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Transcription can come in as an expensive ordeal – especially for budding businesses. However, the essentialness and ubiquitousness of transcription mandate its use for business big and small. Owing to the necessity of transcription one can opt for various options to reduce the cost of transcription. This article aims at guiding you to adjust Podcast transcription services

Using Automatic Speech Recognition Software:

 The cheapest way possible to get transcription is through a machine. Google recently introduced transcription software that is available for free. Besides, there is numerous other good quality speech recognition software that offers transcription at cheap rates. However, even under ideal conditions, the accuracy of greater than 90% is untenable. Sometimes, this beats the purpose of transcribing – like in the case of legal or medical transcription. In circumstances where accuracy is a must, ASR does little to supplement the transcript.

Human transcription services:

One clear benefit of manual transcription is the accuracy it delivers. Usually, the accuracy promised with human-based transcription is in the ranges of 98-99%. However, one always has to keep in mind the issues with privacy that a third party transcriber might incur. Usually, cheap transcription starts around $0.75/min, however, transcription is usually outsourced, with a bare minimum in terms of confidentiality. More costly transcription services employ strict NDA and end-to-end transcriptions to ensure the security of your source. Premium transcription services might provide integration with business Content Management System (CMS), saving you time, but costing you more.

Choosing less-detailed transcription:

There are three types of transcription – Verbatim, Edited, and Intelligent. Verbatim transcription is the most detailed among others and records all errs and umms, stutters and false starts, sneezes, yawns, and coughs. As you can imagine verbatim transcription is going to cost more. Edited transcription cuts the clutter mentioned above and gives you a “clean” transcript. While intelligent transcription goes for an even more relaxed approach to transcription – an option during intelligent transcription might be a summary transcription, which gives a summary account of what is included in the audio recording. Usually, transcription sample can be a good measure of details included in a transcript. However, if you do not have a specific choice of transcription in your mind, opt for edited transcription – which provides the right balance between cost and accuracy.

Planning:

Turnaround time (TAT) plays an important role in how much a transcript is going to cost. Usually planning ahead of time allows certain leeway in terms of cost. Opting for a slow TAT allows a reduction in costs. Planning a week reduces transcription cost by 20% or more - the additional cost incurs because transcription companies might hire multiple transcribers to complete the task at hand more quickly.

Summary – The choice of transcription plays a major role in delineating the cost of it. Usually, transcription services rates for machine transcription is less than those performed by humans, but the accuracy takes its toll during the process. Additional planning allows you to reduce the cost of transcription, while transcription performed with urgency is going to cost you more. Verbatim transcription goes into minutiae and costs more, while edited and summary transcription is the better option at lower rates. The choice of transcription depends on industry-specific standards and attention provided towards accuracy.