Since you have found your way to this page I’m sure you have been reading the abundance of articles online of people claiming to be making good income from transcribing online am I right?
Many of these articles give you an insight into transcribing and will direct you to the best websites for making money online from typing audio files.
This is where I see a major issue, most articles don’t actually show any income reports or even suggest that the writer has given transcribing a go to see if the average person can actually start to earn money from this method.
So that’s where I come in, instead of telling you all about transcribing and what the income potentials are without actually trying it myself I am going to put it to the test.
Before we start I want to make it clear that I have no experience at all with transcribing so I am going to be starting from the very bottom and I’ll try my best to show you how to earn money online transcribing in simple and easy steps.
Set up process
There is a lot of websites you can choose from to start getting paid for transcribing but after some research it seems that TranscribeME is best suited for complete novices like you and me and the set up process seems to be rather simple.
One of the main advantages of TranscribeMe is that you don’t need to be an expert or have any real knowledge at all to be accepted onto their program.
TranscribeMe pays slightly less than other transcribing platforms and you should be earning around $15 per hour of audio. At first glance this will make it seem like you will be guaranteed to earn $15 an hour but this is not the case. As a beginner it will take far longer than an hour to transcribe an hour of audio.
TranscribeMe offers an increase in pay rate as you become more experienced and pas the exam to be entered into the first draft team where you can earn up to $22 per hour of audio transcribed.
It’s hard to see how anyone can make a full time income using the TranscribeME platform but at least it’s a start so let’s get going and really put this to the test to see how much money we can actually make, if any.
Once you visit the website it is not 100% obvious where you can sign up as a registered transcriber but if you look in the top right corner of the home page you will find the orange sign up button.
The sign up process is extremely simple and after entering a few basic details and verifying my account through email you are taken to the work hub where you will find a list of entrance exams.
Before I could take any exams I was instructed to read the exam information section. Within this section there is two PDF documents that provide instructions on the entrance exam and a style guide to show you in detail how audio files should be transcribed.
I highly suggest you read these documents in great detail tor you will really have no chance of passing the exam at all.
TranscribeMe does not require you have to have a certain typing speed for your application but it will be beneficial to test your typing speed to give an idea if transcribing is really for you.
If your typing speed is slow I believe it will be very hard to actually earn much money at all as it will take you ALOT longer to transcribe test files.
As I have no clue on how fast I can type I found an online typing test to give me a rough idea.
As you can see I have been ranked at the lower end of fast which should be adequate in this case.
If you are getting a result below fluent I would advise you spend some time practicing your typing and trying to improve speed and accuracy before you dive into transcribing to give yourself the best chance of making some decent money.
Taking the test – Is it really that easy?
Once you have completed the basic set up requirements and studied the style guide you can instantly take the entrance exam.
TranscribeMe advise you set aside 2-3 hour’s of your time to fully and accurately complete the exam and this should be done in one sitting, so make sure you are comfortable.
It is also made clear that you will only receive two attempts at the exam. If you fail both of these attempts you will need to wait 30 days before replying so make sure you have the style guide on hand and follow it as closely as possible.
The style guide provided from TranscribeMe is very in depth so ill keep it open another tab to refer to when taking the test to avoid failing.
Time to give this test a go.
The test is made up of one section with three multiple choice questions, 3 4 minute audio files that you must transcribe in accordance to the style guide and then ten multiple choice questions.
After taking nearly 3 and a half hour’s to complete the exams I was confident I had transcribed the audio correctly and accurately so I submitted my work.
Guess what? FAIL
This was incredibly disheartening considering the amount of time I spent taking this test and the high percentage scores I received for the audio.
Nevertheless, I will try again and find out if you can actually earn any money with TranscribeMe. It definitely isn’t looking promising just now but let’s move on.
After another 4 hour’s completing the test again I still managed to fail the test and in fact performed even worse.
At this point I have spent a total of around 8 hour’s reading the style guide and attempting the exam paper twice with still no sort of income at all and not even acceptance to the TranscribeMe programme as a transcriber.
I believe this speaks volume considering TransribeMe is considered to be beginner friendly. That’s not to say you won’t have more luck at passing the exams as it turns out I must not be very good at this at all.
Am I going to give up? Of course not or what would be the point of this post?
At this point I believe it would be beneficial to seriously consider if you are willing to put in this amount of work to potential not even be accepted onto the platform and let’s be honest we still don’t even know how much money we have the potential to earn when and if we get accepted onto the platform.
In the rules it is stated that you will need to wait 30 days before taking the exam again so unfortunately I will not be able to finish this test just yet.
Don’t worry though I will definitely be returning to TranscribeMe in 30 days to complete this test and find out if it is actually possible for beginner transcribers to earn money on a transcribing website.
The Verdict – To be continued
As I have not managed to pass the entrance exam for TranscribeMe at this time it is impossible to give a final verdict on how much money beginners can potentially make with transcribing platforms online.
All I can do at this point is give my final views on the exam process. First of all I definitely thought the entrance exam to be a lot easier and a lot less time-consuming but I was very very wrong.
I have a strong grasp of the English language and spent a lot of time studying and referring to the style guide so believed I had definitely passed on my second attempt where in fact I performed worse.
That being said though just because I failed the entrance exam does not mean that you will have the same struggles.
If you have any experience with TranscribeMe or earning money online please let me know in the comments below and make sure to come back to this page in 30 days to find out if I have managed to pass the entrance exam and start making some extra income from transcribing.
If you are looking for methods for making money online but don’t feel transcribing is for you then have a read at our post with 5 other genuine methods.
