15 Best Transcription Software in 2023

Colibri is a virtual meeting assistant that transcribes meetings in real time. The transcribing software fills the niche of taking meeting notes, while also transcribing imported video and audio files.

This software generates post-meeting summaries and includes the feature to highlight key information being spoken by either button or voice prompt. However, Colibri only supports transcription in English.

Colibri has three subscription tiers: a starter for $16 per month, per user, that allows up to 20 hours of transcription, a professional tier that costs $40 per month, per user, and allows 100 hours of transcription. There is also the option for businesses to agree on a custom price with multiple users.

Descript offers a suite of editorial tools alongside its transcription service and is used by organizations such as The Washington Post, The New York Times and Al Jazeera.

Descript has a lot of features for organizing transcripts, such as automated speaker labels to determine which person is speaking, automatic filtering of filler language — such as “ums” — and deleting repeated words. The software also includes cloud sync and the ability to import transcripts.

Descript can transcribe a total of 23 languages, however, most of these are Latin-based languages.

While Descript offers a free tier, the functionality is extremely limited, with just 1 hour per month of transcription available per user. The service offers three subscription tiers: $12 per editor with 10 hours of audio, $24 per editor with 30 hours of audio, and a custom agreement that comes with a dedicated company representative.

Fireflies is a transcription service that specializes in transcribing business meetings. It is used by corporations such as Netflix, Expedia and Uber.

Fireflies can transcribe automatically during a video conference call, or directly from any uploaded audio or video file. The software also includes an AI search feature, which can look for specific words or filter for particular topics.

Fireflies’s “Conversation Intelligence” uses AI to provide post-meeting notes, analyzing metrics such as user talk time and sentiment. Currently, the software supports 7 languages.

Fireflies offers a free option that provides limited transcription, a pro version for $18 per month that includes unlimited transcription and a business option for $29 per month that includes unlimited storage and includes the post-meeting notes feature. The company offers a 40% discount for annual billing. In addition to the above tiers, there is also a custom enterprise tier.

Grain, which offers a lot of functionality in its free version, is primarily a meeting transcription software, integrating into virtual meeting software such as Zoom, Google Meets and Slack. It is used by organizations such as _Zapier, Webflow and Podium.

Grain includes some core transcription software features, including a search function and a clip and highlight function. Grain currently supports up to 22 languages, but only offers live transcription in English.

In its free version, Grain can transcribe up to 100 meetings through its virtual meeting integrations. If you want to import raw video and audio files, then it costs $19 per user, per month, but it provides an unlimited amount of transcription. The company’s negotiable enterprise option offers a greater number of platform integrations.

Happy Scribe is a dedicated transcription software with more streamlined features. The software is used by organizations such as BBC, Forbes, RTÉ and even the UN.

One of Happy Scribe’s advantages over other transcribing software is that it supports more than 60 different languages. Happy Scribe also comes with other useful features such as speaker identification and timestamps.

However, Happy Scribe is less accurate than other services such as Rev, only promising an accuracy rate of 85%. The average turn-around rate for transcriptions is half the time of the audio length.

Happy Scribe is a pay-as-you-use service, with prices for its automated service set at €0.20 ($0.21) per minute, with a transcription limit of 75 hours.

Maestra is a cloud-based transcription software able to transcribe up to 70 languages. The software is focused mainly on providing multilingual subtitles for video content, especially for YouTube producers.

Maestra comes with many useful features, such as an interactive text editor as well as a custom glossary. The software includes various collaborative features as well, such as the ability to upload files to MaestraCloud, and for collaborative text editing in MaestraTeams.

This transcription software has a pay-as-you-go pricing scheme set at $10 per hour of audio. Maestra also includes a subscription service for its software, charging $29 per user, per month — or $19 per month if paid annually. However, the subscription still includes a $5 per hour of audio fee. There’s also a negotiable enterprise option.

Meetgeek is another meeting assistant software that can transcribe meetings as well as transcribe from audio and video imported to the software.

Meetgeek’s AI can automatically suggest quotes from the meetings to highlight, as well as send summaries from meetings that users couldn’t attend.

Meetgeek also includes analytic tools that can gauge the amount of engagement in a meeting. It also supports transcription in more than 80 languages, though only a handful of them support custom glossaries.

A professional subscription to Meetgeek.ai costs $19 per user, per month and allows up to 20 hours of transcription, while a business subscription costs $39 per month, per user and allows up to 40 hours. There’s also a custom enterprise package that can be negotiated directly with the company.

Overall, it allows fewer transcription hours compared to other meeting assistants such as Colibri, but offers more support for languages.

Our final recommendation is Murf, which while specializing in voice-overs and audio creatives also includes a transcription feature.

There are over 120 different text-to-speech voice options in Murf as well as various audio editing features, such as sound enhancement, a voice changer and collaborative audio editing.

Its transcription feature has an integrated text editor and timestamps words to their location in the audio. The text editor also automatically sorts the texts into blocks to make the transcript more digestible.

While there are multiple plans, transcribing more than 10 minutes per year of audio requires a basic subscription pack of $26 per user, per month — which provides an annual transcription limit of 24 hours. Unlimited transcription requires an enterprise subscription that costs $59 per user, per month with a minimum of 5 users.

Media companies looking for a transcription service as part of a more specialized voice editing packing should consider Murf. Otherwise there are better options elsewhere on this list.

