation and capitalization, word-level timestamps and subtitle export.
Cockatoo addresses content creators, businesses, journalists, researchers and individuals, and names use cases from podcast show notes and interview or meeting transcription to legal, medical and academic work, subtitling and accessibility compliance. The company states that it runs its own AI on its own servers rather than sending files to a third party, and cites AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit and, in one help article, SOC 2 Type II compliance. It says it earns money from subscriptions alone, claims ownership independent of Big Tech and venture capital, and reports more than one million users. Availability is web and iOS only: no Android app, and no public API documentation.
What it does
- Transcribe an audio or video file into text in more than 90 languages
- Translate documents (PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, TXT), audio, video and existing transcripts
- Generate SRT or VTT subtitles for a video
- Identify and label the speakers in a recording automatically
- Summarize a transcript in one click with AI Summaries
- Correct the transcript in a browser editor, then export it to TXT, DOCX, PDF or SRT
- Store, organize and share files in Cockatoo Drive, with folders, permissions and expiring links
When to use Cockatoo / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Cockatoo is the right fit.
When to use Cockatoo
- Documentary and video producers who still transcribe interviews by hand: one homepage testimonial comes from exactly that job.
- Journalists and academic researchers who need written records of interviews, lectures and field recordings, including in languages other than English.
- Podcasters and content creators repurposing episodes into show notes, articles and searchable text, with one-click AI summaries.
- Video editors and accessibility staff producing SRT or VTT subtitles, with word-level timestamps and automatic speaker labels.
- Small teams of three people or more that share, edit and store transcripts together, with 2 TB per person and centralized billing.
When not to use Cockatoo
- Developers who want to embed transcription in their own product: no public API documentation exists, and API access appears only as a negotiated enterprise option.
- Android users: Cockatoo ships as a web app and an iOS app, with no Google Play listing found.
- European organizations with strict GDPR procurement: no data processing agreement, no dedicated subprocessor list, no Article 27 representative, and hosting in the United States with no EU residency option.
- Anyone who needs live transcription of a meeting as it happens: Cockatoo processes files you upload rather than listening in real time.
- Buyers who require a written commitment that their recordings will never feed model training: the vendor does not state its position, and no opt-out is documented.
How to use Cockatoo
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create an account from the site; no credit card is requested for the free plan
- Drag and drop your audio or video file into the upload area, with no transcoding or audio extraction to do beforehand
- Or import a file through a Dropbox or YouTube share link
- Choose the transcription language
- Wait for the transcript: the homepage quotes two to three minutes for one hour of audio
- Read through and correct the text in the built-in browser editor
- Generate a one-click AI summary if you need a condensed version
- Translate the transcript, or a separate document, into another language
- Export to TXT, DOCX, PDF or SRT
- Keep the files in Cockatoo Drive, organized in folders and shared with password protection and link expiry; upgrade to Pro to lift the quotas, and cancel at any time from the billing settings
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Accuracy claimed up to 99.8% and, unusually, backed by a quantified 95% quality guarantee
- Fast turnaround: the homepage quotes one hour of audio transcribed in two to three minutes
- Broad language coverage, with 95 languages named and a public per-language accuracy ranking rather than a bare count
- Unlimited transcription on Pro, with no per-minute metering
- Permanent free plan with no credit card, and a low paid entry point at USD 11.99 per month billed annually
- Subscription-only model with no advertising, ownership claimed independent of Big Tech and venture capital, and the AI engine said to run on Cockatoo's own servers rather than a third party's
- Complete chain in one place - upload, transcribe, edit, summarize, translate, export, store - with many input and output formats and no transcoding required
Cons
- No public API documentation: none of the 1,910 URLs in the two sitemaps carries one, while the support FAQ advertises API access as part of the enterprise offer
- No Android app; web and iOS only
- The free plan allowance is published three incompatible ways: three transcripts per day on the homepage, 30 minutes of audio per month in the free-tier help article, and 25 minutes per month in the page markup
- Speed is also advertised two ways: 30x and one hour in two to three minutes on the homepage, 50X and one hour in five minutes on the features page
- Thin compliance paperwork: no DPA, no dedicated subprocessor list, no Article 27 EU representative, and a single 'SOC 2 Type II compliance' mention inside a storage help article, with no trust page and no report to read
- Data hosted and processed in the United States only, with no EU residency option; the vendor states no position on whether customer data trains models, and documents no opt-out
- Terms written in the vendor's favor: payments non-refundable except where the law requires, mandatory arbitration under Delaware law with a 30-day opt-out, a rate-limiting clause on plans sold as unlimited, email-only support with live chat 'coming soon', and a private-mailbox address rather than identifiable offices
Pricing & Plans
A permanent free plan is available and requires no credit card. The lowest paid entry point is Cockatoo Pro at USD 11.99 per month when billed annually, that is USD 143.88 per year, advertised as a 60% saving; the same plan is USD 29.99 per month without annual commitment. At the time of review the pricing page was running a 'SUMMER SALE - Save 60% on Cockatoo Pro annual' promotion.
