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Rev Review

Sunday, February 16th

2025 Transcription Service Reviews

Rev Review 4 Star Rating

Rev

4 Star Rating
  • Mobile app
  • $1.50/minute for human transcription
  • Delivery within hours at no extra cost
  • In-platform transcript editor
  • Translation available in 17 languages
  • 72,000 native English-speaking transcriptionists

Rev is a leading speech-to-text service that claims to be the "#1 provider in the world”. Founded in 2010, Rev offers fast and affordable services by connecting skilled freelancers with customers in need of accurate transcriptions, captions, and subtitles. With a network of over 72,000 native English-speaking freelancers and advanced speech recognition AI, Rev delivers high-quality results at a large scale. Businesses and individuals rely on Rev for reliable and speedy speech-to-text solutions.

One rate for human transcription

Rev's pricing is pretty straightforward: $1.50 per minute of audio with the option to add timestamps for an additional $0.30/minute. While this is a little higher than some competitors, they don't charge extra for multiple speakers, and you don't pay more for fast delivery times.

Integrates with other apps

Something we really like about Rev is its ease of incorporation with your workflow. You have the convenience of placing audio transcription orders directly from your YouTube, Dropbox, Vimeo, or Google Drive account.

Get your files within 12 hours

How fast is Rev's delivery? Pretty darn speedy. All projects under 30 minutes in length can be expected to be delivered within 12 hours, but often much sooner. Other services with plans that look cheaper on the surface often have longer wait times for delivery, and in order to get them sooner, you're looking at paying as much or more than Rev's single plan $1.50 fee.

Rush orders available for an extra $1.25/minute

However, if you do need those files even sooner than 12 hours from submission, you have the option to pay an additional $1.25/minute for priority completion ($2.75/minute total, plus 30 cents if you need timestamps). Priority projects are given to Rev's top transcriptionists to make sure you're not sacrificing quality for speed. We do think Rev's final review process could be improved: long rush files are split into multiple parts to be simultaneously worked on by multiple transcriptionists, and then they're stitched back together into one file. Rev says this means that there might be inconsistencies in speaker names for files over 30 minutes - for example, one transcriptionist might spell a speaker's name as "Katy”, and the other might opt for "Katie”.

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Transcript Editor gives you control over the final product

Many transcription services deliver your transcriptions in Word or Plain Text formats. Rev, however, gives you access to your files via their free Transcript Editor. They have a demo of this nifty tool on their site, so you can get a feel for its capabilities. A few things it can do: find and replace words, highlight, remove filler words, and alter timestamps. If you're happy with your transcription and don't feel it needs any editing, you can go ahead and download it in multiple file formats directly from the Transcript Editor.

AI and translation services offered

Apart from human transcription, Rev also offers:

  • Live captioning for Zoom. This AI speech-to-text service is installed as software, after which it will automatically caption every Zoom meeting connected with your account. Rev is not transparent about the cost for this service.
  • AI auto audio transcription. This service costs $0.25 per minute of audio and is recommended for personal projects with quick turnaround times.
  • Subtitle translation for global reach of videos. This costs $5 to $12 per minute, depending on which of the 17 supported languages you choose.

No refunds promised

If you're unhappy with the quality of your transcription, all you need to do is leave a 3-star or lower rating on it from the transcript Workspace page and include a comment explaining why you're unsatisfied. After that, Rev's Quality Control team will review it, but they make no promises for refunds or reworking the file. This renders Rev's 99% satisfaction guarantee somewhat toothless.

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Thousands of happy customers, despite BBB rating

Rev has not been accredited by the Better Business Bureau, but they currently have a "C-” grade. On a more positive note, Rev does have a 4.2-star rating on Trustpilot across 6,000+ reviews. Happy customers report quality transcriptions that include correct spellings of difficult speaker names and fast turnaround times.

Customer service is lacking

However, we found the occasional report that when there were quality issues, customer support was unhelpful and refunds were impossible to attain - even in one case where a customer paid 82 euros for a transcript which was blank except for a couple of quotation marks when it was delivered. It seems fair to say that most of the time Rev delivers on their promises, but they don't do well with making things right when they do mess up - which may be the reason for the "C-” from the BBB. Rev's customer support is available via phone Mon-Fri from 9am-4pm CT and 24/7 via live chat or email.

One of our top picks

We really like Rev's simple pricing structure, their range of services, and most of all, their lightning-fast delivery. While we think they have room for improvement when it comes to making good on their promises for customer satisfaction, they're still a very good choice for your transcription needs.

