If you’re looking for affordable human transcription services, you may have considered hiring a transcription freelancer through Fiverr. Fiverr is a popular site for outsourcing temporary and short-term work. By using this site, you can avoid going through an online transcription agency and work directly with a transcriber instead.

But you should know a few things before you hire a Fiverr transcriber.

1.  Determine Your Quality Needs

Many of the transcription freelancers on Fiverr produce excellent work. But you have to be selective. Some freelancers advertise that they offer human-powered transcription. Instead, they really use automatic transcription software to do their work for them. This way, they can charge higher rates for human transcription while saving time by using speech-recognition software.

You might be wondering why this matters. The thing is that the quality of automatic transcription is almost always considerably lower than that of human transcription. Computers can’t yet beat the human ear when it comes to analyzing language, especially if an audio file contains overlapping speech, background noise, or different accents.

Before you pay for any transcription online, you need to decide whether you’ll be satisfied with automatic transcription or you need human transcription on Fiverr or elsewhere.

If you go through an agency to get your transcriptions, you’ll pay according to your choice between automatic and human transcription. And you’ll get exactly what you pay for.

2.  Cushion Your Timing

Another factor to consider when ordering transcription on Fiverr is your turnaround time. When you order freelance transcription work, you’re at the mercy of the freelancer’s schedule. Because freelancers juggle many jobs from many clients, it can sometimes be difficult for them to deliver a job when promised.

Of course, you wouldn’t want to hire a transcriptionist online if they weren’t busy. A busy freelancer is most likely a good freelancer. So, you may need to be somewhat flexible.

Also, keep in mind that rushing a job may result in lower-quality work—again, depending on the freelancer. Somebody with superior transcription skills may not have the best business or time management skills.

The takeaway is that if you hire a Fiverr transcriptionist, ask them about their schedule as well as their skills. See how they communicate with you when negotiating a job. This way, you’ll get a better sense of whether you can get a high-quality Fiverr transcription in the time frame you need it.

And be clear about your deadline. You may even want to tell the transcriptionist that you need the work a day before you actually do, just to have a cushion in case something goes wrong.

Conversely, when you hire an agency transcriptionist, you’re guaranteed a certain level of quality and a delivery date. If you work in a critical industry, you may prefer this peace of mind.

3. Scrutinize Skills

It’s time to talk about skills. You might assume that you’re hiring a native English transcriptionist on Fiverr, but this isn’t necessarily the case.

Transcription work done from home isn’t a high-paying job. That’s why many Fiverr transcribers aren’t native speakers of English. They may live in Asia or Africa, and speak English as a second language.

Although a foreign transcriber may claim to be fluent in English—and many are—it’s possible that they’re trying to benefit from a higher-paying market in a country where English is the official language.

Transcription rates may not be very high for workers in English-speaking countries. But in Africa, Asia, or even Eastern Europe, those U.K., U.S., Canadian, and Australian rates are good money.

So, it’s understandable that the people who gravitate toward transcription work on Fiverr do so only if the money is good. And you can see why this would tend to be workers in other countries.

Why does this matter? Because if you have audio files with accents that aren’t familiar to your Fiverr transcriber, the quality of your transcript may be lower than expected. And local expressions and technical terms may be difficult for a transcriber to figure out.

Online transcription agencies have streamlined their processes so much that they can pay their transcribers well. So, the transcribers who work for online agencies are usually English-speaking natives who guarantee high-quality work.

Summary

Fiverr can be a good place to hire a freelance transcriber, as long as you go in with your eyes open. Just be prepared to screen a number of Fiverr transcriptionists before you hire one. Not all Fiverr transcriptionists will be suited to your task or project.

If you don’t need high-quality transcriptions, then by all means, go for a good rate on Fiverr. You may find working with an individual freelancer to be simpler than going through an online transcription agency, especially if your volume of work is low.

But if you need good-quality transcriptions fast, or have ongoing work, we advise you to choose professional services. A transcription company vets and trains its workers, and sticks to a consistent process to guarantee accuracy and timely delivery.