Before we talk about GoTranscript, we need to describe how we rate these services.
Our Transcription Service App series evaluates the features, pricing options, competition, and overall value of using each service.
However, these are not practical reviews, as evaluating a service based on a single performance would be highly subjective. Because it is a human-based solution, the quality of any transcript depends entirely on the efforts of a few people and their performance on a specific day.
All of these companies aim to provide a level of service, but it is up to their clients to assess whether their work is appropriate.
What we also consider is how the company is viewed not only by its customers but also by its employees. Equally important are those who provide the service. Satisfied employees often do a better job or go the extra mile, and dissatisfied employees often don't.
Where GoTranscript is slightly different from most of the big companies in this industry is that they are based in the UK, where they have developed a small but satisfied customer base.
Does GoTranscript have the magic recipe for providing untapped, affordable, high-quality service to transcription providers?
Costs
The price of transcription through GoTranscript is remarkably low, even by the standards of this cutthroat industry.
The pricing model is more complicated than we'd like, but it's reasonably easy to follow. The starting point is how quickly you need the transcription, with 6-12 hours being the fastest, followed by one business day, three and five days.
These cost €1,92, €1,00, €0,85 and €0,69 per minute for a basic transcription in English, which equates to €2,50, €1,30, €1,11 and € 0,90 based on the dollar exchange rate at the time of writing.
This can increase costs if you want a full verbatim transcript, there are more than two speakers, poor audio quality or heavy accents are used, subtitles are required for the video, timestamp, and also if the language is not English.
A low-quality audio file or one containing very difficult accents is usually charged an additional €0.20 per minute, but the job is done by more experienced transcribers.
Discounts can be made for bulk orders, bringing the 5-day service down to just €0,59 per minute for English transcription.
The GoTranscript website provides a quoting service, so there should be no cost surprises.
The interesting thing is that for those who transcribe in a language other than English, the price varies considerably depending on the language. Bengali, for example, costs the same as English, while Estonian is much more expensive. They can also transcribe and translate as part of a process if that is a requirement.
But there are not many services that can transcribe English, Albanian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek. , Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Nepalese, Norwegian, Pashto, Persian (Dari), Persian (Farsi), Polish , Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Shona, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tajik, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.
While some competitors offer cheaper solutions for those willing to wait up to a month for their transcription, the listed price for a fully human transcription is a great value, especially if you have a massive need.
In addition to the common transcription options, GoTranscipt also offers specialized transcription for focus group recordings, legal, medical, academic, and research purposes that are priced not significantly different from more common jobs.
How does it work
The fascinating thing about GoTranscript is that while most US services advertise that they only employ people from this region, GoTranscript is honest about hiring 20 transcribers worldwide, all managed from their base. in Scotland.
For the English transcript, they state that most are based in the UK or the US and are native English speakers.
According to the GoTranscript website, once the audio is uploaded through the website
it is then divided into sections that different transcriptionists can work on.
Accepted file formats include mp3, wav, wma, wmv, avi, flv, mpg, mpeg, mp4, m4a, m4v, mov, ogg, webm, aif, aiff, amr, 3gp, 3ga, mts, and ovg. Alternatively, GoTranscript offers mobile apps for Android and Apple devices,
Once the job is complete for the entire file, it is reviewed to ensure essential quality before moving on to a review stage, and finally undergoes further analysis to ensure it reaches the stated 99% accuracy.
Payment is made with major credit cards, debit cards, or PayPal, and the transcribed work is emailed to the client.
According to GoTranscript, if the work exceeds the agreed time, they will partially reimburse you, although they do not specify the amount.
We also note that if you have money deposited with the transcription service, you cannot get it back. Therefore, it would be a bad plan to deposit a large sum in this account before being satisfied with the service provided.
Those who are not satisfied with the transcripts may contact customer service within seven days of receiving the documents.
final verdict
Initially when we reviewed GoTranscript, it seemed to have pulled off the amazing trick of providing a cheap and reliable service with very high customer satisfaction without leaving a huge trail of disgruntled former transcriptionists.
Unfortunately, a closer look at TrustPilot and other reputable sites reveals that while the number of disgruntled former transcriptionists is smaller than Rev and TranscribeMe, there are still plenty.
Based on the salary listed for transcription, this is one of the better services, but it also has the same unfortunate issues, with some transcriptionists not being paid for the work and the company refusing to speak to them when 'ellos se quejan.
People have problems, and we can't comment on the validity of those complaints, although there are a significant number of them, enough that they're hard to ignore.
We were also able to find several customers who were not satisfied with the service they received or the way GoTranscript handled their complaints. According to these reviewers, this is primarily a problem with languages other than English, where commands are transcribed late and incorrectly.
That said, 81% of those who reviewed the service on Trustpilot rated it excellent, showing that it can attract customers who aren't among the 9% who gave it a poor rating.
What you get here is either an inconsistent experience, where you can get lucky most of the time, or terrible service that convinces you to never come back.
One big difference between this and many other services is that this one has a trial version, allowing those who are curious about what to expect to give GoTranscript a try before committing the money and time to spend it on a major project.