How to transcribe an Afrikaans church service the whole service, one upload.
Upload the service recording or paste its YouTube replay link, and WhipScribe detects Afrikaans automatically, handles one file up to 10 hours or 5 GB and returns text at about 2 minutes per audio hour, so a 2-hour service is ready in roughly 4 minutes. The opening minutes are a free preview, files up to 5 GB upload before any pack, and four 2-hour Sunday services (480 minutes) fit the $18 pack of 3,000 minutes.
Step by step
How a Sunday service becomes text.
Take the recording you already have
Most congregations either stream to YouTube or record from the sound desk. Paste the replay link after the service, or copy the desk's MP3 or WAV to a computer and drop it here; this box takes 500 MB, and bigger files continue on the upload page.
Expect a fast first draft
For Afrikaans the transcript is a fast first draft: plan one review pass before it is printed or posted, reading names, place names and Scripture references against the timestamps. That pass takes a fraction of the time typing would.
What comes back
A brief with the message's thesis and takeaways, chapters for the welcome, readings, sermon and notices, the dates and numbers announced, and a chat to ask what was said about a topic. The minister and readers are named in the summary and chapters.
Old services on cassette
Many congregations keep decades of services on tape. Digitise each cassette on a computer first, then upload the files; we do not offer digitising, but every digitised service is transcribed like a new recording. Label each file with its date first, so the archive stays in order once the transcripts come back.
Afrikaans services
Why services rarely get written down.
✗ The usual problem
Typing a two-hour service by hand falls to one volunteer.
- A full evening of typing per Sunday
- Hymns and organ typed or guessed
- English-only tools that mishear Afrikaans
- Streams too long for caption tools
- Announcements lost after the week
- Old tapes nobody can search
✓ With WhipScribe
The recording goes in, a draft comes back in minutes.
- Afrikaans detected from the speech
- Music left out of the text
- About 4 minutes for 2 hours
- Chapters for each part of the service
- Read once, then publish
- Credits that never expire
Sample output
From a Sunday morning service.
Illustrative lines written for this page; not from a real congregation, minister or service.
Export
One transcript. Five clean formats.
Every pack exports all five — no format is held back for a higher tier.
Plain text
De-ummed paragraphs. Ready to paste.
SRT captions
Timed to the speech. Every video editor reads this.
WebVTT
HTML5 player + YouTube uploads.
Show notes
Formatted with chapters and pull-quotes.
Machine-readable
Timestamped text for your own tools.
Pricing
Honest pricing, no surprises.
A pack from $4 (300 minutes) opens the full transcript. After that, no subscription and no auto-renew — every tier is a one-time minute pack, and credits never expire. Buy once, use the minutes whenever you need them.
Casual pack
$4/300 min
5 hours of audio — $0.80 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 300 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$18/3,000 min
50 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 3,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
Bulk pack
$32/6,000 min
100 hours of audio — $0.32 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 6,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
Afrikaans services: common questions.
Do I need to tell it the service is in Afrikaans?
No. The language is detected from the recording among 99, with no setting. English words and phrases inside Afrikaans speech are handled, and a service that is mostly Afrikaans with an English reading is written on its main language.
What does a year of Sunday services cost?
Packs start at $4 for 300 minutes, and credits never expire.
Is the singing transcribed?
No. Hymns, organ and instrumental music are not transcribed; prayers, readings, the sermon and the notices are. Congregational responses read aloud together are speech and can appear, though overlapping voices are the hardest part to catch.
How long can one recording be?
Up to 10 hours or 5 GB per file. A file up to 5 GB uploads with or without a pack, and a stream replay over 6 hours starts once a pack is on the account; a conference weekend recorded as one long file goes in as two parts if it passes 10 hours.
Can we use the text for captions?
Yes. Export SRT or VTT for the video, or DOCX for a printed version of the sermon. Once read through, the captions follow the same timestamps as the audio.
Who can hear our recordings?
Services are transcribed on our own servers and never used for training. The opening minutes of your first recording are free, so the church council can see a sample before deciding on a pack.
Related
More for Afrikaans congregations.
An Afrikaans service to write down? Upload Sunday's recording.
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