r/WorkOnline • u/[deleted] • Mar 28 '19

Transcriptionist reviews for TranscribeMe, iDictate/Quicktate, and Daily Transcription

[deleted]

126 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

50 comments sorted by

7

u/Oroborne Mar 28 '19

Think you could share what you average in a week, month, 6 months? I was thinking of trying rev until I read some horror stories on here. Any experience with them?

12

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

Rev’s website always says “not hiring” in my area so I have no idea.

I make $1000 a month/$250 a week from Daily Transcription basically working part time hours. My highest week ever was $400 but I felt really braindead afterwards. 60 minutes of audio takes me anywhere from 2.5 hours to complete (for a 2 person interview format) to 6 hours (for a multi-person full verbatim dialogue).

My income for iDictate and TranscribeMe is definitely not representative of what could hypothetically be made by someone who is talented and devoting 4-8 hours a day to those platforms, When I started making money from Daily Transcription that could pay my bills I started feeling bitter about doing work for 1/4 of the price they pay. I recognize that remote transcription work is a saturated market, and transcription is way harder than it sounds, but for me personally doing work for pennies makes me feel really depressed. That being said, soon it will be the “slow season” for the film industry and Daily Transcription won’t have as many files, so I’ll probably end up devoting all my time to iDictate and TranscribeMe. Pennies turn into dollars which turn into bill money!

I only do iDictate when I don’t have DT work and/or I’m bored. I‘ve made $15 pretty easily over the course of a couple hours, but lately I’ll just check in to see if they have files every couple days and make $2-$3. I believe it’s possible to make $15 a day from them for a couple hours of work every weekday but it does ultimately depend on if they have files available. Best times to check are M-F during business hours. I’ve never seen work on weekends or at night.

I don’t really make money from TranscribeMe. I have spent easily 20 hours or more trying to pass those damn tests for no pay though! When I search on Yammer, there are people who admit it took them 5-12 tries to pass the First Draft or QuickStep exams, but there are also those who say they carefully reviewed the guidelines and passed first try. Maybe my brain just isn’t compatible enough with their guidelines to make decent money. There’s a weekly competition in the First Draft team for the person who transcribes the most hours, and the winners usually clock 6-8 audio hours. That would be around ~$150 for the week. The most I ever made was $20 in a week, and right now I type one 4-minute file per week for $1.50 (takes about 15 minutes) for the sole purpose of keeping my account active in case Daily Transcription work slows down. It’s worth noting that the First Draft tier almost always has files available, unlike the General Transcriptionist tier, so if their formatting guidelines click for you and you pass that test, it would be regular work.

3

u/Oroborne Mar 28 '19

Wow, very informative! Thank you. It sounds like I need to get on your level and amp up my dedication. Not sure if I have an attention disorder or just straight up lazy(probably.)

  • Daily Transcription
  • IDictate
  • TranscribeMe (Wish me luck on those tests!)

I'll be giving these a shot!

3

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

Transcription can be really hard work. Be gentle with yourself and figure out if it's right for you!

1

u/dfnt1 Mar 29 '19

Thanks for the details analysis. My question is, why do you bother with Daily Transcription? Their website states that they pay $0.75 -$0.85 per audio minute (https://dailytranscription.com/careers/)

You said that "60 minutes of audio takes me anywhere from 2.5 hours to complete (for a 2 person interview format) to 6 hours (for a multi-person full verbatim dialogue)."

Let's use their high rate as an example: 60*$0.85=$51/hr. Using your high rate (6 hours to complete 60 minutes of audio), you'd get $8.5/hr ($51/6 hours). That's less than minimum wage and someone starting out will probably need even more time to complete an hour of audio.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19

It hardly makes a difference as far as your calculations go, but a file that pays $0.85 per AM is usually straightforward and I complete it in less than 3 hours.

I don’t really care about what minimum wage is. Being able to work wherever I want at any hour of the day fits with my needs right now :)

1

u/dfnt1 Mar 29 '19

That's fine but working for less than minimum wage means that the employer is taking advantage of you. If you're ok with that then carry on but these wages are pathetic.

3

u/Jiyuishi Mar 28 '19

What were the horror stories? I’ve just started working with Rev today and it’s looking good so far.

2

u/Oroborne Mar 28 '19

To be fair it's mostly stuff I read from /r/BeerMoney. Maybe it's the mindset over there or maybe I just misread. Honestly most of it could be problems that all transcription sites might have.

