Speech-to-Text APIs
How do we buy Gladia via AWS Marketplace, and what do we need for procurement/security approval?
7 min read
Most teams don’t get blocked on the Gladia API itself. They get blocked on “How do we actually buy this through AWS Marketplace, and what will procurement and security need to sign off?” This FAQ walks through both the commercial path and the approval path so you can move from trial to production without surprises.
Quick Answer: You can purchase Gladia directly via AWS Marketplace using your existing AWS billing and procurement workflows, and you’ll typically need a basic security & compliance review (GDPR/HIPAA/SOC 2/ISO 27001), plus confirmation of hosting model and data-handling for your internal approval.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do we buy Gladia via AWS Marketplace in practice?
Short Answer: You locate Gladia on AWS Marketplace, choose the plan that matches your expected usage, and subscribe under your AWS account so billing flows through your existing AWS invoice.
Expanded Explanation:
Buying via AWS Marketplace keeps Gladia inside your existing cloud and procurement perimeter. Instead of creating a net-new vendor in your ERP, your finance and procurement teams see Gladia as just another AWS line item, with consolidated invoicing and your usual PO / cost-center routing.
Operationally, you still integrate Gladia via the same developer-first API (REST or WebSocket). AWS Marketplace simply becomes the commercial wrapper around your usage. If you’re already running telephony, data pipelines, or AI workloads on AWS, this route usually passes through internal approvals faster because it piggybacks on your existing AWS vendor relationship.
Key Takeaways:
- You subscribe to Gladia through AWS Marketplace and pay via your standard AWS bill.
- The integration surface stays the same: one API for real-time and batch STT plus add-ons.
What’s the step-by-step process to purchase through AWS Marketplace?
Short Answer: Sign in to AWS, find Gladia on AWS Marketplace, pick a plan, confirm terms, subscribe, then plug the subscription into your Gladia account and start sending audio.
Expanded Explanation:
From your side, the process looks like onboarding any other SaaS via AWS Marketplace: search, subscribe, accept terms, and route the subscription to the right AWS account and cost center. Once the subscription is active, your developers either create or connect an existing Gladia account, generate an API key, and begin integrating.
Behind the scenes, usage metering and billing data flow back to AWS on a schedule. Your finance team doesn’t have to reconcile a separate invoice, and your procurement team gets the audit trail they expect from cloud-native purchases.
Steps:
- Sign in to AWS Marketplace: Use the AWS account that should own the subscription (often the same account that pays for your telephony or data platform workloads).
- Locate Gladia and select a plan: Choose the pricing tier that matches your projected transcription hours (real-time, batch, or mixed). Confirm region and any internal tags/cost-center metadata.
- Subscribe and connect to Gladia: Accept the AWS Marketplace terms, then either create a new Gladia account or map the subscription to an existing one. Generate your API key from the Gladia console and proceed with integration over REST/WebSocket.
How is buying via AWS Marketplace different from buying directly from Gladia?
Short Answer: The product and API are the same; the main difference is commercial and operational—AWS Marketplace centralizes billing and procurement, while direct purchase gives you a standalone contract and invoice with Gladia.
Expanded Explanation:
From an engineering perspective, there’s no “Marketplace version” of the API. You get the same Solaria-based STT engine, the same latency profile (<300 ms real-time, partial transcripts in <100 ms), the same multilingual coverage (~100+ languages), and the same add-ons (diarization, NER, sentiment, summarization).
The choice is mostly about how your organization wants to pay and govern vendors. AWS Marketplace often shortens legal and procurement cycles because the MSA-like foundations are already in place with AWS, and your finance team is used to treating Marketplace purchases as part of the cloud budget. Direct purchase can make sense if you need more tailored commercial terms or want Gladia as a fully separate vendor record.
Comparison Snapshot:
- Option A: AWS Marketplace: Centralized billing through AWS, leverages existing AWS approvals, fits cloud budget workflows.
- Option B: Direct from Gladia: Separate contract and invoicing, sometimes more flexible commercial customization depending on scale.
- Best for: Teams that want to avoid a new vendor onboarding cycle typically prefer AWS Marketplace; teams negotiating large-scale, multi-year deals sometimes go direct.
What do procurement and security usually need to approve Gladia?
Short Answer: They typically need confirmation of Gladia’s compliance posture (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001), hosting model (cloud / region / on-prem options), and data-handling (retention, training usage, access controls).
Expanded Explanation:
Most procurement and security reviews for Gladia hinge on one concern: “We’re sending customer conversations off the wire—how safe is that?” The answer needs to be specific, not aspirational. Gladia runs on industry-leading cloud infrastructure, uses daily automated and annual third‑party penetration testing, and is compliant with GDPR, HIPAA, AICPA SOC Type 2, and ISO 27001.
For audio and transcripts, Gladia operates with a strict privacy posture: data privacy is treated as non-negotiable, and customer audio is not used to retrain Gladia’s models. For organizations with higher sensitivity (healthcare, financial services, public sector), Gladia can support customized hosting options beyond the default shared cloud environment, including on‑premises and air‑gapped deployments aligned to your geographical footprint and regulatory needs.
What You Need:
- Security & compliance docs:
- Confirmation of GDPR, HIPAA, AICPA SOC Type 2, and ISO 27001 compliance.
- Details on infrastructure (cloud-only, no self-hosted routers or physical servers) and penetration testing (daily automated + yearly external tests).
- Data-handling & hosting details:
- Clarification that audio is not used for model retraining, plus retention and access controls.
- Hosting model options: default cloud, region customization, and availability of on‑premises or air‑gapped hosting if required.
How does buying via AWS Marketplace affect our internal procurement and security workflows?
Short Answer: Marketplace usually simplifies procurement because Gladia rides on your existing AWS vendor framework, but your security team will still perform a focused review of data flows, compliance, and hosting.
Expanded Explanation:
For procurement, AWS Marketplace often changes the question from “Can we onboard Gladia as a new vendor?” to “Can we approve this new Marketplace listing under our AWS umbrella?” That’s a shorter path. Your finance team keeps one invoice, one payment method, and one set of spend controls via AWS.
Your security and privacy teams will still want to understand how audio moves between your stack, AWS, and Gladia: what regions are used, whether data leaves the EU/US, how long transcripts are retained, and whether they can be purged on demand. Because Gladia is already operating within a cloud-native, compliance-audited environment, those questions can usually be answered with standard documentation and a clear architecture diagram.
Why It Matters:
- Faster approvals: Using AWS Marketplace aligns Gladia to a procurement pattern your organization already trusts, reducing friction around vendor onboarding and contract review.
- Clear risk framing: A well-documented security posture (GDPR/HIPAA/SOC 2/ISO 27001, daily pen‑tests, cloud‑only infrastructure) makes it easier for security to sign off on sending sensitive audio without slowing down the project.
Quick Recap
You buy Gladia via AWS Marketplace by subscribing under your AWS account, mapping that subscription to your Gladia tenant, and integrating the same developer-first API (REST/WebSocket) you’d use if you purchased directly. For procurement and security approval, you’ll want to surface Gladia’s concrete controls—cloud-native infrastructure, daily and annual penetration testing, GDPR/HIPAA/SOC 2/ISO 27001 compliance, strict data-privacy posture, and flexible hosting options (including on-premises and air-gapped when needed)—so stakeholders can see exactly how audio and transcripts are protected.