Transcription Time & Cost Calculator
How long it takes to transcribe audio or video, and what it costs: hours of work from recording length, audio quality, speakers, transcript type and typing skill, plus word count, pages, turnaround and a side-by-side cost of a transcription service (with rush fees), doing it yourself, and AI transcription with or without review.
How it works
Work minutes = audio minutes × 4 × audio-quality factor × speaker factor × transcript-type factor; your time = work time × skill factor; words ≈ minutes × wpm (× 0.92 clean, × 1.1 full verbatim); service cost = minutes × (rate × turnaround factor + add-ons); AI review ≈ minutes × review factor × quality factor
The old rule that an hour of audio takes four hours to transcribe holds only for a fast, practised typist with a clear, single-speaker recording; every real-world complication multiplies it. Background noise, phone lines and accents force constant replaying, each extra speaker adds attribution and crosstalk, and full verbatim (every um, false start and laugh) is slower than clean verbatim. The calculator multiplies those factors into minutes of work per audio minute, then applies a skill factor if you are typing it yourself rather than a professional. Services price per audio minute (roughly $1–2.50 for human work at standard turnaround) and charge more for 24-hour or same-day delivery and for extras such as timestamps, so you can set the turnaround and any add-on fees. That cost sits next to the value of your own time and next to the AI route: machine transcription for cents a minute, followed by a proof-listen at about 1.5× real time to fix names, numbers, speaker labels and misheard words. A side-by-side table and charts compare cost, your hours and turnaround for each option, and a reference grid shows how quality and speaker count change the ratio. Under More options you can change the speech rate, words per page, productive hours per day and the number of people sharing the work.
Worked example
A 60-minute two-person interview of good quality, clean verbatim: 4 × 1.25 × 1.15 = 5.75 minutes of work per minute, about 5.8 hours, producing roughly 8,300 words (33 pages). Outsourced at $1.50 a minute at standard turnaround it costs $90; with 24-hour delivery (×1.6) it is $144. AI at 2¢ a minute plus 1.9 hours of review is about $58, and a professional typing it would take $172 of time at $30 an hour. If you type occasionally (×1.6), doing it yourself takes about 9.2 hours, worth $276.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to transcribe one hour of audio?
About 4 hours for a professional with clear, single-speaker audio. A typical two-person interview on decent audio takes 5–6 hours, and noisy recordings, groups or full verbatim can take 8–12 hours or more. If you rarely transcribe, expect 1.5–2 times a professional’s time.
How much does transcription cost per minute?
Human transcription services commonly charge about $1–2.50 per audio minute at standard turnaround, more for 24-hour or same-day delivery and for extras such as timestamps or verbatim. AI transcription costs a few cents per minute or less, but you still need to spend time checking it.
Why is my AI transcript full of errors?
Overlapping speech, distance from the microphone, domain jargon and proper nouns are the main causes. Supplying a vocabulary list and recording each speaker on a separate track improves accuracy a lot.
How many words is an hour of speech?
Conversation runs 120–150 wpm, prepared speech 150–170 and fast talkers over 200, so an hour is roughly 7,000–10,000 words, or 28–40 double-spaced pages.
Is it cheaper to transcribe it myself?
Only if your time is worth little or the audio is easy. At $30 an hour, a 60-minute interview that takes a professional 5.8 hours costs about $172 of time, against $90 from a service or about $58 for AI plus review. The comparison table shows this for your own numbers.
Related calculators
Planning estimate based on industry-average rates; your narrator, editor or team will run faster or slower, so calibrate against one finished piece.