Transcribing audio files can be a long and arduous process. The best transcription services let you outsource this task to humans or machines. At the forefront of audio transcription is Rev, a company founded by five MIT students in 2010 that has built a solid reputation for delivering excellent audio transcription, captions, translations, and more, with few errors. With Rev, you choose machine-generated transcription or human transcribers, which cost a little more—some competing services only offer one or the other. Rev also has excellent collaborative editing tools for teams. Rev is an Editors' Choice winner for all its options and high-quality results. If you only need automated transcriptions and especially want them generated live during meetings, try our other Editors' Choice winner, Otter, instead.

What's New in Rev?

In the last few months, Rev has added new features, such as a subscription-based pricing option and several mobile apps. The company has begun to incorporate an AI Transcript Assistant into live meetings. This tool writes a summary of your transcript and answers follow-up questions you have about it. Otter has a similar tool, and Microsoft now has Copilot in Windows 11 and in Office software that summarizes meetings and documents, creates action item lists from meetings, and more.

New this year, Rev has also launched AI Captions, a service that quickly auto-generates captions for videos. Adding captions to videos makes them more accessible to a larger audience. The company claims an accuracy rate of about 90%, though we did not test this feature. Rev can translate English videos into several different languages, too, though Rev cannot create original captions for videos that aren’t in English. Rev also has a new AI assistant that can answer questions about a transcript or provide a summary.

How Much Does Rev Cost?

Rev has a variety of price points to meet different needs. As a new user, you get your first 45 minutes of transcription for free, and you can take advantage of a free two-week trial of Rev Max, the subscription-based service.

Once your free trial ends, Rev Max costs $29.99 per month. It includes 1,200 minutes of auto-transcription per month and unlimited transcriptions from Zoom calls. Note that you do not get any human-generated transcription for this price; you only get automated transcription.

For à la carte services, prices start at 25 cents per audio minute for automated transcriptions and $1.50 per minute for human-generated transcriptions and captions. Rev’s complete price list is here. For customers who need a lot of audio transcribed, Rev has large-volume packages with custom pricing.

Rev’s subscription rate is a bit higher than similar software. The comparable Otteri.ai charges $16.99 per month. Otter also has a free tier of service that lets you get automated transcriptions in real-time during meetings. You get 300 audio minutes per month, with a maximum of 30 minutes per session. However, Rev offers human transcription, and Otter does not, which may be a key deciding factor for some users. TranscribeMe! is another service that offers automated and human transcribing rates comparable to Rev's. But TranscribeMe! does not have the same automated summaries and support Rev now provides.

Rev’s pricing can be a bit complicated, though. Even with the Rev Max subscription, there are a variety of upcharges or convenience fees that you can add, such as 30 cents a minute for timestamps and $1.50 per audio minute to rush your order. Rev is already one of the faster transcription services on the market, but it’s nice to be able to pay for a quicker turnaround if you’re in a rush.

Using Rev and Its Apps

Rev is a web-based service that works on any browser. The company recommends the latest version of Google Chrome, with Opera as its second-best option for optimum performance. To access all Rev's features, you need a laptop or desktop computer with a web browser. Rev does have mobile apps, but they're more for recording and uploading audio files, not accessing transcriptions and editing them.

Rev has three mobile apps: a phone call recording app for the iPhone, a general audio-recording app for iPhones, and an audio-recording app for Android. The apps are somewhat confusing to use, with little on-screen instruction. Additionally, while testing the mobile apps, I was charged for transcription instead of including those minutes in my Rev Max subscription, even though I was logged in with that account.

Rather than use a specific Rev mobile app, you can just as easily use any voice recorder on your phone, drop it in a cloud drive, and then upload the file to the Rev website once you’re at your computer. The mobile apps aren’t terrible, nor are they highly functional.

