This article on how much transcriptionists earn will be fascinating for you because I will not only show you how much transcription pay is per hour.
I go further and tell you the variables that determine that hourly pay. This way, you will be able to realize which ones depend on you and have the possibility to improve yourself to be more productive.
Actually, it won't cost you to be a more productive transcriptionist if you love what you do. That's essential.
I invite you to read this post, discover all the things that matter, and make a difference in how much you can earn transcribing.
Transcriptionist salaries: How much can you make transcribing
To answer the question of how much you can earn as a transcriptionist, let's get down to the facts and look at the salaries currently earned by transcriptionists.
For this, I turn to several authoritative sources of information which you may already know.
First considerations
The information you are about to see may surprise you because the pay range for transcription is very wide.
Whether you work for a company or freelance or are a new transcriptionist or an experienced transcriptionist with specialized knowledge, you will be paid different rates for obvious reasons.
The same applies to whether or not you have training courses or certifications in transcription, whether you take on transcription as a full-time job or do it in your spare time.
The positive thing is that transcription is a very flexible occupation or profession, offering opportunities for many people worldwide to work and generate income commensurate with their training, skills and time commitment.
Additionally, it is not the same working in the US, where there is a real transcription industry, as in other countries where the demand for transcriptionists is not as great, nor is the pay scale for transcriptionists as high.
Now that you are in context let's start the review with one of the most important and well-known transcription companies in the world.
Before you continue, you may also want to read our article on the best websites to find jobs for beginner transcriptionists.
How much can you earn as a transcriptionist, according to Rev
Rev offers many people the freedom to work from home and has succeeded. It has a community of over twelve thousand transcriptionists serving large companies such as NBC, Google, Amazon and Buzzfeed.
Its transcribers work from all over the world, and the money they earn helps them achieve a wide range of personal goals, from completing living expenses to fulfilling dreams.
All you need to work with Rev is a computer, broadband internet and English proficiency.
Rev provides all the training and technology necessary to deliver accurate and fast transcriptions to its clients.
When asked how much you can earn at Rev, their answer is honest: it depends.
The highest income is earned by experienced transcriptionists, approximately $1,495 per month, and 5% of their transcriptionists make more than $900 per month.
An average transcriptionist does 15 jobs and earns about $156 per month; this includes those who are just starting out; as you can see, it is very variable how much transcriptionists earn at Rev.
This is because it is a very flexible place, where you can work whatever you choose. For some transcriptionists, it is their primary source of income; for others, it is additional income.
This company employs, among others, homemakers, university students and independent retirees, for whom Rev has been the perfect solution to work as much as they choose.
Read the full article here.
How much can you make transcribing, according to Indeed
According to Indeed, a job search platform, $20.37 is the average hourly wage for a transcriptionist in the United States.
They identify the best companies to work as a transcriptionist in the country are:
- Daily Transcription, $56.38 per hour
- National Capitol Contracting (NCC), $42.43 per hour
- Elevation Healthcare, $38.72 per hour
- California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo $28.24 per hour
- Los Angeles Unified School District, $25.50 per hour
- Swedish Medical Center, $24.87 per hour
- Triumph Inc, $24.00 per hour
- NYU Langone Health, $22.36 per hour
- Productive Playhouse, $22.11 per hour
It also reports the cities with the best-paying transcriptionists:
- Los Angeles in California, $24.57 per hour
- Burbank, also in California, $21.91 per hour
- Orlando in Florida, $21.87 per hour
- Hilliard in OH, $21.63 per hour
- New York in NY $20.72 per hour
- Phoenix in Arizona $18.49 per hour
- Sacramento in California $18.02 per hour
- St. Petersburg in Florida, $15.99 per hour
- Johnstown in Pennsylvania, $15.00 per hour
Transcriptionist salaries, according to Transcription Certification Institute
For the Transcription Certification Institute, transcription offers many opportunities and is a well-paying career.
The salary for a transcriptionist is around $19.02 per hour, and if you are an experienced transcriptionist, you can earn between $25 to $30 per hour.
At this rate, transcription pay averages $1,141 monthly if you work 2.5 hours daily for 24 days.
According to PayScale, a U.S. data and software company, the average salary for a transcriptionist is $16.59 per hour.
In addition to this income, transcriptionists enjoy the freedom to set their own hours and choose the weekly workload they want.
How much you will earn transcribing, according to The Wary Worker
To the question of how much online transcriptionists earn, The Wary Worker states that a beginner transcriptionist can earn between $3 and $11 per hour, and an experienced transcriptionist can earn more than $20 per hour.
He invites to be realistic and understand that what you earn depends on 2 factors: How much is the pay per minute of audio? And how long does it take a transcriptionist to transcribe that minute?
All transcription companies pay per minute of audio, not per hour of work. What they pay per minute of audio in some companies is between $0.40 to $0.50 per minute of audio.
The reality for The Wary Worker is that you don't know how many minutes it may take to transcribe a minute of audio.
