Transcribe a 90-minute focus group and start coding the same day.
A 90-minute focus group takes about 3 minutes to transcribe, at roughly 2 minutes per audio hour, and a room recording of that length is typically 40 to 90 MB while a Zoom video is a few hundred MB. Packs start at $4 for 300 minutes, and credits never expire.
From the viewing room to the codebook
Eight participants, one moderator, and the quote that explains the whole study.
Facility, Zoom or a recorder
Focus groups are recorded by a research facility's ceiling microphones, a recorder placed in the middle of the table, or the cloud recording of an online group. The facility usually hands over an MP3, WAV or MP4. Ninety minutes of audio is well under 100 MB; a video file is larger but rarely near the 5 GB a file can be.
Text before the debrief
At about 2 minutes per hour of audio, a ninety-minute group is ready in around three minutes. If the evening ran two groups back to back, both transcripts are ready while the team is still in the observation room.
Pricing the whole study
Packs start at $4 for 300 minutes, and credits never expire. A study of twelve groups across three cities is 1,080 minutes, still on the $18 pack; two waves of twelve, 2,160 minutes, go on the $18 pack of 3,000 minutes.
Ready for analysis
Each section of the discussion guide, from warm-up to concept test, becomes a chapter with a timestamp. The brief draws out the themes, and participants are named in the summary and key quotes as they introduced themselves. The chat over the transcript answers 'what did people say about price?' across the whole session.
Why focus group analysis drags
The report is due Friday and the recordings are still recordings.
✗ Waiting on transcripts
Recordings go out for typing, come back days later, and the analysis starts when the client is already asking.
- A week of turnaround per batch
- Notes from the viewing room, half legible
- Re-listening to find the one good quote
- Cross-talk that nobody wrote down
- Per-group fees that add up fast
- Themes chosen before the text exists
✓ Transcripts the same evening
Every group in writing within minutes, structured the way the discussion guide was.
- About 3 minutes per 90-minute group
- Free preview of the opening minutes to judge the text
- Packs from $4 for 300 minutes
- Guide sections as chapters
- Themes and quotes in the brief
- DOCX and TXT for coding software
Sample
The concept-test section of a consumer group.
These lines are illustrative and were written for this page; no real study or participant is quoted. Timestamps count from the start of the session.
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
Ninety-minute focus groups, the common questions.
How long does a 90-minute focus group take to transcribe?
About 3 minutes. Processing runs at roughly 2 minutes per hour of audio, so a night of three groups is under ten minutes of waiting.
How many groups does each pack cover?
Packs start at $4 for 300 minutes. Credits never expire, so a pack bought for one study carries over to the next.
How are eight participants told apart?
Participants are identified and named in the summary, key quotes and chapters, using the names they gave during introductions. The transcript runs as timestamped text. For an anonymised report, ask participants to use first names only, and replace them in the export.
People talked over each other. What happens then?
Cross-talk is the hardest part of any group recording. The louder voice usually comes through and the quieter one may be partial. A table microphone in the centre and a moderator who slows overlapping answers both help more than any setting.
Can I run groups in Spanish or French?
Yes. 99 languages are detected automatically, so a group in Spanish, French or Hebrew needs no setting, and English brand names inside the discussion are handled. Each recording is read on its main language.
Which exports are there, and how is participant data handled?
TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON; DOCX or TXT imports into most qualitative coding tools. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and never used for training, and you can delete them once the study closes.
Related
Research recordings
Upload the first group. Code from text, not from playback.
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