Making Money

Make money transcribing today: How to get started.

by Nonti
woman sitting in front of macbook
Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.com

During this pandemic, I’ve spent most of my time exploring new ways to many money, particularly from home. In a time where finding employment is a pandemic in itself, I was happy to have come across audio transcription jobs. For me, this side hustle started off with working for other platforms then later starting my own thing on Fiverr. I hope you appreciate the little I share with you on what you need.

Transcription is one of the most common ways to make money from home. Even with this, most people have a lot of questions about transcription, like:

 What is the best transcription platform?

What is the job availability like?

What is the pay rate?

What equipment do I need?

I decided to create a complete comprehensive guide on how to become a transcriptionist, what platforms actually have the most available work, what you can really expect to get paid and give you my full recommendation on which platforms I would recommend you apply to

I’ll also some general tips on what equipment you need to get started and a realistic picture of what you can actually earn in a month if you are a skilled transcriptionist.

Let’s get started

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What are the requirements to become a transcriptionist?

  • high level of English
  • excellent skills in english writing grammar and punctuation
  • decent typing speed (be able to type at least 60 words per minute

If you don’t know what your typing speed

Click on this link

You really don’t have to have a great typing speed to become a transcriptionist but the faster you are at typing the more money you will make because you will be able to transcribe these files faster.  For most of these platforms, there is no minimum typing speed you just need to be able to transcribe the file within the allotted time that they give you.

    What equipment do I need?

    • access to a laptop or personal computer
    • reliable internet
    • good quality headphones(I recommend you have over-the-ear headphones and ones that have a cord and aux cord that you can plug into)
    • transcription foot pedals (these make transcribing much faster because you can simply tap the pedals with your feet to fast forward or rewind the audio as you are transcribing. This however, is optional.

    What transcription tools can I use?

    This will widely depend on what transcription platform you are using or if you are doing freelance transcription such as fiverr or upwork or people per hour then you usually have more liberty to use different transcription tools but here are some of the ones that I have used in the past:

    1. Audacity

    It is a free program where you can eliminate background noise and improve audio quality you can also slow down audio so you can understand it more clearly.

    2. Grammarly

    Grammarly is a free tool or you can purchase the premium version but I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re just starting out because it is quite expensive but you can use the free version to help check for spelling grammatical and punctuation errors in your transcript.

    What is the pay rate?

    $20?

    What most bloggers do not tell you is that you can make between ten dollars and twenty-two dollars per audio hour. Now they don’t specify that there is a huge difference in an audio hour and in a normal hour so when you think make twenty dollars in an hour you probably think if you’re sitting here transcribing for one hour I will make twenty dollars but this means you will make up to twenty dollars per transcribed audio hour.

    In general, it takes 3-4 hours to transcribe one hour of audio so that means you can expect to earn between ten dollars and twenty-two dollars every three to four hours. So if we do the math that can equal around $3-$7 an hour or even slightly more or less depending on your typing speed and the difficulty of the audio or the video file.

    1. QA world

    QA world has a very easy test you just have to listen to a file transcribe it to get accepted. This could take you like five minutes, depending on your English level. The pay rate is very low, between 5 cents and 15 cents per audio minute to start so this is a very low pay rate. When you do the math, this is between $3 and  $9 per hour.

    To get the most jobs, you have to be online in the morning in Philippines times because usually the job calls are released between 7 am and 1/2 pm. You have to be super-fast at accepting a call because they will go really fast.

    Available worldwide

    Payment method: Paypal

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    2. Scribie

    With Scribie the test difficulty is average, you just need to have a pretty decent level of English in order to pass it. The test is quite extensive, you get to pick one of the test files and then you transcribe it and then they will get back to you to say whether or not you passed.

    The pay rate is between 16 cents and 17 cents per audio minute which equates to $10 per hour. The advantage of this platform is that the job availability is quite high which means there’s always something to do on the platform

    Available worldwide

    Payment method: Paypal

    3. Rev

    Rev has 2 different platforms within the same company: rev captioning and rev transcription.

    With rev captioning you basically have to write out closed captions or subtitles for different YouTube videos within their built-in dashboard and then sync those to the videos later on. It is much easier to get into rev captioning than it is into rev transcription but neither are easy. Personally, I had to try a couple times to get accepted into rev captioning.

    The pay rate is higher than QA world and Scribie. You can make between 40 cents and a dollar per audio minute ($24 + per hour). The job availability in my experience is very high for both platforms.

    Rev is only available in these countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa.

    Payment method: Paypal

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    4. TranscribeMe

    The Transcribeme test is very difficult. You have to have an excellent level of English and follow the style guidelines very carefully.  The pay rate is between 25 cents and 36 cents per audio minute ($15 – $22 per hour). The jobs are actually easier than rev in my opinion because the files are just clearer and easier to understand. The major con with this platform is that the job availability is low.

    Available worldwide

    Payment method: Paypal

    I really hope you enjoyed this article and will take the chance on these methods of making money.