The best transcription software in 2024

Getting spoken words converted into written text can be hugely valuable for your charity. For example, a webinar presentation given by one of your charity’s leaders, once transcribed, could become content for your charity’s website.

 

An interview with someone important to your charity could form the basis of a newsletter. Or a spoken testimonial from one of your service users could become part of a printed  fundraising campaign or used internally to improve the service you provide in the future.

 

And don’t forget that once spoken words have been transcribed into text and put online, they are easily searchable and more readily found by service users, potential donors, staff, volunteers, and other constituents. They are also accessible to people with hearing impairments.

 

So how do you go about transcribing audio or video recordings of spoken words?

 

 

Human transcription

 

Traditionally this would be done by a human - often one who specialised in your area of activities and who would be familiar with any technical terms, abbreviations and jargon that may crop up. The benefits of human transcription are that it is usually very accurate, and may need little or no editing and correcting after transcription.

 

But there are a number of drawbacks to human transcription: it tends to be expensive, but it can be time consuming and if the material is of a particularly sensitive nature then there can be privacy issues as well.

 

 

Transcription software

 

The alternative is to use automated transcription software. This uses modern speech recognition techniques, which often involve artificial intelligence and machine learning, to produce transcriptions of audio or video files.

 

These transcriptions tend to be accurate, although usually not as accurate as a human transcription. That means that the results may have to be reviewed by a human to spot and correct any errors – especially when industry jargon or unusual names have been used.

 

There are a number of benefits of using automated transcription software: it can carry out tasks with lightning speed, the cost can be far less than using a human, and privacy issues can be avoided at a stroke. It can also offer extra features.

 

One is the ability to time stamp the transcription so that particular comments can easily be found in the original audio or video recordings in case review or correction is required.  

 

Another is the ability to identify different speakers – the software won’t know their names, but can mark different voices as Speaker 1, Speaker 2, and so on. These features may be offered by human transcription services, but often at extra cost.  

 

 

The best transcription software services available today

 

 

Trint

 

Trint is an AI-powered automated transcription quickly converts your audio and video files to text, making them as editable, searchable and collaborative as a Word doc. The software produces a 99% accurate automated transcription, which can then be edited and corrected. You can then add speaker names or custom vocabulary.  

 

Pricing: £60 per user per month for unlimited transcriptions and translations.

 

 

Descript

 

Descript Offers automatic transcription with near-instant turnaround. For higher accuracy, Descript offers a “White Glove” service enhanced by humans delivering up to 99% accuracy in an average of 24 hours.  You can also add speaker labels in seconds with an AI-powered “Speaker Detective.”

 

Pricing: One hour of transcription per month free, or US$15 per month for 10 hours transcription per month. White Glove service costs $2 per minute.

 

 

Otter.ai

 

Otter is a leading meeting transcription and collaboration tool that helps teams automatically capture and summarize conversations from every meeting, making it easy to recall and collaborate on the key takeaways. The software integrates with leading video conference tools including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet to automatically capture meeting notes.  Otter also allows users to import and transcribe pre-recorded audio and video files.

 

Pricing: Charities can get a 40% discount at Charity Digital Exchange on a one-year subscription for Otter Business for a minimum of three or more users at current rates.

 

 

Transcribe

 

Transcribe converts your interviews, videos, phone calls, audio notes, lectures, speeches, podcasts, meetings or any recorded speech to text automatically. You can then export your transcript as doc, txt or subtitle files.

 

Pricing: $20 per year plus $US$6 per hour. Includes automatic time codes and speaker identification.

 

 

Rev

 

Rev offers an automated transcription service for $0.25 per minute with 90%+ accuracy and a  five minute turnaround time. You can also get your audio and video files transcribed by the largest marketplace of human transcribers —guaranteed to be 99% accurate.

 

Pricing: $1.50 per minute with 24 hour turnaround time (average) and 99% accuracy.

 

 

TranscribeMe

 

TranscribeMe promises the most accurate transcriptions at competitive rates due to a combination of AI technology paired with a trained and experienced human transcriber network.

 

Pricing: 0.79c per minute with 98% accuracy (average) to $2 per minute for 100% accuracy with timestamps and speaker ids includes

 

 

oTranscribe

 

oTranscribe is a free web application to help you transcribe audio yourself. It allows you to upload a audio of video file and then play it back while you type what you hear. You can change the playback speed to make it easier to keep up with the audio and add timestamps with a simple key combination.

 

Pricing: Free.

 

 

Scribie

 

Scribie uses a four step process to allow humans to transcribe your files. First they are split into small parts and typed by certified transcribers. Then reviewers check the parts, and add speaker tracking and time-codes. After this the parts are collated and the combined transcript is proofread for consistency and accuracy. Finally, the accuracy is assessed, and the file alternates between proofreading and quality control until accuracy is 100%.

 

Pricing: $0.80 per minute for files with clear audio and minimal background noise.