Find the best AI-powered app to transcribe your audio

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

When a popular online app announces a change to its fees, or in the services it provides for those fees, you will get a reaction from its subscribers. The latest app to cause this type of distress is Otter, a recording and transcription service that recently announced downgrades of the services it provides on two of its plans and increased the price on a monthly plan.

Free users will no longer have access to all of their past transcriptions. The monthly allowance of 6,000 minutes of audio will be reduced to 1,200 minutes, and the maximum amount of audio per conversation will be reduced to 90 minutes.

A reporter who used to do up to 100 one-hour interviews a month is now only allowed to do 20. After 90 minutes is up, a new recording will have to be started for someone who uses Otter.

Image: Otter.ai

The company is trying to make its paying customers feel better. The annual fee is not changing even though the monthly fee is being raised. If you subscribe to the annual Pro plan by September 22nd, you'll get to keep the older features for one more year.

So after that? You can either pay for the Business plan or use other services. Some of the alternatives are described in a few notes.

There are two different types of transcription services, one that uses an artificial intelligence engine and the other that uses humans. Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has improved greatly, but it still isn't as accurate as people do. I am looking at services that both use and don't use artificial intelligence.

The quality of transcription provided by these apps can vary greatly, not only depending on the engine the app is using but also on your audio file. If there are a lot of voices talking at once, if there is a lot of background noise, if your speakers have accents that are not familiar to the artificial intelligence, that can affect the accuracy of the transcription. Try out a transcription service with a typical file to see how it works.

Take a closer look at which app is most cost-effective for you. One of the pay-as-you-go services would be better for uploading occasional files. A monthly or annual subscription may be better for you if you do regular uploads.

It is worth it to figure out if one of these works better for you or if you should just stick with the same company.

Temi

Image: Temi

Temi's features include the ability to review and edit your transcriptions, slow down the replay, and export your files into text or VTT files. You can use its mobile apps to record audio, but you can either pay 25 cents per audio minute to have it transcribed or you can use your own recordings. First 45 minutes are free for new users. Rev is a service that provides human-operated transcriptions and other services.

MeetGeek

Image: MeetGeek

MeetGeek is called an artificial intelligence meeting assistant. It can't be used for other audio, but it can be used for transcribed meetings. You can record five hours of audio a month and keep one month's worth of transcripts for free. You get 20 hours of audio a month and three months of transcript retention with a Pro version. There are two versions of the same thing. A 14-day trial of the Business plan will give you 40 hours of audio a month and six months of recording retention.

Trint

Image: Trint

Trint's website makes it clear that it's pushing its services to creative users who will take the transcript material and "effortlessly shape transcripts into high- impact content for blogs, social media, and more." Trint can translate finished transcripts in 54 languages. You can use the Starter plan to take up to seven files per month, capture audio from the app, and translate text to 54 languages. Up to 15 users can be edited at the same time with the Advanced plan. You can try the Advanced plan for seven days.

Sonix

Image: Sonix

35 languages are offered by Sonix. It has the ability to edit its transcripts, a word-by-word timestamp, and the ability to upload transcripts from other programs. You can export your transcripts in a variety of formats. It starts with a pay-as-you-go Standard plan that costs $10 an audio hour and 10 gigabytes of storage for 90 days. The Premium plan adds a number of features and 50 gigabytes of storage. 30 minutes of transcription is given to new users.

Scribie

Image: Scribie

Scribie has simple artificial intelligence-powered transcription for 10 cents a word with a minimum of $1 for each file. You get an online editor, speaker tracking, and the ability to download it as a Word document.