Best Transcription Services in 2026

TranscribeMe offers automated transcription and several human-edited tiers. Its human-edited transcription starts at US$0.79 per minute, the lowest published human rate among the services in this list. Prices vary by language, and legal transcription is priced per page. The company is open about what each tier delivers. The basic human-edited tier is stated to achieve 95%–98% accuracy on high-quality audio, while the Extra Review and Verbatim options carry a 99% accuracy guarantee measured by word error rate. Standard human-edited work is usually returned in one business day without timestamps or speaker labels, or in two to three business days with them. Verbatim takes two to five days, and a one-business-day rush option is available for clean files of up to 70 minutes. Automated transcripts take roughly three times the audio's duration.

Scribie sells human-verified transcription starting at US$0.80 per minute and legal transcription at US$1.30 per minute, which includes custom formatting. Its pricing is built from add-ons. Precision Verbatim costs an extra US$0.50 per minute and is guaranteed at 99.9% accuracy. Priority Processing, described as twice as fast, costs an extra US$1.25 per minute, and noisy or accented audio costs an extra US$0.50 per minute. Its general accuracy claim is 99%. Because the surcharges are published, a buyer can work out the cost of a difficult file in advance. They also mean that poor-quality recordings can cost more than double the headline rate.

Rev sells both AI transcription subscriptions and pay-per-minute human transcription. Human transcription and captions start at US$1.99 per minute, with 99%+ accuracy guaranteed in 12 hours or less. Subscribers receive discounts on human work of between 3% and 15%, depending on the plan. The AI plans run from a free tier with 45 minutes a month to Essentials at US$25.49 per seat per month (billed annually) and Pro at US$47.99, which includes 10,000 AI minutes per user per month and more than 37 languages. A custom Unlimited plan adds CJIS and HIPAA compliance and single sign-on. For law firms Rev offers formatted legal transcripts at US$2.25 per page (rough draft) and US$2.50 per page (premium, 99.7%+ accuracy).

GoTranscript is registered in Lewes, Delaware, and lists an office in Harrow, London. It offers human transcription with turnaround options of 6–12 hours, one day, three days or five days, plus volume tiers starting at 2,500 minutes. The per-minute rates sit behind a calculator rather than in a published table. The calculator's example on its home page shows US$1.40 per minute for a 30-minute file, without stating the turnaround assumed. The company claims 99.4% accuracy, which it says is verified by an external quality-management system. It covers more than 140 languages and says it has served 144,000 clients since 2005. It also sells AI transcription for drafts, as well as captions and translation.

SpeakWrite prices English transcription by the word rather than by the minute. Single-speaker audio or video costs 1.5 cents per word, and recordings with two or more speakers cost 2.25 cents per word, both with a 100-word minimum. Text-based files, PDFs and images are also transcribed at 1.5 cents per word, and Spanish-to-English audio is translated at US$9 per audio minute. The company says most work is delivered in about three hours with no rush surcharge, and that its typists are based in the US and Canada. The first three minutes of audio, or the first PDF page, are free. Per-word pricing favours slow speakers and dictation, and costs more for fast multi-speaker conversation.

Ditto Transcripts is a Denver, Colorado company founded in 2010 that describes its transcriptionists as US-based. It focuses on sectors with confidentiality requirements, namely law enforcement, legal, medical, academic and government clients. It states that its transcripts are CJIS and HIPAA compliant and displays an AICPA SOC mark. Base per-minute rates are not published on its home page; it lists only add-ons, at US$0.25 per minute for verbatim and US$0.25 per minute for timestamps, plus a US$150 flat fee for notarisation. The firm also offers translation and deposition summaries. Its value lies mainly in its compliance posture and US-only workforce, which public agencies and law firms often require.

Verbit is a New York-headquartered transcription, captioning and accessibility company that combines its own speech-recognition engine with human editors. It is the parent of the VITAC captioning brand and Automatic Sync (AST). Its products include Captivate (customisable speech recognition), Legal Capture (real-time transcription for court reporters) and Campus Complete (accessibility compliance for colleges). It serves courtrooms, law firms, law enforcement, universities, government and broadcasters. It lists support for accessibility and data standards including ADA, FCC, Ofcom, WCAG 2.0 AA, GDPR and ISO 27001, and offers translation in more than 50 languages. Pricing is quote-based, and the company publishes no accuracy percentage.

3Play Media is based in Boston, Massachusetts, and sells transcription and captioning together with audio description, subtitling, dubbing and live captioning. Its default workflow combines AI with expert human review. Plans range from Express, for one-off projects covering captioning and audio description, to Pro (up to 10 hours of video a year, including subtitling and live captioning) and Enterprise (unlimited video, API access and custom turnaround). Per-minute rates are personalised by service, language, turnaround and the mix of AI and human review, and fall with volume; buyers use a calculator or request a quote. The company is a common choice for universities and media organisations that need captions alongside transcripts.

Sonix is an automated, machine-only transcription service. Its pay-as-you-go rate is US$10 per hour of audio, prorated to the second, and additional hours on any subscription are billed at the same rate. Subscriptions cost US$25 a month for 5 hours (Core), US$50 for 20 hours (Advanced) and US$80 for 40 hours (Pro), with annual options. Each plan includes one user, and extra seats cost US$25 a month. Transcription and translation are available in more than 54 languages, and new accounts receive 30 free minutes. At these rates an hour of audio costs about as much as five minutes of Rev's human transcription. The output must be reviewed by the user, because no human editing is included.

Otter.ai is a subscription service that transcribes meetings and uploaded recordings automatically. The free Basic plan includes 300 minutes a month. Pro costs US$16.99 a month (US$8.33 a month billed annually) for 1,200 minutes and 10 imported files a month, and Business costs US$30 a month (US$19.99 billed annually) with unlimited meeting minutes and 6,000 minutes of imported files a month. AI transcription is listed for English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese. Otter is designed for live meetings rather than finished, verified transcripts, so it suits internal notes better than legal, research or publication work.