Transcription for qualitative researchers interview studies of 20 to 60 hours.
A qualitative study of 40 interview hours is transcribed at about 2 minutes per audio hour, so each 90-minute interview is back in about 3 minutes. The opening minutes are a free preview; 40 hours is 2,400 minutes, which the $32 pack of 6,000 covers, and a 20-hour study fits the $18 pack of 3,000.
What a study records
Semi-structured interviews, focus groups and field conversations, each an hour or more.
The recordings in a study
Most studies run on 60 to 90-minute interviews recorded on a phone, a handheld recorder or a video-call platform, plus focus groups of up to two hours. Upload each file as it is made, or paste a Google Drive folder link to send a batch; files up to 500 MB go into the box above and larger ones continue on upload page.
What comes back per interview
A brief with the main points and takeaways, chapters with timestamps that follow the topic guide, the names, numbers and dates mentioned, and the questions the interview answers. A chat over the transcript lets you ask where a participant talked about a theme. Interviewer and participant are named in the summary and chapters when names are said.
A study, priced
Twenty hours of interviews is 1,200 minutes and fits the $18 pack of 3,000. Packs start at $4 for 300 minutes. A month of twelve 75-minute interviews uses 900 minutes. Credits do not expire, so a study that pauses for a term loses nothing.
The caution: identifying details
Participants say names, places and employers aloud, and the transcript will contain them. Confirm your consent forms and data management plan allow an external transcription service before uploading, and de-identify the text before sharing it with co-coders. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training.
Where qualitative transcription stalls
Fieldwork finishes in March. The transcripts arrive in June.
✗ Typing or waiting
Each interview hour takes several hours to type, or weeks in a paid queue, and analysis waits on both.
- Four to six hours of typing per interview hour
- A transcription budget that covers half the study
- Upload caps below one long interview
- Focus groups typed last because they are hardest
- Free tiers that stop mid-interview
- A subscription billed through the write-up months
✓ Transcripts the same day
Each interview comes back minutes after upload, ready to check and code.
- About 3 minutes for a 90-minute interview
- Chapters that follow the topic guide
- Participants named in the summary when introduced
- A chat to find where a theme came up
- TXT and DOCX for coding
- Packs that never expire
Sample
Part of a research interview, as text.
Illustrative only: written for this page, not taken from any study. No real participant is quoted.
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
Transcription for qualitative research, answered.
How long does a study take to transcribe?
Each file runs at about 2 minutes per hour of audio. A 40-hour study is roughly 80 minutes of processing in total, spread across uploads, so the transcripts keep pace with fieldwork.
Which pack fits my study?
Up to about 8 hours, the $18 pack of 3,000 minutes. Packs start at $4 for 300 minutes, and credits never expire. The opening minutes are a free preview, and packs are paid once.
Is the transcript ready to code as it is?
Treat it as a strong first draft. Listen through the passages you will quote and correct names and technical terms; the timestamps make it quick to find each passage in the audio.
Focus groups have five people talking over each other.
Overlapping speech is transcribed as clearly as the recording allows. Participants are named in the summary, key quotes and chapters when they introduce themselves; the transcript itself is continuous text with timestamps, which you segment as you code.
Interviews in more than one language?
99 languages are detected automatically, and each file is transcribed on its main language. Interviews in Spanish, Korean or Tagalog come back in that language, with English terms inside the speech handled.
What file sizes and formats work?
Common audio and video files, up to 10 hours or 5 GB each. Files up to 5 GB start immediately, with or without a pack. Exports are TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON.
Related
More for research recordings
Upload the first interview. Start coding this afternoon.
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