TranscribeMe Vs GoTranscript: Which Is Better For Transcriptionists?

Want to be a transcriptionist? If yes, this TrascribeMe vs GoTrascrirt comparison will give you an insight into why you should choose either.

Finding good freelance transcription opportunities is often easier said than done.

Most of the companies proudly touting themselves as the best in the game can’t walk the walk.

And those that can may not always be available to you, let alone meet your preferences.

In this article, we shall make an in-depth TranscribeMe vs GoTranscript comparison.

The two are among the best platforms for freelance transcriptionists, and although a chunk of their features overlap, their dissimilarities are not in the least, negligible.

What Is TranscribeMe?

TranscribeMe is one of the largest transcription companies in the industry.

It boasts a network of thousands of transcriptionists, as well as companies and individual professionals seeking transcription services.

As one of the not-so-many companies that don’t demand minimum work hour commitment from freelancers, it’s not hard to see why TranscribeMe is so popular among transcriptionists.

What Is GoTranscript?

Like TranscribeMe, GoTranscript is a web-based transcription service that pays freelancers to type out videos and audio for their customers.

The company also offers captioning, translation, and subtitling services.

As at the time of writing this article, there were well over 20,000 freelancers working with GoTranscript, most of them transcriptionists.

The site claims to pay competitive rates and is always open to new applications from aspiring transcriptionists.

So, if you wish to start working straight away, this is the site for you.

How TranscribeMe Works

TranscribeMe does what every other transcription service does: connecting freelancers with clients. Its way of enabling this relationship is pretty unique, though.

The client shares their file with the company, and the company chooses which transcriber to give the work.

So you don’t claim work. You don’t bid, either. You simply wait for a random assignment.

This comes as both an upside and a downside from the transcriptionist’s perspective. On the good side, everyone gets work.

On the flip side, your hard work may not influence your earning potential as much as you would wish.

Signing Up For TranscribeMe

TranscribeMe seems to favor freelancers with previous transcription experience.

Ironically, most people who join are entry-level transcriptionists with a good ear, and impeccable understanding of English, and decent typing speed.

So how do you sign up for TranscribeMe?

First, you fill out a form with your name, email, and preferred account password.

Then you do an entrance exam. This is the more important part because it will determine whether you will be accepted or not.

Quite frankly, the exam is not a formality. It’s a serious assessment that tests your proficiency on various transcription aspects and your grasp of the TranscribeMe style guide.

So make sure to go through the guide first. The guide will be provided to you before the exam.

Obviously, acquaint yourself with transcription in general as well if you are a total novice.

The exam can be taken through the portal. There is a first part and a second.

The first consists of multiple-choice questions, mostly testing your understanding of the style guide.

The second part is where you do a transcription test. You will receive two transcription files, and you must submit them within a specific time.

You will be offered a second chance if you don’t pass the test the first time. Then, you can retry after 30 days if you fail again on the second attempt.

Also, check our article on Scribie Vs. Rev

The TranscribeMe Transcription Process

Before anything, it’s good to understand that transcription is a tad more difficult than it sounds on paper.

The audio quality is often bad, and the accents require talent to hear through. So you won’t be able to do everything that is available on the work pool.

The transcription process is easy, though. The client submits their file to TranscribeMe.

The in-house staff splits the file into sections and makes them available to transcribers. If you finish your part quickly enough, good on you.

You can still be assigned other bits of the same audio. Many times, this is not possible, so you have to do bits from other files.

Of course, these bits will need to be reviewed and reassembled into a single file, which explains why it can take up to 12 days for your work to be approved.

But don’t fret. Rejection is not common if you form a habit of picking what you can do. TranscribeMe lets you revise your work if you have missed the mark by 30% or less.

Beyond that is when your work is rejected. Any transcriptionist will tell you that that is quite a generous allowance.

Better yet, TranscribeMe lets you dispute a rejection if you think of it as unfair.

How GoTranscript Works

GoTranscript serves the same type of clients as TranscribeMe, so the quality requirements for transcripts are generally the same.

Also, all you have to do as a freelancer is choose work from a job pool that gets frequently updated.

What you may find a little different with this site is that its email alerts are unfiltered.

You will get a notification for each transcription job that pops up, so there will be a lot of buzzing in your pocket.

Your work is also reviewed and graded by an editor, who leaves comments about your work and how you can do better.

The grading is on a scale of 1-5, and you can become an editor yourself if you maintain a rating of 4.5 or more after a certain number of reviews.

As regards what you can do, newbies don’t have much of a choice.

You have to rely on general transcription jobs until you’re thought good enough to handle medical, legal, academic, and research transcription jobs, which are the preserve of the highest-rated transcribers.

Signing Up For GoTranscript

To join GoTranscript, visit www.gotranscript.com/transcription-jobs and click “Apply Now’ in the page that opens.

A drop-down menu will appear with a list of transcription languages. Select your language and proceed to create your GoTranscript account.

I find the registration process unnecessarily knotty. First, you will provide your email address and create an account password.

Then you will click the same “Apply now” link you clicked earlier to now apply as a freelancer.

Funny enough, you will need to select your language a second time.

This time, however, you will be taken straight to an entry exam page that opens with ten simple multiple-choice questions.

I say simple because half of them are grammar questions, and the other half are directly copied from GoTranscript’s style guide.