Getting Started With Rev

Rev has made some improvements over the years, as early criticisms of the platform described it as both lacking in functionality and visually confusing. It's not that way anymore. Now, you create an account with an email address, and after that, it’s simple to get started. You don’t need a subscription to use Rev, but you do need to make an account.

Across Rev's website are copious Place Your Order buttons on the home page and your user dashboard when you’re logged in. If you press one of these buttons, the next step is to choose the service you want and upload the audio file you want transcribed. After that, you get an email when the transcription is ready.

Once completed, transcripts are incredibly easy to share with others and edit on the website. One of Rev's biggest draws is its web editing and collaboration features. Transcription is just the first step to the finished product. The editing software is easy to use, whether solo or with a team. The advantage of editing on Rev's site is you can listen to the audio while highlighting or striking through the transcribed text, adding comments, and taking notes—all while the site automatically saves your work. Editing can only be done once a transcription is complete, unlike in Otter, which lets you add comments and corrections to the transcript during a meeting as it's being generated. A representative from Rev says the company hopes to add this functionality.

At any point, while working on the transcript, you can click Download or Share at the top right to export your work to yourself or others. While it’s not fancy, the user dashboard is simple and self-explanatory.

How Accurate Are Rev's Transcriptions?

Using a two-minute recording of a reading from a Marguerite Henry book about Assateague Island’s wild ponies, Rev made six errors related to proper nouns. Otter made only four errors related to proper nouns and place names, but it also failed to place punctuation correctly multiple times, leading to run-on sentences. The meaning was clear, but the text needed cleanup. Rev was much more accurate with capitalization and punctuation, producing a cleaner document overall. Given the same section of audio, TranscribeMe! made seven errors, most of which also related to proper nouns and punctuation.

In a separate test, I recorded myself reading the introduction to Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. I uploaded the file to Rev and Scribie to compare their error rate. Both produced similar results, but Rev was better. Rev only made one error in word choice: wondered instead of wandered. The rest of the errors were minor and easy to fix, mostly incorrect punctuation and capitalization. The same audio file processed by Scribie resulted in more word-choice errors than Rev: crawdads, the swamp, and quaint (Scribe thought they were cards, this man, and queen).

Is Rev Safe and Secure?

Rev, the company, says it is constantly working to protect shared data. The company also has Service Organization Controls Type II [SOC2] certification. Essentially, a SOC2 cert looks at and verifies an organization’s processing integrity, privacy practices, and security safeguards. Rev's FAQs assure end-to-end protection: “Rev has a strict customer confidentiality policy. All customer files are encrypted both at rest and in transit via industry best practices.”

Rev is also transparent about its privacy services so clients can determine if their standards align. If your company requires a nondisclosure agreement to handle sensitive documents, the team at Rev can sign it. Rev says it only uses third-party payment vendors with proven safety measures and continually monitors the security of the millions of hours of audio minutes it receives from clients. Read more about Rev's security and privacy statements here.

How Long Are You Committed to Rev?

Individual transcriptions purchased through Rev are available without a contract or any commitment, which is ideal if you are testing transcription services or need a transcription on occasion. As mentioned, you can get a free two-week trial of the subscription service Rev Max, though you have to enter payment information upfront and cancel before the end of the trial to avoid being charged.

To cancel, click “Hi, [Name]!” in the top right of the screen and navigate to Manage Subscription. A graphic highlights how far you are into the billing cycle, and it takes just two clicks to cancel your subscription. If you still need to use Rev, your account works for à la carte services without the monthly fee.

The Best for Accuracy

Human speech is incredibly complex, and there’s a lot of room for error in transcribing the spoken word. While Rev charges a higher price than some similar services, it creates accurate transcriptions that need little cleanup, and it streamlines the process. Rev is an excellent choice for people who need flexibility, with à la carte transcription services and the choice of a human or automated transcript. This all adds up to an Editors' Choice-winning transcription service. For those who only need automated services, we recommend Editors' Choice Otter.ai.