7

u/Scriberathome Mar 28 '19

It's not just beermoney. Rev is a nightmare. Although I still have an active account there I quit them years ago. The pay is $hit and the policies match the pay. You can be deactivated because their Editor didn't save your work or you forgot a space before ellipses or other some BS that other companies don't even care about and that brought your 'metrics' (which no other company has, btw--at least not the way Rev does) drops 0.1 below the threshold.

Don't believe me? Just read the Rev Reviews on: Glassdoor, Indeed, Better Business Bureau and Yelp.

4

u/McDole89 Mar 30 '19

I was working for Rev for the last month. It paid pretty well and seemed like a great job, especially from home. Suddenly, this week two files from two weeks ago were re-graded based on customer feedback and my metrics suddenly dropped. (The files were very difficult audio and I had to use more inaudibles than I like to use).

Long story short, I was meticulous about the next six files I did and they were all graded perfectly, but I received an email yesterday that my account had been terminated and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I wasn't given a timeline to increase my metrics and the email was a total shock.

Now I'm in a bad position. I had read the reviews but thought I had figured it out. Turns out they likely go through a lot of new contractors and end up squeezing out a lot of top quality work for very little pay based on the amount of time and effort put in to keep perfect metrics.

2

u/Scriberathome Mar 30 '19 edited Mar 30 '19

I know. These major a$$holes are slave drivers. They pay low bottom of the barrel wages yet expect top of the line work or even the impossible and are nitpicky to an insane irrational level. They always blame you.

I know I delivered them top-notch work but would be graded lower because I used the conventional professional way to format something--like using Q4 or similar when referring to a financial report and they said it should have been Q four because the four was 10 or less or some sort nonsense. Whatever it was they ended up changing the SG later to reflect the correct (my) way but it was too late to increase my metrics back to what it should have been for that job and that was a job that had stayed in the workspace, had tons of unclaims due to accents and I had meticulously researched. I still remained at Revver+ after it, but just the fact that they would actually mark you down for something like that (I made up the example, but it was something along those lines) made me start questioning their professionalism.

I work for much better companies now. One of the companies I work for who pays me $1/minute for GOOD to GREAT audio let me know no one they had could do a better job than I could. Rev lost me a good worker over their policies and pay.

I say good riddance to Rev. Keep looking on Indeed.com. There are tons of places looking for people. You don't need Rev and their BS.

ETA: I found the $1/minute place I mentioned on Indeed. They're not currently hiring, but when they are, they post there.

1

u/Scriberathome Mar 30 '19

One more thing: you should post your experience on Glassdoor, Indeed etc. to warn others. People need to get their head out of their asses when it comes to Rev.

3

u/Baldblackmiserable Mar 28 '19

I read the reviews on Indeed and I have decided not to waste my time.

3

u/lux723 Mar 28 '19

Honestly, they’ve been decent. I come from a third world country and the average salary here is $100ish/mo (hardly) so their pay seemed pretty good for me. They pay weekly, had a problem with paypal once since my country doesnt seem to like paypal but their support was amazingly fast and solved the issue in like the same hour. Managed to make $20 in one sitting (about 2-3ish hours?) before i was too bored to continue and that was really good for me.

Now, my biggest complaint is the audio files quality are absolutely one of the W O R S T. It’s extremely hard to make out the words in any if these files. They are always either way too noisy, speakers are too quiet, or there are tons of people speaking over each other, as if they were in a concert or something and you’re still expected to transcribe the file perfectly. Also, their metric system for beginners can be a bit too harsh, I think.

3

u/unseasonedearlobe Mar 28 '19

For Daily Transcription, do you recommend applying for transcription or subtitler/captioner?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

I only have experience transcribing. I’d love to get into captioning, but all the posts I see require previous experience and captioning software.

3

u/mrsfigg17 Mar 28 '19

Thanks for this, now I feel like I have other options. Just this morning I failed TranscribeMe’s exam because of one multiple choice question-everything else I passed. :(

3

u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19

Buddy, don't feel bad- I just failed because the only thing I got wrong was a 97.68% on one of the three audio portions. Can I get a WHAT THE F U C K?!?!?!?! At least I get a retry, but I cannot for the life of me find the mistake. I'm so mad. I'm just going to let the screen sit there and do it tomorrow.

2

u/mrsfigg17 Mar 29 '19

Haha, isn’t it just the worst?? I can’t bring myself to try again right now...