Next, you will be given an audio file about 3 minutes long to transcribe using the site’s guidelines.

It is often a standard accent audio with just a few confusing words and phrases to test your hearing. It shouldn’t be hard to nail.

Note that this exam is the only thing that sits between you and your dream of becoming a transcriber at GoTranscript. So it’s best that you give it the seriousness it deserves.

Before anything, read the style guide thoroughly, understand clean and full verbatim, learn about time-stamping and using speaker labels, and ensure you have punctuation down pat.

Of course, this assumes you are trying transcription for the first time.

Your transcript will be reviewed within 60 days, according to the site. If you fail the test, you can retake it after a few days, not weeks or months.

The GoTranscript Transcription Process

Just like TranscribeMe, GoTranscript serves as a middleman. So the client shares their file with the company and gives them a transcript in return.

In between, the raw audio file from the client is broken into bits and shared with the transcriptionists through a neat dashboard.

The transcriptionist’s work is to ensure the bit they get is well typed out, and the transcript is submitted on time.

Note that you will only have access to jobs that are available in the language you selected during registration.

All transcription is supposed to take place in GoTranscript’s built-in transcription software.

You can’t download the file, so there is not even an option to take it off-site if you wanted. But, of course, you can listen to the audio first.

Once you are done, click “Submit”, and you will be taken back to the dashboard where you can pick more jobs.

You will receive feedback once your work is reviewed by the editor and submitted to the client.

The editor will rate your transcripts on a scale of one through five and commend or correct you where necessary.

You want to keep your rating above 3.6, or you risk being kicked out of the site.

You might also like: TranscribeMe vs Rev

TranscribeMe Vs GoTranscript: Earning Potential

TranscribeMe claims that its transcribers earn an average of $250 per month, with top earners making over $2,000.

This means that most transcribers earn below $250, which doesn’t cast the site in the best light.

Per audio hour, the site pays $15.

GoTranscript pays out $150 per month per transcriber on average. That is pretty low by standards, as well, but at least it offers ways to increase your earnings.

As described earlier, if you maintain a 4.5/5 rating, you can apply to become an editor and potentially join the elite earners’ bracket.

GoTranscript pays its transcribers up to $0.60 per audio minute, or $36 per audio hour.

TranscribeMe Vs GoTranscript: Job Availability

GoTranscript updates its dashboard every day.

New files pop up every few minutes, and if you are relentless in refreshing your dashboard, you can very well work for 25 or more hours a week.

The site also tends to avail more work to high-rated profiles. So if your rating is good, you will receive more and, in fact, better-paying work.

TranscribeMe doesn’t promise any much better work availability if you are strictly a transcriptionist.

However, if you double as a translator and a captioner, your dashboard will brim with assignments.

It doesn’t help that the site assigns work directly to its workers, though.

It’s easy to be assigned a job you can’t do or be given work when you are not in a position to do it.

I’d say this is TranscribeMe’s biggest disadvantage to someone who does transcription as a side hustle.

TranscribeMe Vs GoTranscript: Payment

GoTranscript pays only via PayPal and Payoneer. These two are available in most countries, so it’s unlikely they will be a hindrance to using the site.

Payments are weekly, and there is no minimum withdrawal threshold.

TranscribeMe pays only through PayPal, so make sure you have one. Payouts are every 7 days, as well, but a $10 minimum withdrawal threshold applies.

TranscribeMe Vs GoTranscript: Common Complaints

Neither site is perfect, and almost every aspect of each site has been criticized by someone somewhere on the internet.

So you really can’t rely on user reviews to make your decision.

That said, these complaints were significantly more common than others and could hold some water:

TranscribeMe

  1. Low pay
  2. Low job availability
  3. Poor audio quality
  4. Unreasonably long transcript review periods

Here are screenshots of some of the most recent TranscribeMe reviews on Glassdoor:

TranscribeMe vs GoTranscript
TranscribeMe vs GoTranscript
TranscribeMe vs GoTranscript

GoTranscript

  1. Inconsistent flow of work
  2. Poor pay
  3. High competition
  4. Bad audio quality for low-rated profiles

Here’s what some of the users had to say on Glassdoor:

TranscribeMe vs GoTranscript
TranscribeMe vs GoTranscript
TranscribeMe vs GoTranscript

TranscribeMe Vs GoTranscript: Verdict

Each company has its strengths and weaknesses.

GoTranscript is easier to join, thanks to a shorter and easier entrance test, but TranscribeMe responds quickly to your application.

TranscribeMe is more lenient with poor-quality transcripts and invites rejection disputes. GoTranscript, on the other hand, gives you feedback on your work, helping you improve as you go.

Regarding work availability, TranscribeMe assigns work randomly, which is a downside to someone who fancies full control over their schedule.

GoTranscript lets you claim jobs from a work pool.

It’s, however, worth noting that TranscribeMe may have more clients and, thus, more work on the whole.

Both sites receive a massive thumbs-down at compensating their transcribers.

But from reviews, GoTranscript has a slight edge, given its workers have the chance to get better-paying projects if they constantly produce quality work.

Going by these observations, I would say TranscribeMe is more suited for newbies, while GoTranscript is the better option for experienced transcriptionists.

If you have a different opinion or suggestion, let me know in the comment section.

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