Otter focuses primarily on transcribing virtual meetings in real time and from uploaded audio and video files. It is used by the likes of Wired, TechCrunch and Engadget.

The software can be added to virtual meeting software, such as Zoom, Google Meets and MIcrosoft Teams and provides an advanced post-meeting summary.

Otter includes quality-of-life features such as speaker identification and a custom glossary. It also adds a screenshot button to immediately add a slide to the post-meeting notes. Whenever a user is double-booked, Otteri can send an AI assistant to meetings to provide a copy of the transcript and summary.

The free Basic version is geared towards those only needing to record and transcribe 30-minute long calls with a 5-hour cap. Otter’s professional version provides 20 hours of transcription, with call time lifted to 90 minutes, at a cost of $8.33 per month. The business tier costs $20 per user, per month and provides 100 hours with calls able to last 4 hours. Otter also offers a negotiable enterprise tier.

Currently, the software only supports English.

Podcastle is an audio broadcasting service with a transcription feature and is a strong option for podcast content creators.

Podcastle’s transcribing software has a few recognizable features, including a function to delete repeated words and automated episode summaries — although these features are locked behind the most expensive subscription tier.

The software includes audio editing tools such as multitrack editing, sound enhancement and a background noise filter. Podcastle is missing a custom glossary for technical terms and only has a total of five European languages with no non-Latin script support.

Podcastle offers a Basic plan that’s free and is designed for new podcasters looking to get started, offering 1-hour long transcriptions. Its Storyteller plan costs $11.99 and allows up to 10 hours of audio to be transcribed as well as more comprehensive access to editing features. Its Pro tier, meanwhile, costs $23.99 and allows up to 25 hours.

Rev is a high-quality transcription service that employs both professional transcribers as well as in-house automated transcription software. Large media organizations such as Viacom, CBS and PBS use it.

Rev’s automated transcription offers a guaranteed 90% accuracy rate for high-quality audio with minimal background noise. However, it can struggle with audio with background noise and thick accents. At the same time, however, the service does offer a more expensive human transcription option that guarantees 99% accuracy.

The transcribing software also contains a few editorial tools, such as an interactive transcript editor and a custom glossary for technical terms. Rev can transcribe up to 31 languages, including languages with non-Latin scripts such as Mandarin.

Rev offers a bevy of transcription options, from audio files to live Zoom captions. However, a single-use cost of its automated software is $0.25 per minute. The company also offers a standard subscription service of $29.99 per month that can transcribe up to 20 hours of content, as well as a company-specific contract for organizations that need to scale above that.

Rewatch is an internal video communications service that provides a video transcription feature. This software is best used for publications looking to accomplish two tasks at once. It is used by companies such as Zendesk, Github and Brex.

The transcripts provide an advanced search feature to find specific information in recorded meetings and briefs, as the searched term is highlighted and timestamped within the video.

Rewatch currently has 31 different languages integrated into its transcription service, including non-Latin scripts.

Rewatch is less detailed about its pricing than some of its competitors, inviting interested parties to connect to discuss its rates. However, the pricing structure is based on a per-user basis rather than a per-transcript basis.

Sonix is a transcribing software well-suited to corporations looking to keep an organized record of their transcripts. It’s used by the Wall Street Journal, ABC News and The New Yorker.

The transcribing software has many tools to find information in transcripts, such as an advanced keyword search that can be performed on every transcript the software stores. Sonix also allows users on the highest subscription tier to create multiple custom glossaries, a useful feature for organizations with numerous media outlets.

Sonix can transcribe up to 38 different languages, including specific regional variances and languages with non-Latin scripts.

The service is pay-as-you-use, costing $10 per hour on its basic plan. However, Sonix also includes a subscription service of $22 per month, per user, which lowers the fee to $5 an hour. Sonix also offers an enterprise package for high-volume transcriptions, but this needs to be negotiated directly with the company.

Speak takes transcription a step further by providing in-depth sentiment analysis and data visualization. The transcription software is used by the likes of Amazon, Deloitte and IEEE.

Speak focuses primarily on research and — alongside analysis of transcriptions — offers Amazon reviews analysis and competitor analysis. These features make Speak a useful tool for market research as well as transcription.

The company offers average transcription turn-around times of half the audio length, promising 95% accuracy. The transcription software supports two languages — English and French — with four more in beta stages.

This is definitely one of the most expensive transcription software options on this list, with the starter price at $10 per user, per month, that secures access to a pay-as-you-go transcription service. The company also offers a $585 per month Premium option that gives you 10 hours of transcription, split across six users. These prices can be reduced by 20% when opting for an annual subscription and Speak also offers a custom pricing plan.

Trint comes with a suite of editorial and story-telling tools to help publications and media outlets craft stories from interviews. It is used by the likes of The Washington Post, AP and Der Spiegel.

Trint is a collaborative transcription software and uses many features that appear in Google Docs, including the ability to tag, highlight and comment on transcripts. The software can also play back audio alongside the transcript.

Publishers specializing in video content creation will also find a lot of use for this transcription software as Trint allows users to time-code sound bites to quickly access a specific quote. The transcript editor can also work across multiple sound clips, and the software is integrated into Adobe’s Premiere Pro.

Trint is more expensive than other options on this list, starting at $48 per person, per month. This starting price transcribes up to seven audio files. For unlimited transcriptions, publications will have to spend $60 per user, per month. Trint also offers a custom enterprise option.