SpeakWrite

SpeakWrite Review:

SpeakWrite enlists freelance transcriptionists who can work a minimum of four hours a week doing fast-turnaround transcriptions for business, law and insurance companies. The site promises its clients three-hour service at all hours of the day and night. That suggest the site has transcriptionists working around the clock

How it works

Typists are paid one-half cent per word, with some shifts offering a 10% bonus. Payment is made twice a month, either by direct deposit (currently available to U.S. typists only) or by check. The site does not use PayPal.

Theoretically SpeakWrite offers a good rate for fast typists. After all, if you type 60 words a minute, you earn 30 cents per minute or $18 per hour. If you can type 80 words a minute, you could earn $24 an hour. However, transcriptionists say they’re often hampered by bad audio tapes that can have long gaps in the audio. You get paid nothing to listen through the silence.

Recommendations:

While SpeakWrite offers decent opportunity, we think Transcription Outsourcing offers a better payment formula. You may also want to check out our blog post: Fast typist? Try transcription.

What their users say (from Indeed)

It’s tough work but if you do it well you can make a decent amount of money. You can make a full time job out of it if you work hard. The pay is a little higher than average when it comes to remote transcription work. It all depends on your speed and accuracy and, unfortunately, also the quality of the recording, which we can’t control.

I’ve worked at this company for a few months now. While I do enjoy the flexibility, the compensation is extremely poor. The pay is usually .005 per word or 1 cent for every two words.

Not bad

I am a stay-at-home mom and home school my 7- year- old daughter. I work around her schedule, about 15-25 hours per week or so. SpeakWrite pays $0.005 per word typed for a primary/standby primary shift and they do pay idle time if you are primary. For premier shifts they pay $0.0055 per word. If you’ve done work for other transcription companies you know this isn’t a bad deal. I also work for a captioning service and trust me, this is a lot better. There is a lot to learn with their formatting, but after about 2 months, most of it becomes second nature. 

The typist supervisors are friendly and supportive. Help is available almost 24/7.

The pay is not great, but the benefits of working from home helps.

I’ve been working for SpeakWrite as a General Typist for a few weeks now and I am loving it! I am a stay at home mom, so the ability to hop on and type when I have a free minute is invaluable. I schedule myself for two hours a day (usually in the evenings after my baby has gone to sleep) and I also pick up extra hours whenever they send an email saying they have bonuses on for typist help! It’s great! I am averaging about $50/day for 4-5 hours of typing. It’s so nice to supplement my family with this income and to do it in my pajamas!

Bad dictation

Sometimes the dictations are sloppy with large pauses/errors that are also unpaid and a lot of background noise to filter through.

Clients may submit their dictations in any form whatsoever including noisy environments ie at a party, in a noisy restaurant, TV or radio blaring in background, chewing gum or eating while talking, several seconds (even minutes) of no speaking, flipping documents next to the microphone.

Can’t reject bad tapes

A typist may not reject a poor dictation for any reason whatsoever, even if you cannot hear it or understand due to poor equipment or noisy environment. Such dictations may be very long, thus tying up your ability to make money on a more professionally done dictation.

Contractors must make all changes that a client makes in a dictation, meaning taking out words already typed, and you are only paid for the final word count.

Frustrating work, lack of support from superiors, compensation hasn’t changed in the going-on nine years I’ve typed for them, though they have steadily increased the price of the product for clients.