Speechpad

The pay is consistent. The jobs are in plenty. The staff were kind enough to grant me access to rush jobs. It's the best transcription site I've worked for.

SPEECHPAD is basically a scam.So I was on their site yesterday and successfully registered as a transcriber. I went ahead and clicked on the qualifications to caption a conversation between the Facebook founder Mark and an unidentified person.The audio was four and a half minutes long but the two were talking over 300 words a minute which basically means that you should be ready to fill a ton of pages on your computer writing. Unfortunately, I fell for it and ended up spending three and a half hours typing and editing a four minute audio! Because they talked so fast. I finally submitted and got a reply saying I missed the 92 qualifying score by 7 points and so I had to retake it (NO WHERE ON THE SITE MENTIONS THIS) and if it does it's somewhere you can't easily find. To retake it means an extra 3 and half minutes of a different conversation of the same people! I fell for it again and ended up spending four hours on this just to end up getting the same response that I missed it by 7 points! How the hell is that possible considering I even used different editing apps! This time round I got an email saying I could retake the test in another 90 days (basically telling you to go f@*k yourself). I wasted 8 hours yesterday while someone else got paid for my work. I WOULDN'T RECOMMEND SPEECHPAD TO ANYONE!

This business is quite good for those who business woman and businessman. There's a lot of reviews that they are good in terms of handling business.

I have found online transcribing with Speechpad to be a great way to make some extra money. The staff are friendly, helpful and extremely prompt in responding to queries or bona fide requests for support. They appreciate efforts to deliver high quality work and will give more time if the request is genuine. It is not easy in the beginning, persistance and humility are useful, as their standard is extremely high. I am happy to have found this online freelance opportunity and am working hard to meet the high expectations, which no doubt make for happy customers on the other end.

When I first heard of this, I thought it was a good opportunity to make a little extra income while also gaining what could be some valuable experience for future job opportunities. I still hold to that opinion, but I also see potential for improvement that could make it possible for more people to be involved.
I started this with no prior experience in transcribing videos but with confidence that I could catch on soon enough once I became familiar with the guidelines. I passed the first few qualification tests (basic, confidentiality, and grammar) and was surprised to find out that I was then already qualified to start working on some of the easier jobs. After my first one, it took several days before I received my rating and corrections, so I tried a much shorter one while waiting. When I did receive my scores on both of them, I found that I certainly had room for improvement. I looked through the corrections to see what types of mistakes I had made, which mistakes were most common, which parts of the style guide I should look through more carefully to get a better understanding, and how I could improve quickly. However, the scores of my first two jobs had lowered my overall rating to an 89, and I have not since been able to find any job offers or qualification tests to give me an opportunity to improve. Every job I've checked has required a rating of 92 or higher.
Essentially, it's difficult to get started if you can't score high enough on your first few transcriptions. I think it would be a good idea to give more practice tests both to help someone become familiar with the style guides and such BEFORE allowing them to start taking jobs and to give them an opportunity to improve their rating if they don't do well enough on their initial job attempts.

This is not a complaint about Speechpad. This is a complaint about some of the cheating clients that use Speechpad to handle transcriptions for them. So I guess this is going to be the new trend, clients speeding up the audio before handing it over to a transcription company so the client pays less for more words?
I recently did an audio for transcription on Speechpad that was so very obviously sped up to decrease the minutes of audio. The total minutes were compressed into about 30 minutes instead of probably closer to an hour or more that it was originally before being sped up. The guy sounded like a squeak toy. Well, not exactly. But I decreased the speed to about 75%, the voice and pace sounded much more normal. Decreasing the speed was the only way I could catch what this $^@^ was saying. This kind of frustrated me. As a transcriber you get paid per audio minute not by amount of words. Maybe transcription companies should start charging per word instead of per minute. I really hope someone from Speechpad reads this and starts being pro-active about this issue. For transcribers, beware and don't transcribe something that sounds like it has been sped up. This will probably be happening more and more.

