You have a phone interview recorded in a loud room, a deadline today, and a free noise removal tool open in a browser tab. Before you judge how well it cleans anything, there is a plainer question: will it accept your file, and how much of this month’s free allowance will it burn? For free plans the cap decides the outcome, and one interview can use most or all of a month.
The recording that needs fixing today
This post works from an assumption, not data. Picture a phone interview of 45 minutes, saved as a single file. To let you scale the arithmetic, a second case of 20 minutes runs alongside it. Neither is typical or average. They are round numbers for easy checking.
Three limits decide whether a free tool takes that file. The first is per-file: a ceiling on length or on file size. The second is monthly minutes: the allowance that every upload draws down. The third is export restrictions: what you get back, and whether it carries anything you did not ask for. A tool can pass on one and fail on another.
What each vendor publishes for free, as of the verification date
Everything below was read from the vendor’s own page on 2026-10-13.
| Tool | Free monthly allowance | Per-file ceiling | Output restrictions | Where audio is processed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auphonic (pricing page) | 2 hours of processed audio per month. Free credits do not stack up if unused. | Not read on the pricing page | Productions of free users come with a jingle | The pages read do not state it |
| Descript (pricing page) | 60 minutes (1 hr) per month of media minutes, per editor. AI credits on Free: 100, one-time. | Media file uploads up to 1 GB | Studio Sound is listed as Limited. Local video export on Free is 720p. Watermark-free video export is listed as Not included. Audio export duration is listed as Unlimited. | The pricing page does not state it |
Adobe Enhance Speech was not included because its limits could not be read from its own pages. For Descript, the Free column is the first of four on the plan comparison, ahead of Hobbyist, Creator and Business, which is how the 60 minute, 1 GB, 720p and 100 credit figures were assigned to it.
Two Descript details matter for a cleanup job. First, AI credits are separate from media minutes. The pricing FAQ says AI credits track usage of AI features including Studio Sound, and the Free column lists 100 AI credits, one-time, not monthly. The paid columns list 400, 800 and 1500 per month. Second, Studio Sound is marked Limited on Free, and the page does not say in readable text what the limit is, so this post does not guess at it. On export, the comparison row for watermark-free video export reads Not included on Free and Included on Hobbyist, Creator and Business, so Free video exports are not listed as watermark-free. The page does not describe the mark or say whether an audio-only export carries one. Audio export duration is Unlimited on Free.
Auphonic publishes more structure around its free tier. It also sells recurring and one-time credits. The one-time 5 hour package is priced at $12 and one-time credits never expire. The page says one-time credits are used after recurring credits but before free credits. The smallest recurring tier is 9 hours per month at $13 on the monthly billing rows, up to a 250 hour tier. The page did not state a per-file or per-production length cap for the free tier, so none is claimed here.
Converting each cap into recordings covered
The arithmetic is division, using the stated assumptions of 45 and 20 minutes.
- Auphonic: 2 hours is 120 minutes. 120 divided by 45 is 2 full interviews, with 30 minutes left. 120 divided by 20 is 6 interviews, with nothing left.
- Descript: 60 minutes. 60 divided by 45 is 1 interview, with 15 minutes left. 60 divided by 20 is 3 interviews, with nothing left.
The headline comparison is therefore 60 minutes against 120, and for the 45 minute case that is one interview against two. Neither leftover covers a second 45 minute file.
The units are not identical. Auphonic’s page counts processed audio. Descript’s pricing page defines media minutes as the minutes of imported or recorded media processed in Descript, and its FAQ says media hours track uploaded files and media recorded in Descript. Neither page says what happens when the same file is cleaned twice or imported again, so that is a question to check before you try a second pass.
As for leftovers, Auphonic states that free credits do not stack up if you do not use them. This post did not read a rollover statement on the Descript pricing page, so it makes no claim either way.
Where a free plan quietly fails the file
There are three failure points, and you meet them in this order.
First, size, at upload. Descript lists media file uploads up to 1 GB on Free. A phone video file is large compared with an audio file of the same duration, so a long video interview can hit a size ceiling before it touches a minutes ceiling. No size figure is given because none was sourced. Look at the file’s size in your phone’s file manager, and compare it with 1 GB directly. If the file is too big, see free plans for large file handoff.
Second, minutes, mid-batch. With three interviews to clean, the allowance can run out on the second or third. Do the division for the whole batch before you start.
Third, the output itself. The Auphonic pricing page states that productions of free users come with a jingle, and its feature comparison marks the jingle row Yes under Free and No under the other two columns. A cleaned file with a jingle on it may be unusable for the thing you were making. That is a fact about the output you receive, not a judgment on the cleanup.
On what a paid tier changes, using only published numbers: Descript’s Hobbyist column lists 600 minutes (10 hrs) per month, uploads up to 10 GB and 400 AI credits per month, and its plan cards describe Hobbyist, Creator and Business exports as watermark-free. The same row reads Not included on Free. Auphonic’s comparison table lists the jingle as not included on its non-free columns. This is a description of the pages, not a suggestion to buy anything.
A same-day checklist before you upload
- Read the file’s duration and its size in megabytes or gigabytes on your phone, before opening any tool.
- Subtract the minutes you have already used this month from the allowance, then compare the remainder against the table above.
- Check the size against any per-file ceiling, such as Descript’s 1 GB on Free.
- Check whether the free output is watermarked or carries a jingle, using the vendor’s own page and not a forum thread.
- Keep the untouched original, and upload a copy.
One observation from the writer, not from any vendor page: noise reduction works on what was captured. If a voice was drowned out at the moment of recording, no cleanup setting will put the words back, so the check that matters most happens in the room, before the next interview. If your next step is text, what a finished minute of transcription costs uses the same unit. And if the cleaned file becomes an episode, see podcast hosting plans.
What this post does not cover
Prices and limits were verified on 2026-10-13 from each vendor’s own page. This post is not Watchdog data and is not on the re-verification schedule, so a figure here can go stale without being updated. It does not rank the tools, and it does not assess the quality of any tool’s cleanup. No listening tests were run. It reports published limits only. followedapp is published by the team behind RecurPost.
FAQ
How many hours of audio can I clean for free each month?
On 2026-10-13, Auphonic’s pricing page publishes 2 hours of processed audio per month on its free plan, and Descript’s pricing page publishes 60 minutes (1 hr) of media minutes per month per editor on Free. Both figures can change, so check the linked pages before you rely on them.
Do unused free minutes roll over?
Auphonic’s pricing page says free credits do not stack up if you do not use them. The Descript pricing page text read for this post does not state a rollover rule for media minutes, so this post makes no claim.
Will the free version put a mark on my audio?
Auphonic’s pricing page states that productions of free users come with a jingle. For Descript, the pricing page lists watermark-free video export as Not included on Free, which means free video exports are not listed as watermark-free; it does not say whether an audio-only export is marked. Adobe is not covered, so this post makes no claim for it.
Is my recording uploaded to the vendor’s servers?
The Auphonic pricing page, the Auphonic web help page and the Descript pricing page read for this post do not say whether audio is processed on device or uploaded. Read each vendor’s privacy terms before you upload a private interview.
Sources
- Auphonic pricing, fetched 2026-10-13, HTTP 200
- Descript pricing, fetched 2026-10-13, HTTP 200
- Auphonic web help, fetched 2026-10-13, HTTP 200, no processing location statement found