First off, let me say that I was very excited to try transcription. I had read blog after blog of recommended stay-at-home mom jobs, and this always ranked close to the top. I have always been good at typing – even taking a medical transcription class in college- so, this appealed to me. There were many pros: I could make my own hours, work when I wanted to, and still have time to take care of my household during the day. This just seemed like the perfect fit.
Transcribe me seemed to rank close to the top with pay averages of $15-$20 x hour, with rates beginning at .33 per minute. With Even 1 hour per day, that would certainly cover my groceries for the week. I wasn’t expecting to be the breadwinner, but I was still pumped.
Prior to taking the exam , I downloaded the extensive Transcribe Me style guide and watched countless videos on YouTube. I studied and was eager to try it out and help contribute to our household, but with flexible hours that would make it easier to still care for my children and help with school work.
The reality.
The entrance exam and subsequent exams can take up to 6-8 hours with a high rate of failure on the first attempt. The exam is composed of both a written and audio test.
Once you have passed the entrance exam, you wait for work. There have been complaints of people waiting 1-2 weeks for even their first assignment.
You are paid per audio hour, with work being provided in chunks of two to four minutes. A beginner transcriptionist could take up to one hour to complete two minutes of work especially if the audio is more complicated.
According to TranscribeMe, There is a strict adherence to the style guidance, including correct style, clean verbatum and correct spelling according to the Commonwealth English Guides.
There is a lot of independent research required to confirm every name and term in the audio, along with the indicated Tags when words are not audible or may be confusing. I thought it would be easy, since I’ve always done well in English class, but there are a lot of random nuisances that they require, making it more difficult to type out.
Each section of work will go through a Quality analysis and could be rejected resulting in zero pay for the project that was completed. If multiple sections of work are rejected, you will stop receiving any assignments.
According to transcriptioncertificationinstitute.org a transcriptionist’s salary is generally around $15, while an advanced transcriptionist earns around $25 to $30 per hour. With this rate, you can easily earn $1,500 every month if you work 2.5 hours per day for 24 days. According to PayScale, the median transcriptionists’ salary is $15.22 per hour.
Zip Recruiter.com reports wages between $5.77 to $21.63 per hour.
When it comes to individual transcribers according to gmrtranscribers.com, the average time to transcribe one hour of audio is approximately four hours. But, some transcribers quote four hours as the minimum since it can easily reach 10 hours. Transcription time by audio hour varies so much, mostly because each audio file is different
This estimates an hourly rate of $1.50 to $3.50, well below the National Minimum of $7.25 + per hour.
Based on For this reason I am not recommending TranscribeMe as an easy way to make some quick cash.
