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Healthcare workers, journalists, legal professionals, and many others often need to type up audio recordings of conversations and meetings. Doing that work manually is tedious, especially when transcription services can do it for you. Automated (also called machine-generated or AI) transcriptions are cheap and fast to make, but usually full of errors. Human-generated transcriptions are more accurate but cost more and take longer to produce. Some companies offer just one type, while others give you a choice between the two. We've been evaluating the efficacy and value of the top transcription services for years, and we're here to help you choose the best one. Our Editors' Choice winners are GoTranscript, for highly accurate human-based transcriptions, and Otter, an automated service with a generous free tier and advanced meeting tools. We also list compelling alternatives below with differentiating features, followed by buying advice for the category.
Our Top Tested Picks
- Affordable
- Incredibly accurate
- Highly usable web interface
- Supports many languages
- Industry-specific transcriptionists available
- Limited mobile apps
GoTranscript is the best online transcription service for accurate and affordable human-made transcriptions. It also markets specifically to the education, legal, and medical fields, making it excellent for specialty transcription work. The company does offer machine-automated transcriptions, but these aren't as impressive as the work its human staff produces. We also appreciate its exceedingly straightforward web interface.
Choose GoTranscript if you need highly accurate human-processed transcriptions at the lowest possible price.
- Generous free plan for transcribing live audio
- Useful AI assistant for meetings
- Capable mobile apps
- Integrates easily with most video conferencing platforms
- Strict limitations on uploading prerecorded audio or video
- Can struggle with accents and punctuation
Otter is an automatic transcription service that has long been popular for its generous free plan. It's less enticing than it once was, but you still get a good amount for free: 300 live transcription minutes per month (with a maximum session length of 30 minutes) and three prerecorded audio or video file uploads for transcription per lifetime. Paid plans, starting at $8.33 per user per month (billed annually), up those limits considerably. But Otter's best feature is its ability to integrate with popular video conferencing platforms to summarize and transcribe live meetings.
You should use Otter if you need a quick turnaround on transcriptions and are willing to fix some errors manually. It's also very convenient if you frequently need to know what happened during meetings you couldn't attend.
- AI and human-generated transcriptions, subtitles, and captions
- Fast turnaround times
- Good collaboration tools for teams
- Well-designed web interface and improved mobile app
- Can't edit live transcriptions or add comments to them
- Free plan allows just 45 transcription minutes per month
Rev stands out because it lets you choose between automatic and human-based transcription services. It offers especially quick turnaround options and competitive rates. Rev also has a great collaborative web space for teams and can caption and subtitle videos. Although its free tier isn't quite as generous as Otter's, it might still be enough for your needs and includes AI note-taking capabilities for meetings.
Rev is best for professionals who want high-quality automated and human-based transcription from the same company. However, depending on your order volume, you might be better off with Rev's à la carte services rather than a subscription.
- Automatic transcription process with a human verification step
- Extremely accurate
- Competitive pricing with pay-as-you-go model
- Modern web interface
- No mobile apps
- Lacks option for purely human-generated transcription
Scribie stands out for its unique, human-in-the-loop transcription method: It uses an automatic process to start, but a human edits the final version of a script before sending it back to you. This approach nets highly accurate results with a relatively quick turnaround time. Scribie's per-job rates are also affordable, while the web interface has a clear, modern design.
If you are trying to balance accuracy, cost, and delivery speed, Scribie's hybrid process should appeal to you. You can even order a re-review if the final transcript falls short of your standards.
- Accurate
- Supports collaboration and multi-file workflows
- Can translate recordings into multiple languages
- Requires an expensive subscription
- Can't record live audio from the web
- Doesn't support multi-factor authentication
Trint is an online transcription service for media professionals, whether in podcasting, print, or scripting. You upload audio or video files, and Trint sends you back either machine-generated text transcripts or captions. It also has a unique ability: Team members can clip and merge various audio files and collaboratively edit them.
Although pricey, Trint makes a lot of sense for editorial teams that want to speed up transcription work. It should also appeal to those building platforms or businesses that use mostly video or audio content.
- Inexpensive automatic transcriptions
- Supports several languages
- Specializes in multiple fields, including legal and medical
- Extras for human-based services quickly add to the cost and turnaround time
- No team collaboration features
- Outdated, iOS-only apps
TranscribeMe offers an extremely affordable, automated transcription service with the option to pay more for human-based work. The web interface lacks collaboration tools, but it's still more than fine for entering and editing your completed transcripts. TranscribeMe also provides harder-to-find services, such as data annotation and translation.
TranscribeMe is worth a look if you need automated transcripts at a very low cost. If its other specialized services meet your needs, you should also check those out.
