Transcription Rates in 2026: What 12 Services Cost per Hour
For English, human transcription services charge $0.79 to $2.00 a minute at their standard rates, or about $47 to $120 for an hour of audio. Rush delivery and some other languages cost more, and SpeakWrite, which charges by the word, comes to about $135 to $200 an hour by our estimate.
AI transcription costs $0.07 to $0.25 a minute pay as you go. A monthly plan can cost less: on each service's cheapest paid plan, an hour comes to $0.23 to $8.50, but only if you use the whole plan, and you still pay for the whole month.
We read the pricing pages and help centers of 12 services on November 4 and 5, 2026. For monthly plans we checked only the cheapest paid plan of each, billed monthly. To choose a service by more than price, see our review of the best online transcription services.
Transcription cost comparison: what an hour of audio costs in 2026
HypeScribe, which we make, has the cheapest hour on the chart, as long as you use all 30 recordings a month at about an hour each.
We compare HypeScribe with Rev, Otter, Sonix and TurboScribe on separate pages.
Human transcription rates per minute, from 5 days to same day
Most human services charge by the minute, whether a transcriptionist types the file from scratch or checks a software draft. At GoTranscript, a 12-hour deadline costs more than twice the 5-day rate. Rev's pricing page says 12 hours or less, but its help center says files over 2 hours usually take 48 and that turnaround isn't guaranteed. Rows go from the lowest standard rate.
English rates from each pricing page and help center on November 4 and 5, 2026. GoTranscript's calculator opened in euros for us, so we switched it to dollars. Amberscript lists euros only.
Transcription pricing models: how services charge
Most human services charge per audio minute, and so does pay-as-you-go AI at Rev and TranscribeMe. SpeakWrite counts words instead, and Rev prices its legal transcripts by the page. Without a subscription, Sonix bills AI by the hour of audio, and Amberscript sells a single hour for €10.
Most monthly plans include a set number of minutes or hours, and Rev's are priced per seat. HypeScribe counts recordings instead, 30 a month on its cheapest plan, with each file up to 5 GB. TurboScribe Unlimited and Trint have no cap, although Trint has a fair-use policy.
AI transcription prices: per minute or a monthly plan?
Rev's cheapest plan costs less than its pay-as-you-go AI from 2 hours a month, and Sonix's above 2.5 hours. Happy Scribe sells extra AI minutes at $0.20 each, but only on top of a paid plan, and unused minutes don't roll over.
With 5 recordings a month, each HypeScribe recording costs about $1.40. With 5 hours a month on Otter Pro, each hour costs about $3.40.
Extra fees: what makes transcription cost more
- Verbatim: +$0.50 a minute at Rev and Scribie. It keeps every "um", false start and repeated word. At TranscribeMe, verbatim takes 2–5 business days instead.
- Hard audio: +$0.50 a minute at Scribie. That's for noisy or accented recordings. TranscribeMe may simply take longer on poor audio.
- Timestamps: +$0.30 a minute at Rev. Scribie includes them, and TranscribeMe needs one or two extra business days for them.
- More speakers: +50% at SpeakWrite. Its per-word rate goes up by half once a second voice joins.
- Another language: up to ×4.6 the English rate. At GoTranscript's 5-day rates, Spanish costs the same as English, German $3.00 a minute and Japanese $5.50. SpeakWrite turns Spanish audio into English text for $9 a minute.
- Subtitling: +$0.25 a minute at Happy Scribe. Human subtitles cost $2.25 a minute against $2.00 for a transcript. Rev's human captions cost the same as its transcripts in English and $3.25 a minute in Spanish. Amberscript's start at €4.40 a minute.
What it costs to transcribe four common jobs
Human totals use the lowest list rates, before discounts, except the student discount in the dissertation. AI prices are for one month of a plan, or 12 months for the meetings. They don't include the time you spend checking the text.
7-day trial
30 recordings a month for $6.99
That's HypeScribe's cheapest plan, after a 7-day trial. The podcast and the dissertation above each fit into one month of it.