Where Can You Find the Best Transcription Service?

Imagine you've just wrapped up a lively brainstorming session with your marketing team. Ideas were flowing freely - but no one remembered to take detailed notes. Here's where transcription services come to the rescue. They can turn all those spoken words into a clear, written format, so no winning idea gets lost.

Simply put, transcription services take what's said in audio or video and turn it into text. And this isn't only useful for missing meeting notes. It also spans across various fields like legal, medical, and business, making sure important spoken information is accurately captured and easily revisited in text form.

The Best Transcription Services Compare Transcription Services Compare Transcription Service Reviews What are the best Transcription Services Best Transcription Service Reviews

Transcription Service FAQ

Transcription services convert live or recorded speech into text for legal, medical, educational, or business purposes. A university student may record a lecture and have it transcribed to more easily take notes, or a court reporter may record the audio of a criminal trial and submit it to one of these services for transcription. Many transcription services also provide captioning for YouTube videos or other mp4 files.
By outsourcing the transcription of your file, you save yourself frustration and time, and as we all know, time is money. However, if you are determined to transcribe your audio all by yourself, some transcription services provide in-site dictation, editing, and automatic speech-to-text tools.
The pricing model of transcription is based on dollars-per-minute. Depending on the service you choose, the language and complexity of the audio, how polished you want your final transcript to be and how fast you need it, manual transcription will run you anywhere between $0.75-$3 per minute.
Most transcription services offer both automated and manual transcription options. Automated transcription is done by running your audio through speech recognition software, and the quality of the finished product will depend on whether or not the audio you submitted was clear enough to be understood by the AI. Manual transcription is done by an actual person. Automated transcription is cheaper, generally costing $0.10 per minute of audio. Manual transcription is more expensive, but it is typically much more accurate and is the only viable option for difficult audio files.
Most transcription services offer a 99% accuracy guarantee. If you are unhappy with your transcript, they will rework it until it meets 99% accuracy or until you are satisfied.
If you opt for automated transcription, turnaround typically takes between 5 minutes and 5x the length of the audio. Manual transcription turnaround times will depend on the service and the length and complexity of the audio, but most services advertise 24 hours between when you submit your audio or video file and when you receive your finished transcript.
Yes, you can. Most services offer foreign language transcription, though you should be aware that you may be paying as much as $7 per minute of audio depending on the language.
Most transcription services offer transcription for medical, academic, and legal purposes for an extra fee. Some services only do this sort of transcription. A mark of a transcription service well-suited to medical, legal, and academic transcription is their commitment to customer security. These services bind their employees to a non-disclosure agreement, and, at your request, will destroy their copy of your files upon completion of your order.
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Continued from above...

You'll find two main types of transcription: manual and automated. Manual involves a person listening to the audio and typing it out, capturing nuances and context but potentially taking more time and being a bit pricier. Automated uses technology to transcribe quickly and usually at a lower cost, but may miss the mark on accuracy, especially with tricky audios or specific jargon.

Some services offer both manual and automated types of transcription services, while others offer just one. Some transcription services even give customers complete control over the transcription process by providing them with tools to dictate and edit within the platform themselves.

What you may not know is that transcription services can do more than just turn spoken words into text. Some services offer extras like identifying different speakers, adding time stamps, and keeping track of specialized terms. Also, given that some recordings can contain sensitive information, top-tier services prioritize robust data protection to keep your information safe.

In terms of user experience, high-quality transcription services focus on making things easy for clients from start to finish. This includes an easy-to-navigate website, straightforward file uploading, clear pricing, and timely delivery of transcriptions.

Trying to find a trustworthy online transcription service can be tough. Most have thousands of transcriptionists, which means the quality can vary a lot from project to project, and reading customer reviews might not give you a clear picture of what to expect.

Before you pick a transcription service, think about these points to make sure you know what you're looking for:

  • Pricing. Understand what you're paying for. Good services will tell you upfront about extra costs for things like poor audio quality, strong accents, adding timestamps, or handling multiple speakers.
  • Quality control. A quality control team should review your final transcription before it makes it to your inbox to make sure it's good quality, meeting both the service's and your standards.
  • Customer service. If your transcription isn't satisfactory, the transcription service should offer to fix it or refund you some of your money.

Top Consumer Reviews has reviewed and ranked the best transcription services available online today. We hope our evaluation will help you find the right service, where every spoken word will be accurately - and affordably - captured in text!

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