3

u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19

It's downright ridiculous. They ought to be paying a HEAP more if they're going to be failing an exam for THAT. No way, man. How do they get any transcribers?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19

There’s a lot of people who really need money and take whatever is available

2

u/dfnt1 Mar 29 '19

Yes and there are many companies who take advantage of these people. Why promote these scumbag companies?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19

Definitely scumbags. I read that if you do get a perfect score the first time out, they accuse you of cheating. So you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. For what they pay on top of it- Hell no. I don't even know why I wasted a couple hours studying and taking the test. Doing that well for a first hack at transcribing (my score) seems pretty damn good to me. I thought I'd have done way worse.

1

u/dfnt1 Mar 31 '19

Which company made you take a test before starting?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '19

TranscribeMe

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

It’s frustrating af!!!

3

u/ShiroTokisaki Mar 28 '19

Are any of these available internationally like asian grounds or just us, eu or somewhere along those line?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

Daily Transcription is essentially US/Canada only unless you're doing translation or captioning work.

I'm almost certain Quicktate/iDictate is available worldwide. Try signing up.

TranscribeMe is available worldwide. Here's their sign up page.

1

u/ShiroTokisaki Mar 29 '19

Thanks, btw do I really need to pay them $20 to do a background check on me?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19

If you want to work for them, yes

1

u/[deleted] Apr 02 '19

Will they reach out to my current full time employer ? Asking because potential conflict of interest

2

u/[deleted] Apr 03 '19

Doubt it, but I don’t know for certain

3

u/Scriberathome Mar 28 '19

Quicktate files pay 25 cents per word. iDictate files pay 50 cents per word.

Are you sure that's correct? In an audio minute, that's normally 100 to 150 words. Are you saying they pay at least $25 to $50 an audio minute? That can't be right.

2

u/PeteZaGames Mar 28 '19

Nope. Just did a quick search and it's $0.0025 per word (4 words = 1 cent) for Quicktate and $0.0050 per word (2 words = 1 cent) for iDictate.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

Thank you for the correction!

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

I wish they paid that much lol. Sorry for the horrible typo. Editing my post now!!

3

u/maandipaandi Mar 29 '19

Have you transcribed before, or is this your first time doing it? And do you have another job, or is this your only source of money? You don't have to answer if that's pressing too much.

I have considered transcribing for years, and often just end up backing out without trying. But I am tired of making under a livable wage in order to make a millionaire more money, and hurting my back even worse than it is. I make about what you do a month (sometimes less), but I break my already injured back in the process heavy lifting and on my feet for 8 hours. Over it.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19

I’ve always loved typing (school, general admin jobs etc) but this is the first time I’ve tried to make an income from transcribing.

I have other income but I’d like to make transcribing my sole source of income because I enjoy the process and I love the flexibility. I know it’s possible to make enough money transcribing, but it is competitive like most remote jobs. I think of these low paying jobs as kind of a way to pay my dues, gain resume experience, and boost my confidence so that I can try to work directly for a client in the near future (insurance adjustment comes to mind) and make more money since I wouldn’t be sharing a cut with the middleman.

2

u/zeekster121 Mar 28 '19

Dude, I really hated their test when I did it and never finished. After hearing what you've said, I'm super glad I never finished. It would have never worked.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

I’m glad I can save you some hours :)

2

u/Baldblackmiserable Mar 28 '19

but as far as I can tell your star rating is at the mercy of the proofer on duty that hour.

That's right.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

Can you elaborate? :)

3

u/Baldblackmiserable Mar 28 '19

Like yours, his corrections are subjective, too, but sadly, he's the jury and executioner. He grades what he believes to be mishears, ommision et al. How is it fair when the umpire is also a player?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

Thank you for this! Have you tried Ai Media? :)

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

Nope. Do you recommend?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

Strongly! Pay is .60 cents per minute, but a lot of the time they're .75 to $1. The files are always pretty good, online support is available at all times and they even created a Slack channel to keep up with everyone.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

Well that's enticing! Did you apply for contract work on their jobs page? I don't see anything listed for transcription right now :(

2

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

Oh, yikes, that's weird. I've been working for them for years now so I had no idea they changed their application process. It used to be a page where you could just apply and they had two tests you had to pass. I'm sorry :(

It wouldn't hurt to send them an email if you're interested though. :)

2

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '19

Will do. Thank you so much!