Whether you work in the museum space with subtitles, captions, or archiving information, you’ve probably encountered transcriptions before. As a written version of an audio or video recording, transcriptions are both accessibility tools and archival ones. As archival pieces, transcriptions preserve the original message of a work as closely as possible. Regarding accessibility, transcriptions are excellent resources for people who are deaf, hard of hearing or have trouble processing sound. You’ll often find advertisements or video transcriptions in marketing since many companies want to ensure their content is accessible to a broad audience.

Regardless of the industry you work in, the process of transcribing content is relatively straightforward. But how much does it cost?

Transcription Types

To start breaking down how much transcription services cost, let’s review the types of transcription available. The overall price of the service will change depending on the type of service performed. Here are three of the most common types of transcription:

Verbatim Transcription

Verbatim transcriptions feature every sound in a recording. During the process, transcriptionists record stutters, repeated words, interjections, and even sounds that might interfere with our ability to understand the audio, like a car passing by.

Natural Transcription

Natural transcriptions omit sounds that may interrupt our understanding of the audio unless they are significant to the audio as a whole. Transcriptionists working on a natural transcription will also remove non-essential stutters, repetitions, pauses, and interjections.

Phonetic Transcription

In phonetic transcriptions, sounds are represented with graphic symbols. Phonetic transcriptions are mainly used to help people pronounce words and phrases, so they’re usually written in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Transcription type is one of the first aspects considered when calculating a price quote. Depending on your project, one transcription method will be more useful than the others. For example, a museum looking to transcribe the Apollo 11 launch would need a verbatim transcription to preserve and archive every aspect of the audio. A school looking to transcribe a graduation speech may lean towards natural transcription services to ensure the speech’s message remains as clear as possible. Dictionaries and thesauruses will use phonetic transcriptions to depict how a word is pronounced as a point of reference.

Regardless of what type of transcription you need, keep in mind that verbatim transcriptions tend to cost the most. They take more time to complete than other types of transcription and feature a much more tedious process.

What Impacts the Price of a Transcription?

There are several factors that affect the price of your transcription, aside from transcription service type. These include:

Content Duration

Transcription is usually charged by the minute; the longer the video, the higher the cost of the transcription.

Audio Quality

Audio quality dramatically affects the transcriptionist’s understanding of the content. When audio is harder to understand, it’ll take more time to complete the transcription, thus increasing the price. Try to keep your audio as clean as possible when sending it to a transcriptionist!

Number of Speakers

The more people speaking in a transcription, the more often the transcriptionist will have to identify the speakers. Like writing a script, transcriptions require information on who is speaking and when. When two or more speakers are in the video or audio, it takes the transcriber more time to identify them: the more speakers, the higher the rate.

Talking Speed

The speakers’ talking speed affects their clarity and the time it takes for a transcriptionist to work through the audio. If a speaker talks too fast, the transcriptionist will have to pause and repeat the audio often to ensure their transcription is accurate. When speakers talk too slowly, the transcriptionist will take a while to complete the transcription simply because the audio is longer. When recording audio, try to ensure that the speaker doesn’t rush through their words but still talks at an engaging pace.

Delivery Time

Transcription services have a standard rate for a certain amount of time. Thus, urgent projects tend to cost more than ones with a larger project window since transcriptionists must prioritize that project. Like any other time-based commissions, extra or expedited services will have an extra charge.

Language

The common rate applies when the original file is in English, Spanish, or any other high-demand language. However, the price will be higher if the transcription language is in low demand. In addition, transcriptions for content in multiple languages will take additional time to complete.

Subtitles

You’ll be charged for additional service if your video transcription needs subtitles. Generally, subtitling services and transcription services are different.

Overall

It is important to emphasize that the aspects that can impact the price of a transcription project do not always apply. Ultimately, transcription rates will vary depending on the service provider, whether it be a freelance transcriptionist or an agency. If you’d like to start your next transcription project, Traduality has everything you need to succeed; create your first project today and find vetted translators, or book a meeting with us to learn more about your specific needs.  

Updated 2/21/2024.