- 90+ languages
- document translation (PDF
- DOCX
- PPTX
- XLSX
- TXT)
- AI Notes
- 2 GB of encrypted storage
- everything in Free plus unlimited usage
- unlimited transcription
- unlimited translations
- 2 TB of encrypted storage
- unlimited transfers
- export to PDF
- DOCX
- TXT and subtitles
- everything in Pro plus 2 TB per person
- team sharing and editing of transcripts
- priority customer support and centralized billing. The site does not spell out whether these amounts are per person or for the three-person minimum
- and it calls this tier 'Team' on the pricing page but 'Business' in its FAQ and help articles.
- API access
- white labeling
- advanced security and compliance
- bulk processing
- a dedicated account manager and an SLA.
- payments are handled by Stripe (Visa
- Mastercard
- Amex
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- and bank transfer for enterprise accounts)
- and the announced support response times are 48 hours on Free
- 24 hours on Pro
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Cockatoo handles your data.
GDPR overview
The privacy policy, last updated on 30 April 2025, carries a section headed 'Additional Disclosures for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance (EU)'. Cockatoo Inc. declares itself a Data Controller and names four legal bases: consent, performance of a contract, legitimate interests and legal obligation. Parental consent is required below the age of 16 where processing rests on consent. Transfers outside the EEA are said to rely on European Commission standard contractual clauses, binding internal rules or another lawful mechanism. Rights listed: access, rectification, restriction, objection, portability (CSV or readable format) and erasure, with personal data deleted within 30 days of account closure, plus a described route to a supervisory authority. Missing: no Article 27 EU representative, no named DPO, no published DPA, no dedicated subprocessor list, and no stated position on whether customer data trains models. Browser Do Not Track signals are not honored.
Who owns the data?
Cockatoo's terms state that you keep all ownership rights to the files you upload and to the output produced; the company claims neither. You grant it a limited license to store, process and analyze your data solely to provide the service, and to maintain it, improve and optimize it, and meet legal obligations. Cockatoo Inc. acts as data controller. Its privacy policy lists hosting, cloud and IT providers, authorities on lawful request, affiliates, a successor in a sale and enterprise account administrators as possible recipients, and names Google Analytics and Stripe. Help articles say only a small number of support engineers may view files, with your permission, for troubleshooting. The vendor never states whether that data feeds model training.
Reuse rights
You own the output and can reuse it without asking Cockatoo for permission. The terms attach caveats: output may not be unique and other users may receive something similar, so the rights granted to you do not extend to other users' output or to third-party content. You are expected to assess accuracy before using or sharing a transcript, and human review is recommended. Output relating to a person must not be used for decisions with a legal or material impact on them, such as credit, education, employment, housing, insurance, legal or medical decisions. Using the service to build systems that compete with Cockatoo Inc. is prohibited, and the site's own materials and interface remain the company's property, licensed only as a single copy for personal, non-commercial use.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
The privacy policy states that the personal information Cockatoo collects is stored and/or processed in United States, or where we or our partners, affiliates, and third-party providers maintain facilities. No other hosting country or region is named, and no hosting provider is disclosed. Transfers out of the EEA are said to rely on European Commission standard contractual clauses, binding internal rules or another legally accepted mechanism. Help articles describe files as encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.3 in transit, mention a 'zero-knowledge architecture' and refer to SOC 2 Type II compliance, and the company states that transcription runs on its own servers rather than being sent to a third party. Independently of the site, the domain's A record (76.76.21.21) geolocates to the United States on an Amazon network, but that address is anycast - a CDN edge, not evidence of where files are stored. Three things are absent: any published DPA, a dedicated subprocessor list (the privacy policy names only Google Analytics and Stripe, with the non-exhaustive wording 'include'), and any EU data residency option.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Cockatoo.
