Transcribe recordings made at the kitchen table before the stories are lost.
An oral history or estate conversation recorded at the kitchen table comes back as text at about 2 minutes per hour of audio, so a three-hour visit with a grandparent is ready in about 6 minutes. The first 20 minutes are free, and a $6 pack of 500 minutes covers the rest of that visit.
What the kitchen does to the audio
Mugs on the table, the kettle, everyone talking at once.
Hard surfaces, quiet voices
A kitchen has tiles, a table that carries every cup set down next to the phone, a fridge that hums and a kettle that drowns out a sentence. Older voices are often softer than the rest of the family. Put the phone nearer the storyteller than the teapot, and the transcript follows them.
Each relative kept apart
When three generations talk over each other, the summary, key quotes and chapters still name who was speaking, so a story told by an aunt is not credited to the grandparent.
The names that matter
Family recordings are full of maiden names, villages, ship names and years. The brief lists the names, places, numbers and dates that were said, which is the list a family tree or an estate file needs, and every one carries a timestamp to check against the audio.
Several visits, one pack
Oral histories rarely fit one sitting. Six visits of two hours each come to 720 minutes, which sits on the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes with plenty left for the cousins' side. Credits never expire, so the next visit can be a year away.
Why family audio stalls elsewhere
The recording gets made. The transcript never does.
✗ A file on a phone
Family recordings tend to stay unlistened to, because typing three hours of talk is a weekend of work.
- A free tier that stops before the good part
- Typing it up by hand over weeks
- Short-clip tools that refuse three hours
- Nobody sure which relative said it
- No list of names and dates
- Old dialect words dropped or guessed
✓ The visit, on paper
One upload per visit, and the conversation comes back with its clock.
- About 6 minutes for a three-hour visit
- The first 20 minutes free
- One-time packs from $6
- Speakers named in summary and quotes
- Names, places and dates listed
- Exports to print or share with family
Sample
A grandparent interview, as it comes back.
This sample is illustrative, written for this page and not taken from any family's recording. It shows the kind of detail an oral history keeps.
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 $6 (500 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
$6/500 min
8 hours of audio — $0.72 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 500 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$12/2,000 min
33 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 2,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
Bulk pack
$24/5,000 min
83 hours of audio — $0.29 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 5,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
Kitchen table recordings, the questions families ask
How long does a family recording take to transcribe?
Roughly 2 minutes for each hour of recording. A two-hour visit is ready in roughly 4 minutes and a three-hour one in about 6, and you can close the page while it runs.
What does a whole oral history project cost?
A single three-hour visit is 180 minutes, so the first 20 minutes come free and the $6 pack of 500 minutes covers the rest. Six visits of two hours, 720 minutes, belong on the $12 pack of 2,000. Every price is in US dollars, and unused minutes stay on the account.
The recorder made a large WAV file. Will it upload?
Each upload may run to 10 hours or 5 GB, whichever limit comes first. Ahead of the first pack, 2 GB is the upload ceiling, and anything heavier starts once a pack is bought. Three hours of WAV is usually under 2 GB; a phone voice memo is much smaller.
Should we keep one long recording or several short ones?
Either works. A whole visit as one file keeps the chapters and timestamps in one place, and nothing needs splitting until a recording passes 10 hours.
My grandparents speak another language. Can it handle that?
99 languages are detected automatically, from Tagalog to Portuguese to Hebrew. A recording that switches language is detected on its main language, and English with Tagalog in the same visit is handled. For Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray, Bikol, Kapampangan or Ilocano, the text is a fast first draft whose accuracy trails the major languages, so plan one review pass with someone who speaks it.
Can I print it, and who hears the recording?
Download TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT or JSON from one run; DOCX prints cleanly for relatives. Family recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training, and you can delete them whenever you like.
Related
More family and home recordings
Upload the visit. Read how it starts, the first 20 minutes free.
Transcribe a family recordingOperated by Neugence Technology Pvt. Ltd. · contact@whipscribe.com · Security · Privacy · Terms