Legal, medical and enterprise transcription pricing
Legal transcription
Legal transcripts are often priced by the page. Rev charges $2.25 a page for a rough draft and $2.50 for Legal Premium, which it rates at 99.7%+ accuracy. Neither is included in its subscription plans. Scribie's court reporter format costs $1.30 a minute, and TranscribeMe quotes legal formatting through its sales team. Before you order, ask the court or your firm which format and certification they accept.
Medical transcription pricing models: how to compare quotes
None of the pricing pages we read lists a rate for medical transcription, or says whether it would be charged per minute or per line. You'll be asking for quotes, so ask for the unit first. If you handle patient records in the US, you'll want a HIPAA agreement (a BAA) with the service. TranscribeMe runs a HIPAA workflow through its sales team. Rev signs a BAA only on its custom Unlimited plan, Sonix on Enterprise, and Otter sells HIPAA as an Enterprise add-on. Happy Scribe says it isn't HIPAA compliant, and HypeScribe doesn't list HIPAA. More on the job itself in what medical transcriptionists do.
Enterprise plans and API pricing
Enterprise transcription is also priced by quote. Rev Unlimited, Sonix Enterprise and Otter Enterprise ask you to talk to sales, and Verbit, which sells to legal, media, corporate and education teams, publishes no prices at all. You usually end up there for single sign-on or a HIPAA agreement, which all three keep for these plans. To compare quotes, give each the same yearly volume and number of seats.
You don't need an enterprise plan for an API. Rev includes one from its cheapest paid plan, and Sonix from Core, though not on pay as you go. TurboScribe has no API. None of these pricing pages says what heavy API use costs. HypeScribe gives you API keys, but doesn't list SOC 2, HIPAA or single sign-on.
Cheap transcription: how to pay less
- Pick the slowest deadline you can live with. The table above shows what each day saves.
- Trim the file before you upload it. At a per-minute rate, every minute of small talk or silence you cut is a minute you don't pay for.
- Ask for discounts. GoTranscript takes 5% off from 2,500 minutes and 10% from 5,250, and gives students and educators 10% off. Above 10,000 minutes it quotes a price. Rev subscribers get 3–15% off human orders, and TurboScribe sells bulk transcription from 1,000 hours at $0.50 an hour.
7-day trial
Check quotes against the audio yourself
Select a line in a HypeScribe transcript and press Play from here to hear it before you quote it. 7-day trial, then from $6.99 a month.
FAQ
What is the average rate for transcription per minute?
We can't measure the whole market. The five services in the table that list an English rate in dollars (TranscribeMe, Scribie, GoTranscript, Rev and Happy Scribe) have standard rates that average about $1.36 a minute, or $81 an hour. That's a plain average of their published rates, not what a typical order costs.
What is the cheapest transcription service?
For a few short files, a free plan. TurboScribe transcribes 3 files a day of up to 30 minutes each. Otter gives 300 minutes a month, but caps each conversation at 30 minutes and allows 3 uploaded files for the life of the account. Rev gives 45 AI minutes a month, in English only. For paid AI, the chart shows the cheapest hour, as long as you use the whole plan. With people, TranscribeMe and Scribie have the lowest standard rates. More free options are in our list of free transcription software.
How much does call transcription cost?
Ten 30-minute calls a month cost $237 at TranscribeMe's lowest human rate and $597 at Rev. With AI, they cost $6.99 at HypeScribe (10 of its 30 recordings) or $16.99 on Otter Pro (300 of its 1,200 minutes). Happy Scribe's cheapest plan covers only 120 minutes, so the same month there comes to $53 with extra minutes.
Does live or streaming transcription cost extra?
Not at Otter, which shows a live transcript on every plan, including the free one. Trint caps live transcription at 1 hour a month on its Pro and Team plans, and Sonix's meeting bot needs its $80 Pro plan. HypeScribe has no live transcript. Its notetaker transcribes the call when it ends.
Prices change often. If something here is out of date, email support@hypescribe.com and we'll fix it.
