Rev’s user interface is just about as intuitive as Otter’s. With Rev, you can choose between a human or machine-generated transcription, while other services typically offer one or the other. Whether you’re a student or work in a newsroom, you’ll probably be able to afford Otter. With the paid version, Otter Pro, users get a slew of extra features that sweeten the deal for only $13/month. Otter offers integration with Dropbox, Google, Zoom, and Microsoft, making it more versatile than other services. Finally, the user interface is about as painless as it gets. Otter comes with team collaboration tools, not to mention a huge volume of free transcription minutes every month. Otter’s other features, user interface, low price, and ease of use more than make up for a not-completely-perfect transcription, making it our top pick. First, though, let's tell you about our winner: Our top pick: Otter.ai We came away with one clear winner, but all the services have pros and cons, like pricing and turnaround time, that could be worth your consideration.

We rated our favorite services based on the following criteria: pricing, ease of use, speed, features, and most importantly, transcription accuracy. One recording was clean, with no background noise, and the other was the same interview clip with added music with vocals in the background. Since there are at least a dozen services out there, ranging from companies that employ humans to ones that use AI, and even hybrids of the two, we decided to put 10 of the most popular services to the test.įor our test we used two two-minute iPhone recordings from a recent interview with Genius co-founder Mahbod Moghadam. As a reporter, I rely on them on a nearly daily basis to turn hours of conversations with subjects and sources into accurate text files that I can use when writing articles. Whether you work in media, law, education, data analysis, finance, compliance, or simply need to record your Zoom meetings to read over later, you’re likely in need of a good transcription service.

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