Speechpad is a great place to get started in transcription and get transcription jobs from home for beginners – no experience required. You can practice transcribing and find out if transcription work is a good fit for you.
It is one of the
better transcription companies to get transcription jobs for beginners – no
experience required.
Speechpad provides a wide variety of transcription work, including
video transcription, SEO, and insurance transcription. Some transcripts must be
slightly edited while others are verbatim transcription.
Speechpad also recruits captioners for video captioning.
Here is some
information to help you decide if Speechpad is the right transcription company
for you to get started in transcription work from home.
This is the company’s description of the work:
“You’ll need to
listen to audio files or watch videos, and type out whatever is spoken.
In the process,
you’ll do minor editing such as ignoring filler words such as: um, uh, er, ah,
like, okay, I mean, and you know. This is called “clean copy” transcription,
and it applies to most of our jobs. Some jobs require “verbatim” transcription,
which requires you to type out every verbal utterance, including filler words,
stutters, etc. Beginners usually start with clean copy transcription.”
Qualification
Requirements to Get Transcription Jobs From Home
- No experience is needed but you need to pass a transcription test. You’ll know
immediately if you passed the tests or not and you can retake a test if
you didn’t pass it.
- They employ
transcribers in English-speaking countries only and the
majority of their transcribers are located in the US.
- You must be
fluent in English.
- You must have
a typing speed of at least 40 words per minute.
- You must have
solid grammar and punctuation skills.
- You need to
understand various accents and dialects.
- You must be
detail-oriented and comfortable searching the web to find the correct
spelling of proper nouns and technical terms.
- You have to sign a confidentiality agreement.
Recent pay
info from the company
- All jobs are
priced per audio minute. The pay depends on priority, audio quality,
language, and more. Rush jobs pay more.
- Transcription
jobs pay from $0.25/min (or $15 per audio hour) for entry-level work to
$1.00/min for work that requires more experience.
- Captioning
jobs pay between $.30/min and $1.00/min.
- You can get
gradually promoted to doing rush jobs and spot-check jobs if you’re
providing quality transcripts.
- Review jobs
range from $0.20/min for entry-level work, up to $1.00/min for premium
captions review. Review jobs are made available for workers who have
consistently produced high-quality transcripts and/or captions.
- How much you
earn per hour depends on how fast you are able to transcribe. An
experienced transcriptionist could typically finish 15 to 20 audio minutes
per hour. An experienced reviewer should be able to finish 40 minutes of
review work per hour.
- You can get
promoted to be a reviewer if you have transcribed 1000 audio minutes and
have a 96 or higher score.
What workers
mentioned about the pay from Speechpad
- Workers
mention that many transcription jobs range from $0.25 per audio minute up
to $0.75 which is much more than some similar sites pay.
- They pay
twice a week through Paypal and they always pay on time.
There are plenty
of opportunities to advance to higher-paying jobs within Speechpad.
If you provide quality work you may get approved for additional
qualifications quickly. If you get good ratings and have transcribed enough
minutes with them, you will become eligible to do rush jobs (pays
$0.40+/minute), spot check jobs (pays $0.75/minute) and work as a reviewer.
Other transcription jobs with Speechpad include insurance transcription
(this pays more than general transcription), Spanish transcription, translation
jobs, and video captioning jobs (you’ll need to pass another test).
The key to moving up is by delivering accurate transcripts within the
allowed time, following the style guide, and paying attention to grammar.
My Review of
Speechpad Transcription Jobs from home for beginners
People
transcribing for Speechpad report being happy working for this company and say
that this company is much better than other similar transcription companies
that accept beginners.
- Speechpad is
the best transcription company for people who want transcription
jobs from home with no transcription experience.
- The pay is better than similar
companies and the audio is typically good quality.
- This is a
great place to learn and gain experience in transcription. If you
familiarize yourself with their style guides and pay attention to grammar,
you shouldn’t have a problem.
- The style
guide and guidelines are clear, detailed and well-organized. You always
want to make sure that you follow the company’s style guide and
guidelines.
- Their support
team is friendly and helpful and answers questions quickly.
- You can see
the corrections the reviewer made so you can learn from your mistakes and
avoid them in the future. Checking those corrections is a great way to
learn and improve your transcription skills.
- You may
receive additional qualifications sooner than you think.
- They have a
steady amount of quality work after you are approved for more than the
basic qualifications. Fewer jobs are available when getting started with
the basic qualifications as you’ll have more competition and you have to
grab the available jobs quickly.
- Tip: If you have previous transcription
experience, One worker suggested that you can request temporary
qualifications to prove your skills and move up faster if you have
previous transcription experience.
- They have a
wide variety of jobs from short audio under 8 minutes to longer audio.
- Work is
available 24/7. You work only when you want to and only on the jobs you
want to work on.
- You can
preview a short part of the audio before accepting the job and return it
for any reason.
- When you
accept a file, you need to transcribe it within their required time and
many beginners are locked out because they don’t get the job done within
the required turnaround time.
- As with any
of these type of sites, some people complain about the corrections and
scores done by the reviewers. But there are few complaints about this
company and you can quickly resolve issues.
- You can apply
and get work directly with the company and they also list hits (jobs) on
MTurk. People report that it’s better to work through the Speechpad website.
The website is faster and easy to navigation. The approval is faster and
you can EDIT AND RETURN a transcript for a higher rating/acceptance when
normally on MTurk you’d just be rejected point blank.
How to apply for
transcription jobs from home with Speechpad
Visit their website at https://www.speechpad.com to get more information on how
to apply with Speechpad as a transcriptionist.
The sign-up process is simple and fast.
Get more info at https://www.speechpad.com/faq and scroll down to
“Becoming a Transcriber.”
Check their application page to find out if they accept new workers at
this time. If they’re not, you should fill in their form to get notified when
they’re accepting new worker applications at
https://www.speechpad.com/worker/apply.
Register at https://www.speechpad.com/worker/register
How to get better paying transcription jobs
Speechpad pays more than other sites that recruit beginners
but the pay is still low. But don’t get discouraged.
There are well-paying transcription jobs out there once
you have some experience.
Your speed, accuracy and proficiency will affect how much
you can make per hour as a transcriptionist. After getting some experience and
improving your transcription skills, you will be able get much better paying
transcription jobs.
After working for companies like Speechpad, you’ll want to
apply for better paying transcription jobs. And even better, when you’re
feeling more confident about your skills, you can double your pay by getting
your own clients and not paying a cut to transcription companies.
There is a lot to know about transcription. You need to know
about the different types of transcripts (e.g. verbatim vs edited transcripts),
how to indicate multiple speakers, inaudibles, timestamp, grammar, punctuation
and more.
You don’t need a college degree or a certificate to become a
general transcriptionist but I highly recommend taking a specialized training
course. Taking a good transcription course will help you increase your skills,
your confidence and your transcription pay. It will speed up the learning
process and help you:
- become
more confident in your transcription skills
- grow
your transcription career
- and
increase your income faster.