Why It Matters That the Transcription Industry Leader Is Raising Their Rates

The transcription industry is a quiet corner of the internet. But in November of 2019, an explosive Twitter thread revealed that Rev (a leader in the industry) was paying their transcriptionists extremely low wages and mistreating workers.

We have actually written about Rev previously, specifically about how their $1/audio minute catch-all service ensured low quality and low payment for workers. The Twitter comments and resulting news coverage only strengthened our argument.

Perhaps as a result of the bad publicity, Rev has recently announced that they will raise their rate to $1.25/audio minute in an effort to heighten accuracy and to pay their workers better. This is, honestly, almost unheard of in recent years, where rates have been getting lower and lower to stay competitive against other companies and AI. So what does this mean for the industry and for consumers?

In their announcement, Rev cited that some customers were angry with the increase. That’s understandable, as no one likes to pay more money. But imagine it’s your family member who is the transcriptionist in this equation. If they’re making $4.50/hour for difficult work, would you be happy? Increasing what transcriptionists make is good for everyone – the worker makes more money, the company makes more money, and the content is more accurate for the client. So, yes, paying more sucks. But paying a fair rate for something you can’t or prefer not to do yourself is right.

At Atomic Scribe, we’ve introduced a $1/audio minute AI option that uses human editors for basic, simple files. The reason there are restrictions on what type of files we include in this program is because AI is nowhere near 100% accurate yet on all files. AI has problems with accents, multiple speakers, slang, proper nouns, and so many other factors that affect accuracy. So, while the industry is trending towards using AI more and more, there is still a huge part for humans to play in the transcription process.

We will be honest here: transcribing sucks. The number of clients who say they started to transcribe a file, realized how hard it was, and found us to finish the file is innumerable. Imagine you’re transcribing a focus group. You have to listen to multiple people talk over each other, be able to identify each person by their voice alone, construct a transcript when slang and bad grammar is used, and sit for long periods of time while doing all this. It’s tough, and it’s tiring, and it’s often easier to pay someone else to do it rather than waste hours of your own time.

So the transcription industry isn’t going away anytime soon. On the contrary, thanks to the internet there is more content than ever that needs transcripts and captions, and the difficulty of the work means human transcriptionists are necessary.

In this industry, higher rates usually mean higher quality. Just as the best athletes get the highest wages, the best transcriptionists are going to work for companies that pay them the best rates, and that means higher quality work. At Atomic Scribe, our biggest rule is that all of our work must be high quality. If it’s not, we’re going to transcribe it again until it’s as close to perfect as it can be. Because if it’s not, then what’s the point of spending your money on it?

With the advent of low-rate companies like Rev, quality in the industry has been declining in recent years because low rates = low pay = low quality. So Rev increasing their rate is a welcome reprieve, where finally workers are seen as vital to a company’s success. But customers need to do their part, too. Demand high quality, pay fair rates, and call out injustice in the workplace.