- Trusting the advertised accuracy blindly: the terms require you to assess accuracy yourself, recommend human review, and forbid using output for decisions with a legal or material impact on a person.
- Uploading recordings of other people - interview subjects, patients, clients - presumes their consent; that responsibility stays with you, not with the vendor.
- Putting sensitive material through a service whose position on model training is unstated and offers no opt-out, while its privacy policy allows data to be used to improve and develop the services and to conduct research.
- No DPA and no subprocessor list: for a European controller, processing personal data here stays legally exposed, and every file travels to the United States with no EU residency option.
- The advertised 'zero-knowledge architecture' is contradicted by the security article's own admission that a small number of support engineers can view your files with your permission: read it as marketing language, not a technical guarantee.
- Skill erosion: delegating every transcript can dull note-taking and active-listening habits, and errors on strong accents or poor audio propagate unchecked into published documents.
- Limited recourse and vendor risk: payments are non-refundable, arbitration is mandatory with a short opt-out window, and the company is young (2023), small, and reports no funding round.
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Very low. Cockatoo is a web app: nothing to install, sign-up by email, no credit card for the free plan. Files are added by drag and drop, with no transcoding and no audio extraction to do yourself, and the site describes a three-step path - upload, transcribe, export - behind what it calls a drag-and-drop interface with no learning curve. With no API to integrate, no development work is involved. The only settings are the transcription language, the export format, and folder organization and sharing permissions. An iOS app is available for capturing voice notes.
Deployment
Apps stores
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind Cockatoo
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Which file formats can Cockatoo transcribe?
How accurate is the transcription?
How many languages are covered?
How long does one hour of audio take?
Is there a free plan, and what does it include?
What do the paid plans cost?
Can I correct the transcript and export it?
How is my data secured, and where is it stored?
Are my files used to train AI models?
Is there a mobile app or an API?
Should you pick Cockatoo?
Cockatoo does one thing and defines it clearly: it turns recorded speech into text, then lets you edit, summarize, translate, subtitle and store it. There is no pretence of being a general-purpose assistant, and the chain is complete enough that most jobs never leave the tool.
Its strongest arguments are an accuracy claimed up to 99.8% with a quantified 95% guarantee, fast turnaround, 95 named languages with a published per-language ranking, and unlimited transcription from USD 11.99 per month on annual billing. Cockatoo also builds its pitch on confidentiality: the AI engine is said to run on the company's own servers, data is not resold, ownership is claimed independent of Big Tech and venture capital, and there is no advertising.
The reservations are just as concrete. No public API documentation, no Android app. The free plan's allowance is published three incompatible ways - three transcripts per day, 30 minutes a month, 25 minutes a month - and the speed claim exists in two versions, 30x and 50X. On compliance there is no DPA, no dedicated subprocessor list and no Article 27 EU representative; the SOC 2 Type II mention sits in a single storage help article with no report or trust page; hosting is United States only. The vendor never states whether customer data is used to train models, which weighs on legal, medical and confidential interview material. The contract is written in the vendor's favor: no refunds, mandatory arbitration, and a rate-limiting clause on plans sold as unlimited.
Founded in 2023 and based in Scottsdale, Arizona, Cockatoo reports more than one million users. For individual creators and small teams transcribing their own material, it is a fast and inexpensive option. Regulated buyers and developers should weigh the gaps above first.
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