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The Best Transcription Services for 2025 Compare Specs
Automated vs. Human Transcription: What's the Difference?
Automated services use automatic speech recognition to transcribe an audio file into text. As mentioned, the two primary benefits of this type are that it's fast and cheap. These services tend to include extra features that might not be free for human-generated transcripts, such as basic speaker identification (for example, Speaker 1, Speaker 2) and time stamps. The downside of this method is that accuracy tends to take a hit. As such, most of these options provide editing software that lets you clean up the text. If you see an error, click on the time-stamped section to listen to the words and transcribe that portion manually.
Human transcriptions are highly accurate but cost more and typically require a longer turnaround time. You can usually pay extra if you need a rush order, however. Companies with this type of service tend to assign the work to multiple trained transcriptionists so that no one person can access your entire audio recording. That's good for privacy. Employees and contractors sometimes must also sign non-disclosure agreements. When you choose human-generated transcripts, you can sometimes pay to get transcriptionists who know a particular industry's jargon (think legal or medical terms).
Because human-powered transcription might introduce privacy concerns, we look at the conditions under which a company says it will comply with law enforcement and hand over user data. You can read such details in the review of each service. All the services here operate under strict nondisclosure policies and let you remove your files from their servers at any time.
GoTranscript, Otter, Rev, TranscribeMe, and Trint all offer automated transcription services. If you need human-powered transcription, use GoTranscript, Rev, or TranscribeMe. Scribie's hybrid approach starts with an automatic transcription process but loops humans in toward the end.
How Much Do Transcription Services Cost?
Many transcription services charge on a per-minute basis. For example, a 30-minute transcription at $1 per minute would cost $30. Costs can add up quickly, and some services bill extra for a faster turnaround time or verbatim files (meaning they include all the "ums" and "ahs"). Prices can also increase if the audio is of poor quality. If you find yourself transcribing audio and video files often, a subscription-based service might be the best value. Just keep in mind that some video editing apps you already own now offer automated captioning, too.
As you might guess, the amount of time it takes to turn around a file usually depends on its length. Automated services can typically process a file in a matter of minutes. Human-powered services take quite a bit longer, and you might have to pay for faster delivery speeds. Rev is simple in that it promises to return your file (in most cases) within 12 hours. GoTranscript's slowest option (five days) is also its cheapest.
Otter and Rev both offer free tiers that simply limit how many minutes of audio you can process each month. Both use an automated process. These free tiers might suffice if you don't frequently need to transcribe audio.
How to Get the Most Accurate Transcription
One of the most important things you can do to ensure an accurate transcription is to capture a high-quality recording of a conversation or interview in the first place. It's vital that your subjects are close to the recording device and speak in loud, clear voices. When you have multiple speakers, participants should speak one at a time to avoid interference. Most services have a note in their documentation saying that speakers with heavy accents can pose some issues, though there's not much you can do to avoid it. Audio editing software, such as the free Audacity, can clear up some issues, but it can't perform miracles. In-person recordings also produce better results than recordings of phone calls.
How to Edit a Transcription
Most people need to correct some parts of a transcript once they receive it. When you log into your transcription service, you get an editing program where you can listen to the audio recording and work on the typed transcript simultaneously.
Some editing interfaces include tools for highlighting selected parts of a transcript or editing the start time of the recording. Playback speeds and quick rewind buttons (all controllable via keyboard shortcuts) are also fairly standard.
What Are the Best Transcription Apps?
Many of the transcription services we reviewed, including GoTranscript, Otter, Rev, and Trint, offer dedicated mobile apps. For the most part, these apps function as digital voice recorders, though you can also order transcripts of your recordings directly from them. The drawback is that you typically can't import audio files or links the way that you can via their websites. The best ones let you view and edit transcripts directly.
Are There Alternatives to Transcription Services?
If you want to avoid transcription services entirely, you have options. For manual transcription, Transcribe is a great option at only $20 per year. It lets you listen to an audio recording while you type, with built-in keyboard shortcuts and useful playback modes that reduce the number of times you need to pause and rewind. Another option is oTranscribe. It works similarly to Transcribe, but it's free.
If you're a paying Microsoft 365 subscriber, you can use Word's Dictation feature. You can record in real-time inside Word or upload audio files to its online automated transcription service. Google Docs also has a speech-to-text tool to help you put words down on the page. Some people listen to a prerecorded audio file on headphones and then speak the same lines aloud to a speech-to-text tool. This works better than playing the audio directly into a microphone, but it's still cumbersome and takes time.
Ultimately, any transcription method or service you choose is better than simply letting your recordings go to waste. Yes, transcribing can be a hassle, and some services are costly, but the value of accurate and usable transcripts far outweighs these annoyances.
