What Is TranscribeMe?
TranscribeMe is a crowdsourcing marketplace for transcription and translation services. Here, organizations can quickly hire crowdsourced help while freelance contractors can get paid for transcribing and translating content. Founded in 2011, the platform is based in San Francisco.
General Details 📜
| Status: | Active, Legit |
|---|---|
| Helps You: | Hire Help Make Money |
| Platform Type: | Crowdsourcing Marketplace |
| Opportunities: | Data Labeling Transcription Translation |
Contact Info ☎️
| Socials: | LinkedIn • Twitter • Facebook • YouTube • YouTube for Freelancers |
|---|---|
| Emails: | support@transcribeme.com (for general support) • sales@transcribeme.com (for sales quotes) • optout@transcribeme.com (for opting out of email messages) • info@transcribeme.com (for copyright claims) • training@transcribeme.com (for freelancer questions) |
| Phone: | +1 (800) 275-5513 |
| Support Pages: | Freelancer Helpdesk • Customer FAQs • Contact |
Company Details 🏢
| Founded: | 2011 |
|---|---|
| Legal Name: | TranscribeMe, Inc. |
| Founders: | Alexei Dunayev • Greg Feerer |
| Headquarters: | San Francisco, California, United States |
Who Is TranscribeMe For?
TranscribeMe is for two groups: (1) Organizations looking to outsource for transcription or translation services; and (2) Individuals looking to make money from home by doing freelance transcription, translation, and related work.
Requirements 🔎
| Minimum Age: | 18 years old |
|---|---|
| Supported Locations: | Worldwide Due to legal regulations, TranscribeMe doesn't allow freelancer sign-ups from California or Massachusetts. |
| Supported Languages: | English |
| Supported Devices: | Computer TranscribeMe has an app available for customers who want to order services. Freelancers who want to work for the platform must do so from a computer. |
| Other: | Freelancers must provide photo ID verification. |
How Does TranscribeMe Work?
There are 2 types of users on TranscribeMe: Freelancers and Customers.
Here's how TranscribeMe works for each of those user types:
For Freelancers
TranscribeMe freelancers can earn money completing transcription, translation, and other specialized jobs on the platform. After accumulating $10, earnings can be cashed out via PayPal.
Getting Started 🔢
Becoming a TranscribeMe freelancer is free. To get started, head over to the platform's website and navigate to the "Freelancers" section. You can sign up for a freelancer account by providing your full name, country, email, and password.
Next, choose your transcription languages, native language, and additional languages that you know. You'll then be asked for your PayPal payment email, mobile number, gender, and photo ID.
Now you're ready for the entrance exam. Start by reading the Style Guide and the Exam Instructions. Once you're ready, you can take the 4-minute entrance exam. You're only allowed two attempts, so answer carefully.
If you pass the exam and are accepted into the platform, you're ready to start earning.
Earning Money 💵
The primary earning opportunity on TranscribeMe is general transcription. Starting out, you'll receive a compensation of $15 USD for every audio hour (AH) you transcribe. Keep in mind, one AH can take multiple real hours to transcribe.
After you submit a job, it'll be sent for review. If 30% or more of your transcript is filled with errors, it'll be automatically declined and you won't receive any pay. Otherwise, a quality assurance worker will provide corrections and decide whether or not your work is acceptable. Be sure to follow style guides and instructions to avoid rejections!
As you submit work and become more experienced, you may receive access to new training exams and additional types of work. Specialty teams that you can be invited to include:
- Accent teams. Unlock files with specific accents or spelling requirements by completing accent exams.
- First Draft Champions. Same as general transcription, but without any QA checking. Pays $22/AH + bonuses.
- Medical Team. Once you've completed at least 150 transcription jobs, you can take the medical exam to qualify for medical transcription work (no medical experience or qualifications required).
- FD Stampers Stampers add timestamps and speaker IDs to First Draft Plus files, which vary in subject matter and speaker count due to multiple clients. Pays $7/AH, with some files offering up to $10/AH. Plus bonuses.
