Transcription questions, answered
Direct answers, real numbers, and no hype. These are the questions people actually ask before trusting an AI with their audio.
Free: 60 min per 30 days, files up to 30 min / 50 MB · Paid plans: 10 to 100 hrs, files up to 2 GB. Big video? Upload just its audio track: same transcript, much faster upload.
Encrypted in transit · audio & video auto-delete in 30 days · never used to train AI
Optional settings
Naming the language beats leaving this on auto. If the recording has more than one, pick the one spoken most.
Get a second copy translated into another language (Pro).
Uncommon words the AI might misspell. List them so they come out right.
Most questions about AI transcription have a number for an answer, and most pages avoid giving one. The pages below give the number: what accuracy actually means on a clear recording versus a noisy one, how long an hour of audio takes to come back, what transcription costs per hour across the ways you can buy it, and where automatic transcription stops being the right tool.
Every answer here is written against the same engine this site runs on, so the figures describe something we can check rather than something we hope. Where the honest answer is a range, it is written as a range. Where a competitor does something better, the comparison pages say so.
All 19 questions, answered
95-99% on clear audio, and the variables that actually move the number.
How Long Does Transcription Take?AI: minutes. By hand: most of your day. The real numbers for both.
How Much Does Transcription Cost?From $120/hour humans to sub-$1 AI: where the money actually goes.
Can AI Transcribe Multiple Speakers?Yes, and it's called speaker diarization. Here's how it works and where it breaks.
How to Get SRT from MP4Three steps: upload the video, check the transcript, export SRT. Here's the whole workflow.
Transcribe Zoom FreeZoom's own transcription needs a paid cloud plan. The free route: use the file Zoom already saved.
How to Transcribe Video to TextThree real routes (AI upload, built-in device features, typing it yourself) and when each one actually makes sense.
Can Google Translate a Video?Not directly, and the reason why points straight at the workflow that does work.
How to Translate Audio to TextIt's two jobs wearing one name: transcription, then translation. Get the order right and the result is auditable.
Best Japanese Transcription AppThere's no single winner; there's the right category for your job. Here's how to choose Japanese transcription without wasting a subscription.
What Is Audio Transcription?The plain definition, the two styles nobody explains, and the words it's constantly confused with.
How to Transcribe Audio FreeFour routes that cost nothing, and a clear account of what each one costs you instead.
Transcription Tools in the PhilippinesWhat actually matters when you're choosing from Manila, Cebu or CDO: Taglish support, a real free tier, and privacy answers your clients will ask for.
Transcription vs TranslationTwo different jobs that constantly get confused, and a one-line rule for knowing which one you need.
Podcast into a Blog PostThree steps (transcribe, restructure, rewrite) and one thing not to do: publish the raw transcript and call it an article.
Best Free Transcription AppIt depends on what "free" needs to cover. Here's how to judge any tool in five questions, including us.
Can AI Transcribe Cebuano?The short answer: not reliably, from any mainstream tool. Here's why, what happens if you try, and what actually works today.
Transcription Jobs in the PhilippinesWhere the work comes from, what clients expect, and how the job changed once AI started producing the first draft.
Transcription Rates in the PhilippinesThe pricing models clients actually use, what moves your rate up, and how to work out whether a job is worth taking.
Transcription GlossaryWER, diarization, SRT, VTT and every term explained
Start with accuracy, speed and cost
Three questions decide whether AI transcription fits your work, and they are worth reading before the rest. How accurate is AI transcription explains why a clear recording of one speaker comes back almost clean while a noisy four person meeting does not, and which of those conditions you can actually change. How long transcription takes covers turnaround honestly, including what happens when you queue several files at once.
How much transcription costs is the one people are most often misled about, because per-minute pricing, per-hour pricing and subscription minutes are not comparable until you convert them. That page does the conversion. If you are weighing free options first, the best free transcription app compares what each free tier actually gives you before it asks for a card.
Questions about specific files and languages
A lot of what gets asked is really a question about one file. How to transcribe a video to text covers why no audio-extraction step is needed, and how to transcribe a Zoom recording for free walks through the file Zoom already saved for you, without a bot joining the call.
Language questions have their own answers. Transcribed versus translated is the distinction that trips people up most often — one keeps the original words, the other changes them — and can Google translate a video explains what that tool does and does not do with speech. For particular languages, the best Japanese transcription app and whether AI can transcribe Cebuano answer two we are asked constantly.
Working in transcription, and what it pays
Not everyone arriving here wants to buy software; some want to know whether the work itself is still worth doing. Transcription jobs in the Philippines and transcription rates in the Philippines set out what the market pays and how AI has changed which parts of the job are still paid by the hour. Both are written for people whose income depends on the answer, so neither pretends the change has not happened.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Are these answers specific to Trustample, or to AI transcription generally?
Both, and each page says which. General mechanics — why background noise costs more accuracy than an accent, why proper nouns are the first words a model gets wrong — apply to any engine. Where a number is ours, it is labelled as ours, and tested against this engine rather than quoted from a vendor.
How often are these pages updated?
Each page carries its own last-updated date. They are revised when the underlying answer changes: a new supported language, a pricing change, or a test that produces a different result from the one published. A date that has not moved means the answer has not.
What if my question isn't answered here?
Ask us and we will answer it, and if it is a question more than one person has, it becomes a page. The feedback form reaches the founder directly. Format-specific questions are usually answered faster on the tool page for that format, and app-specific ones on the workflow page for that app.
Looking for format converters (MP3, MP4, WAV…)? See all transcription tools.