Finding Speechpad has given me a chance to work from home at my own pace, on my own schedule. Day or night, long or short, transcription or review, I choose what I want to work on when and for how long. I have serious health issues that prevent me from working. With Speechpad I can work when I am able with no recriminations if I have to take a few days off or if I have to ask for a time extension because I have to go a little slower.

Of course you have jobs that are rejected, it goes with the territory. No one is perfect no matter how long they've been transcribing. But I always get a chance to rework a job, usually it's something simple. If the problem is something the reviewer can pick up, I lose a few points for that job, but I've never found the corrections to be unnecessary. Usually it's because I wasn't paying attention to speaker tokens or guideline rules (particularly the "clean verbatim"). My bad!

One last observation: you are not going to make the same amount of money you would if you had an hourly job. This type of work is based on quality and quantity. You have a certain amount of time to complete a job and a posted amount paid on approval. This is the sacrifice we make working at home. I have awesome skills (I've been work for 38 years so I've earned bragging rights!) -- but they are worth NOTHING if I can't work. Speechpad has give me that work and a chance for income where I had none.

The staff are awesome. I usually have an answer within 45 to 60 minutes. They are helpful, professional, and always friendly and there to offer help. No matter if my question is important or if I just want to whine about a particularly difficult job (admit it, we all whine occasionally!), they always answer and treat me with respect. I've worked several online transcription opportunities. Speechpad has proven to be the most professional by far.

I have been working with Speechpad for a few years now and my experience with them has been entirely positive. Any issues I've ever encountered with deadlines/time limits, the rare system glitch here or there, or difficulty with files (either being more intensive than anticipated, missing portions of transcription, or format questions) have been addressed fairly and efficiently.

I've never had any problems with receiving payment. On one isolated occasion, a file I submitted somehow was also submitted by someone else... don't ask me how. I was accorded the benefit of the doubt and paid nonetheless. Similarly, on the rare jobs when my own computer problems or other personal issues have necessitated a longer-than-usual period of time in which to complete a file, I'm pleased to say the staff at Speechpad have always worked with me to enable completion of the file.

Many of these critical reviews seem like sour grapes to me. Speechpad requires accuracy and consistency. From what I have seen from a handful of the files I've reviewed, those requirements are often ignored (along with obvious instructions in the Style Guide). If the work's not up to par, obviously that's going to be reflected in a less than pleasant experience. Doing solid work, on the other hand, should result in a strong relationship with Speechpad.

My main advice: communicate. If there is an issue, email the staff at Speechpad. Jill, Krystal, and everyone else I've dealt with have always addressed my issues/problems/concerns/questions honestly and without delay. It's hard for me to believe that many of the situations described here couldn't have been resolved -- or at least improved -- by contacting the company for help and guidance.

Speech Pad Review

If you are anything like me, you have finally mastered the art of creating rich, valuable videos for your site. After much effort, you have accurate, reliable information readily available for your viewers. However, you may have noticed that your traffic has not yet increased. How can you make sure the public is finding your website and watching your podcasts? The answer is simple: SEO. Now, even if you dont fully understand SEO tactics, the most fundamental thing to know is that search engines rely on text to bring up your site and videos. So, in other words, if you only have videos and no text, no one is ever going to find you.

That is where Speechpad comes in. I have used this service more than once, and I cannot begin to tell you how much time it has saved me. Speechpad reviews material with rates as low as $1 per minute in file length, this voice transcription service definitely falls into my budget. Speechpad works with professional transcribers, both human and automated, to provide accurate transcripts of your videos so that Google and other search engines can find you. The Speechpad review is a text to speech service that provides accurate content in a timely manner; in fact, the rates are set on the time you specify. For instance, if you are in a hurry to get a piece of text up and running, the price may be a little higher but for people like me, I would rather wait an extra day or two to save a couple bucks. I dont think the SpeechInk review offers that. Regardless of the price, you simply cannot beat Speechpads reliable transcription service.

In reading other Speechpad reviews and SpeechInk reviews, Im thoroughly impressed with what Ive gotten back from Speechpad each time and dont think Ill be making a change now that I have a smooth running system in place.