- 2-Step QAs. This team corrects errors and adds speaker IDs and timestamps to improve transcript accuracy. Pays $15-$23/AH, or $35/AH for rush files. Plus bonuses. Requires an exam completion to qualify.
- ASR QAs. Polish transcriptions that have been created by speech recognition software. Pays $25/AH. Requires exam completion.
- Quickstep QAs This team transcribes full audio files while incorporating speaker IDs and timestamps. Completed files are sent directly to clients. Pays $35-$40/AH + bonuses.
- Full Verbatim QAs For full verbatim transcriptions, you must transcribe all utterances by the speaker(s), including filler words, feedback words, false starts, stutters, and stammers. Pays $50/AH.
- TME Plus. Gain access to more jobs by becoming a top transcriber. Must have at least 50 jobs completed, special exams, and high accuracy.
- Reviewers Highly accurate and supportive QAs may be invited to become Reviewers, offering feedback to new QAs for improvement. This opportunity is rare and by invitation only. Pays $27/AH and $13.50/AH for Snippets.
Other teams and projects may open up in the future.
By the looks of things, TranscribeMe also offers opportunities for translation and data labeling (aka data annotation), but we couldn't find much information on these, so we can't be sure.
Cashing Out 💰
Once you have at least $10 in your balance, you can cash out your TranscribeMe earnings via PayPal.
After cashing out, you can expect to receive your TranscribeMe payout in 0-7 days. (Payouts are processed every Thursday and are usually sent within a few hours of processing time.)
Key Points 📝
| Work Type: | Contract, Freelance |
|---|---|
| Income Type: | Active |
| Work Schedule: | Flexible Freelancers must complete at least one job every 30 days. If you can't fulfill that requirement, you can fill out an Inactivity Notification form for temporary relief. |
| Workplace: | Remote |
| Minimum Payout: | $10 |
| Payout Options: | PayPal |
| Payout Speed: | 0-7 days Payouts are processed every Thursday and are usually sent within a few hours of processing time. |
| Pros: |
|
| Cons: |
Pros and cons are based on real TranscribeMe Freelancer reviews. |
Tip: Read our TranscribeMe Earning Guide to learn more about making money on the platform.
For Customers
TranscribeMe customers can utilize the platform's crowd of workers to quickly outsource transcription, translation, and data annotation tasks.
Getting Started 🔢
Simply head over to the TranscribeMe website (or download the app) and browse the services. Once you find what you're looking for, you can purchase services directly through the website or app.
Pricing 💼
Pricing varies by service:
- Human transcription starts at $0.79 per minute
- Translation starts at $0.011 per word
- Machine transcription starts at $0.07 per minute
- Data annotation starts at $0.10 per task
If you're looking for a custom quote, you can contact TranscribeMe directly.
Key Points 📝
| Commissions / Fees: | Unknown |
|---|---|
| Payment Options: | Credit Card |
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Our Editorial TranscribeMe Review
Is TranscribeMe Legit?
We believe TranscribeMe is legit. It was founded in 2011, has been used by organizations like Facebook and Harvard University, and has plenty of positive reviews across the web. Overall, we have no reason to believe TranscribeMe is a scam.
Green flags:
- Founded in 2011.
- Company information was easy to find.
- Well-detailed and transparent website.
- Has 11 investors including Plug and Play and TSVC.
- Has raised $6.6M.
- Has positive reviews across the web.
Red flags:
- No longer very active on social media.
Note: All research is done independently and could be wrong or change as new information is gathered. Please do your own due diligence.
Is TranscribeMe a Good Way to Make Money?
TranscribeMe is a decent entry-level opportunity for beginner transcribers (or those looking to learn the craft) but it's not a reliable source of income. The pay is too low and work availability varies too much. That said, there are growth opportunities available that can make the opportunity better, plus great community features and support.
