Whether you have audio files to transcribe daily or only occasionally need a recording turned into text, our list of the top transcription services will help you pick the right one.
People need audio files transcribed for a variety of reasons. Whether you’re a legal professional who relies on having recorded depositions turned into text, or a journalist looking to pull that perfect quote from a long interview, you need accurate audio transcription. Previously, the act of taking recorded speech and turning it into text was tedious and done only manually. Technology is changing things. In the last decade, the transcription services market has exploded with a variety of companies that provide both automated and human-created transcriptions.
Human-generated transcription means a human worker listens to an audio recording and manually types what they hear. Automated transcripts come from a machine doing the job instead. Both have their pros and cons. Here we list the best transcription services we found based on our hands-on testing. Read on after the list to find more information on what to look for in a transcription service, the difference between automated and human transcription, and other details you should know about transcription services.
Automated vs. Human Transcriptions: What’s the Difference?
Automated transcription services use automatic speech recognition to transcribe an audio file into text. Two primary benefits of using automation are it’s fast and it’s cheap.
Services that offer automated transcription sometimes include extra features that may not be free in a human-generated transcript, such as time stamps and basic speaker identification (for example, Speaker 1, Speaker 2). The downside of automated services is that they are far less accurate than when a human does the job.
Automated transcription services often include access to document editing software which allows you to clean up the text. If you see an error in the document, click on the time-stamped section to listen to the words, and transcribe that portion on your own.
Rev, Otter, Scribie, TranscribeMe, Trint, and Temi (which didn’t score high enough to be included in this list of the best transcription services) all offer automated transcription services. Rev, Scribie, and TranscribeMe also offer human-powered services.
Human-generated transcription services, by contrast, use trained transcriptionists, often more than one, to complete the work. Transcriptions made by humans are highly accurate, but they’re also pricier and typically require a longer turnaround time, although often you have the option to pay extra for a quicker turnaround time. When you choose human-generated transcripts, you can sometimes pay to get a transcriptionist who’s educated in a particular industry’s jargon, such as legal or medical terms.
