#Audio transcriber professional

We preferred services that laid out extras, such as adding time stamps or selecting a faster turnaround time, on one page and also showed the cost of those add-ons.

User interface: Websites that allow you to upload audio files intuitively and quickly make the overall transcription process more pleasant.

Because human transcriptionists are so accurate, we didn’t consider it as important for those services to include as many online editing features. AI-based services are so error-prone that it’s nice to have the ability to jump in and edit a transcript on the service’s website. They also give you an in-browser space or mobile app where you can work easily in a clean design, editing text, listening to audio playback when you click anywhere within the text, and changing the speed of the audio.

Transcription editors: The best services keep an online database of your transcriptions indefinitely.

We prioritized American English for this guide. Some services, such as Temi, state explicitly that they do not support languages or accents other than American English, while others, like Trint, offer transcriptions for multiple languages and accents. Although we tested only with recordings of English speakers with American and French accents, we also noted what languages and accents each service claimed to support.

#Audio transcriber professional

Support for complicated audio: Not all audio files are recorded in a professional studio, so the best transcription services should be willing or able to handle background noise, jargon, and accents.For the latter, we considered only those transcription services that could return a transcript within a week, and we took special notice if they promised a turnaround time of hours or even minutes. Because we saw such a wide range of turnaround times, we considered the advertised deadlines for AI services and real-people transcriptions separately. If a long delay will interrupt your workflow or cause you to miss an important deadline, an AI service is far more affordable than a rushed transcription from a person. Turnaround time: AI-based services take a maximum of one to two minutes per minute of submitted audio to return a transcription, but human transcriptionists can take days to deliver a transcript.We found that the most commonly recommended AI services cost around 25¢ per minute of audio, and services employing human transcriptionists cost up to $2 for a minute of clear audio. Cost: Whether your employer or client pays for your transcriptions or it comes out of your pocket, it’s important that they be cost-effective.

Many AI-based services don’t report accuracy, but one option we tested claimed to be at least 90% accurate for clear audio. Among human-backed transcription services, we favored those that claimed to be at least 99% accurate. We also researched services’ self-reported accuracy and other people’s experience with them. Readability: The single most important factor in choosing a transcription service is the readability of the resulting transcript, so we checked samples for grammar and spelling.Because Temi is quick and relatively inexpensive (at 25¢ per minute of audio), it’s a great choice for anyone who is paying for their own transcriptions, doesn’t expect them to be error-free, and doesn’t mind doing some cleanup work themselves. (We recommend using a company that employs human transcriptionists if your recordings have noise, feature a non-American accent, include speech impediments, or otherwise pose a challenge.) Transcripts arrive in minutes, and the built-in text editor lets you easily clean up the completed transcript-a necessity since even the top AI-based services, like Temi, get only about 75% of words right at best. In our tests, Temi transcripts were the easiest to read among the AI-based options, with acceptable grammar and word accuracy even when our audio contained jargon or background noise. They do not return results that are perfect enough that you can expect to copy a quote without going back and checking the actual content of the audio. AI-based transcription services are useful for finding a specific place in or quickly skimming the contents of an audio recording.