It will depend on the sound quality, accent and dialect of the speakers, inaudible or unintelligible words that lead to replaying the audio several times, and the time it takes to correct the transcription.
The Wary Worker found out, based on personal experience, considering a typing speed of 60 words per minute and transcription review time, how long it can take to transcribe content for experienced and new transcribers.
His findings are as follows:
| Audio time | Experienced transcriptionist | Inexperienced transcriptionist |
| 15 minutes | 1 hour | 1.5 hours |
| 30 minutes | 2 hours | 3 hours |
| 45 minutes | 3 hours | 4.5 hours |
| 60 minutes | 4 hours | 6 hours |
This allows you to state that an experienced transcriptionist is likely to earn between $7.50 per hour and $20 per hour, depending on whether they work for an online company or on their own.
On the other hand, a new transcriptionist is likely to earn between $3 to $11 per hour, which is an average salary of $5 per hour. This is because it takes longer to transcribe a file, and the trend is that they are paid lower rates.
The Wary Worker concludes that it is worth working as a transcriptionist because you can generate a good income, especially if you are good at transcribing.
To be productive, he recommends training and looking to work for companies that pay more than $0.50 per minute of audio or freelancing for bloggers and other types of companies.
Salaries for transcriptionists, according to ZipRecruiter
Another interesting source for transcriptionist pay scale is ZipRecruiter, a job board platform that connects applicants with companies.
It reports that as of May 2023, the average hourly wage for a transcriptionist in the United States stood at $16.24 per hour.
ZipRecruiter finds a highly variable pay range, the highest is $25.24, and the lowest is $6.73, and most transcriptionist salaries range from $13.46 to $18.27 in the United States.
They believe this great variability is due to the existence of many opportunities for advancement and salary increases based on skills, location, and years of experience.
Additionally, it provides information on the top 10 cities that pay the most for transcription work:
- San Jose in California, $19.82 per hour
- Oakland in California, $19.66 per hour
- Inverness in California, $19.24 per hour
- Hayward in California, $19.23 per hour
- Seattle in Washington, $19.22 per hour
- Concord in California, $18.95 per hour
- Sunnyvale in California, $18.88 per hour
- Barnstable Town in Massachusetts, $18.86 per hour
- Frankston in Texas, $18.71 per hour
- Antioch in California, $18.56 per hour
This ZipRecruiter data comes from company job postings and other third-party data sources.
How much a medical transcriptionist could earn?
ZipRecruiter reports that home-based medical transcriptionists can earn, on average $22 per hour, placing the national minimum pay at $9.38 per hour and the maximum at $43.75 per hour.
Additionally, an acute care medical transcriptionist can earn an average of $35.10 per hour, pathology transcriptionist an average of $27 per hour and radiology transcriptionist $24.
How much a legal transcriptionist can earn from home?
According to ZipRecruiter, a legal home-based transcriptionist can earn an average of $25 per hour.
There is also significant variability in this national average, with the minimum at $8.89 per hour and the maximum at $61.78 per hour.
The following article may be of interest to you if you still do not know what legal transcription is.
My honest opinion on the pay scale for transcriptionists
As I have shown, there are differences in the pay scale of transcriptionists, and income varies depending on the company you work for, whether you work at home or have a freelance project.
Income is also a function of the number of hours worked, with transcriptionists who work full-time earning much more than those who work as an additional source of income and put in fewer hours.
Other important variables in being more productive are typing speed, listening skills and, of course, the transcriptionist's education and experience.
All of these variables explain how much transcriptionists earn, especially in the United States.
As you read above, what a transcriptionist earns varies greatly. Some do great, and others not so great, because it can be challenging to get a stable job that pays an excellent hourly rate.
I suggest you accept and welcome opportunities, even if they are far from what you aspire to. This way, you can gain experience, network with others, learn and specialize to be more productive daily.
Currently, services such as ScriptMe for automatic transcription are gaining a lot of markets. They work with artificial intelligence and the most advanced technology, which allows them to offer accurate transcriptions very fast and at very competitive prices.
However, the transcriptionist's job will never disappear because there is a level of meaning and human interpretation in all transcription content that artificial intelligence will find difficult to reach.
In summary
To answer the question of how much transcriptionists earn, I have consulted information from authoritative sources; as you have seen, transcription pay is highly variable.
It depends, on the one hand, on the transcriptionist's own factors, such as knowledge, skills, experience and hours worked. On the other hand, with the value paid by the companies, whether you work at home or have a personal project.
No less important is the context; we have seen how in a country as large as the United States, the value of hourly pay is variable by state.
Being productive in this and all fields is difficult but not impossible. The transcriptionist job can lead you to achieve your dreams and reach the standard of living you want because success does not lie in an occupation...but in an efficient personality to achieve success.
We hope you found this article useful. If you want information about ScriptMe, contact us, and we will gladly tell you about our transcription, translation and subtitling services.
