GMR Transcription: Transcription & Translation Gigs

What is GMR Transcription?

GMR Transcription enlists U.S. freelancers to transcribe and translate audio for law enforcement, court cases, doctors, universities and others.

GMR Transcription Review:

This site only enlists U.S. residents as freelance typists and translators. That usually translates into better hourly pay. But it may not here. GMR Translation is cagey about how much it pays. The site says you’ll only get information about pay after you’re hired.

However, Glassdoor estimates that the company pays transcriptionists between $4 and $24 per hour. But, like most transcription companies, we suspect that this one pays by the audio minute. That means there’s no set hourly rate. You earn more when you type faster.

But, it’s not just about your typing speed. In some cases, the poor quality of the audio requires more time to understand and transcribe. Transcriptionists who have reviewed this company on Glassdoor, also report pay ranging from $4 to $12 per hour. Not exactly head-turning.

Worse, the site appears to require an unpaid “probationary period.”

Probationary period

In FAQs for transcriptionists, the site says “All new typists must complete 2 hours worth of audio before receiving paid work. During this probation period, we will be carefully proofreading your work to ensure that your transcripts are up to our standards.”

Notably, the site already has transcriptionists complete a test before they’re accepted. So this is after transcriptionists have been enlisted to do work that GMR is getting paid for.

Given that each audio hour could take a transcriptionist 2 to 6 hours to complete, this is a significant amount of unpaid work.

Calls and emails to GMR asking for clarification were not returned.

Worker complaints

Workers reviewing this company were generally positive about management support. However, there were consistent complaints about the poor audio quality and poor pay.

Recommendations:

We believe the opportunities for transcriptionists are better with Transcription Outsourcing.  However, Transcription Outsourcing doesn’t do business in California, New Jersey or Massachusetts.

If you want to apply to GMR, you can do so here.

If you’re a translator, we suggest you check out SmartCat.

What their users say (from Indeed)

Incredibly low rate of pay, sometimes as low as $4 an hour depending on how fast the speakers are speaking (even with a 90 WPM typing speed) … There is practically no workplace culture, but everyone is kind enough. Just isn’t worth my time.

You have to purchase your own items to make the job even tolerable (such as a foot pedal and software). I’ve been doing this almost a year and I still don’t do the job quickly enough for it to be worth my time. 15 minutes of audio takes me about an hour. And you get paid by the minute of audio, not how long it takes you to complete it. It’s a nice side job but I wouldn’t recommend it if you need a wage to survive on.

This was a freelance job I did in my free time. It was nice to have extra money but the job is extremely hard. Audiotapes are sent to you and you have to transcribe or translate them. Most of the time the audiotapes are barely audible so it’s a lot of rewinding to see if you can hear what was said.

(from Glassdoor)

You get paid per audio minute, but some files just take a lot longer to do than others. I’m still learning and getting faster. But according to my calculations I’m currently making about $8.00 to $12.00 per hour, depending on the file. That’s what you get for having high work standards and taking the time to proofread! That said, I still have faith that I’ll get faster with experience.

I would say the only con would be the pay. The pay may be sufficient if you’re a very fast and experienced transcriptionist. But if you tend to work a bit slower (like myself), you may find it difficult for assignments to be worthwhile.

Unpaid training

The training period is unpaid, but it doesn’t last too long.

I’ve averaged my pay over the last six months to be $9.50/hr before taxes.

Nice managers

The ladies at GMR are understanding of life stresses and issues as long as you are communicating with them. You have to submit several test transcriptions using their formatting before accepted as a transcriptionist. If they’re not perfect, you don’t get the job. These are not paid.

Once you earn a reputation for solid work, you get better, faster to transcribe files. And the pay rate increases as a result. Interesting work, convenient, and financially rewarding if you are efficient, accurate and thorough.

Updated 12/6/2023