Safety Rating: 3/5
As a freelancer, the biggest safety concern on TranscribeMe is the fact that it requires you to provide a photo of a piece of government-issued ID showing your full legal name, birthdate, and headshot. This is for verifying your identity, which is reasonable, but requires you to trust TranscribeMe's data storage policies.
They mention on their worker privacy policy that they never sell or rent information, so that's good. However, it would be nice to have a guarantee that TranscribeMe would simply delete your photo ID once your identity is verified. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case.
Support Quality: 5/5
TranscribeMe support is reported as being helpful and quick.
Earning Potential: 1.5/5
Based on real user data, you can expect to earn around $4.25/hour with TranscribeMe. Users reported receiving work between a few times a week and a few times a month on TranscribeMe, with the average earnings per month being $30 (or $250 according to TranscribeMe data).
Payout Minimum Rating: 3.5/5
TranscribeMe has a minimum payout of $10.
Payout Speed Rating: 4/5
Payouts are processed every Thursday and are usually sent within a few hours of processing time. Overall, based on our data, you can expect to get paid in 0-7 days after reaching the minimum payout amount.
Ease Of Entry: 4/5
You'll have to pass an exam to become a TranscribeMe freelance contractor, but you don't need any prior qualifications or skills to get started. As long as you study the style guide and instructions carefully and you know how to use a computer, you should be good to go.
User Experience Rating: 3/5
TranscribeMe offers entry-level work, flexibility, good community features, a bug-free work hub, and growth opportunities. However, job security isn't quite there (you can get deactivated at any time without notice), there are really no perks or benefits, and the work can be quite tedious and difficult at times.
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Try It!TranscribeMe Statistics
General Platform Statistics
#46,710
Global Site Rank
1.1M
Avg. Monthly Site Visitors
$250
Avg. Monthly Earnings Per Freelancer
Data as of July 20, 2023 • Sources: Similarweb
TranscribeMe Reviews From Freelancers
Average Scores
Reviewer Recommendation
😁 100%Rating Breakdown
Most suitable for experienced transcriptionists since they are very keen on accuracy
TranscribeMe is a very legit site offering English audio files for transcription. The pay is quite good per audio minute
- The files pay very well per hour
- Consistent tasks daily
- They are very strict on accuracy.
- Proofread your work to ensure small mistakes are avoided
- I have installed several transcription softwares that help me save time
Can be tedious
The site is very easy to use and professional-looking. The guidelines provided are very detailed and helpful when it comes to passing the entrance exam.
However, upon passing the entrance exam, you only gain access to a limited number of files so work is really slow at first. There are very few files available most of the time. Sometimes it takes hours after completing one file for you to be assigned the next one.
They do provide opportunities that will allow you to potentially earn more by gaining access to more files. This is through taking and passing more exams. I just think it's too tedious and not worth it.
I would recommend this as a side hustle/source of extra income to anyone who has the time and patience to take all the exams needed to gain access to enough files to make a reasonable amount. If you were to only take the entrance exam, I don't think it's worth it.
- The interface of the transcribing tool is very good.
- When you don't finish a file on time, any work you've done is saved for the next user for editing so sometimes the files are already partially completed.
- There are a lot of opportunities available. They have different exams which you can take in order to get access to more files.
- They have a supportive community on Yammer in which you can interact with other transcribers for tips, best practices, etc.
- Pay is low compared to other sites.
- There are only a few files available most of the time.
- The minimum amount to cash out used to be $10 but now they changed it to $20. Given the availability of files, it takes a long time to accumulate the minimum amount of $20.
- Files are assigned randomly. You don't get to choose which files to work on.
- Advancement exams are very strict and hard to pass and they don't tell you which parts you got wrong.
- Do not skip any file regardless of the quality since there are only a few available.
- Take all advancement exams you're qualified for to gain access to more files.
TranscribeMe Reviews From Customers
No reviews yet. Help out by writing one!
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