Unless you were born waaaay back in the olden days, back when horses and wagons were still favored over cars, then there’s no need for you to be manually transcribing your interviews and meetings. In today’s day and age, you can get an easy-to-use interview transcriber to do the job for you.
Oh, and a lot of these are free!
What is a Transcribed Interview?
A transcribed interview is a written version of everything that happened in the interview. It provides an accurate account of all ideas discussed and action points mentioned.
In the past, when meetings were still held face-to-face, there would usually be someone taking meeting minutes and then writing them up into a transcript afterwards.
Nowadays, you can choose from a number of free interview transcribers to get automatically generated transcripts instantly.
But what’s the best interview transcription service?
5 Simple and Free Meeting Transcribers
1. tl;dv
tl;dv stands out from the rest of the meeting transcription tools on this list because it records both video and audio. Not only does it provide transcripts in more than 25 languages, but it also lets you rewatch the visual aspect of the meeting itself, which can be used in a variety of ways. It’s particularly excellent for user researchers and product teams. It can also be a fantastic way to rewatch potential candidates applying for jobs.
Recording video is not the only thing that separates tl;dv from the rest of the list. tl;dv offers unlimited free recordings and transcripts. On top of that, tl;dv boasts a whole range of other features – like timestamping, tagging, clip reels, AI-based summaries, and a powerful search engine for finding past meeting moments. You can even get the AI to make notes for you throughout the call.
tl;dv only takes a few minutes to get set up too, meaning you can be recording videos and creating transcripts today! And there’s absolutely no commitment to paying anything either. There is a paid option for professional teams that want to maximize the benefits of their transcriptions, but the vast majority of tl;dv’s features are completely free.
And that free plan is free forever. Guaranteed.
Pros
- Records, transcribes, and recognizes speakers in both Google Meet & Zoom calls
- Accurate speaker recognition
- Top of the range AI
- Makes recordings and transcripts accessible as soon as the meeting ends
- Timestamp moments during the live meeting to jump back to that moment whenever you want
- Automatic speaker labels in transcription
- Searchable transcriptions in 25+ languages
- Create clips and reels out of longer recordings with such ease that it physically hurts to think about not doing it that way
- Integrates directly with Slack, Salesforce, Notion and all your research repository tools
- Smooth and easy onboarding
- Intuitive, easy-to-use, and scalable across your entire organization
- Best freemium plan in the industry, allowing for unlimited recordings and transcripts, plus tons of other free features
- Coming soon: automated labeling of meetings, according to your internal tagging system (a feature powered by GPT-3 – just one of its many use cases for product managers!)
Cons
- Not available for MS Teams, Skype, or Webex (yet!)
Pricing
With a free plan to make your eyes water, you can try out tl;dv today with no strings attached. And depending on which region of the world you’re in, you can get up to a 40% discount on the paid plans!
Free Plan Features
- Unlimited recordings
- Record Google Meet and Zoom
- Transcribe Google Meets and Zoom calls
- Transcribe in 20+ languages
- Set timestamps and highlights
- Create and share clips
- Set recording automations
The paid plans offer more integrations, analytics, downloadable recordings, customizable share settings, as well as priority customer support.
How to Transcribe Interviews with tl;dv
Virtual Interviews
If you’re having a virtual interview on Google Meet or Zoom, then tl;dv can enter the meeting as a bot participant. It will sit quietly in the background, but it will record everything that happens. As soon as the meeting ends, you’ll get an email with the full transcript and video recording. You can also search for it in your tl;dv meeting library, making tl;dv a research repository of sorts if you’re running user interviews in particular.
Pre-Recorded Meetings
If you held your meeting in person and recorded it that way, you can still use tl;dv to transcribe it. Follow these steps to transcribe your meeting audio today:
1. Create an account on tldv.io
2. Select target language
3. Click on “Upload Video”
4. Choose your file and wait until it’s processed
5. Receive a transcript and an AI summary of the video
2. Happyscribe
Happyscribe is a combination of state-of-the-art AI and language experts. This makes it one of the ultimate meeting and interview transcribers. Available in a whopping 60+ languages, Happyscribe is a fantastic tool that’s used by BBC, United Nations, and Forbes. It has everything you need to go from interview to written transcript.
With their interactive editors, endless possibilities are available to the user. Its intuitive design makes working with subtitles and transcripts a whole lot easier.
Happyscribe is also super simple to share in more than 10 formats. Just one click, in fact.
Pros
- APIs and integrations so you can seamlessly connect with your favorite applications
- Fantastic AI
- Intuitive interface and easy to share
- Available in 60+ languages
- More accurate transcriptions than the average transcription tool
- Speaker recognition
- 99% accuracy guaranteed for human-made transcriptions and subtitles
Cons
- Only a free trial with limited accuracy
- Expensive plans for human translations
- No video recording
Pricing
As Happyscribe focuses mostly on human translation, the rate is per minute of audio. There are automated versions which are still said to be 85% accurate (more than most of the tools on this list), but the automated version is fairly limited, and you still have to pay for subtitles.
Free Trial Features
- $0.20 per minute for subtitles
- 85% accuracy
- Takes 50% of the audio length to complete
3. Tactiq
Tactiq.io is an easy-to-use interview transcriber that allows you to keep your head in the meeting while it automatically makes notes on your behalf. When your meeting ends, it’ll present you with a full transcript which you can easily export to your work platform of choice.
By integrating with OpenAI, Tactiq empowers you to simplify and streamline the transcript, helping you avoid tedious follow-ups and cluttered transcripts.
Translatable into 5 languages, Tactiq transcripts have a high accuracy percentage, meaning you can rely on it to pick up your entire conversation with minimal errors. This is super important as many interview transcribers frequently make mistakes.
While Tactiq sounds like an impressive meeting transcription tool (and it is!), it should be noted that their free plan is not quite up to scratch with our number one spot’s…
Pros
- Works on Google Meet, Zoom, MS Teams, and Webex
- Dozens of powerful integrations, including Salesforce and Confluence
- Identifies speakers
- AI summaries
- Easy to use
- Quick set up
Cons
- Only translates into 5 languages
- Doesn’t record video
- Limited free plan
Pricing
While Tactiq does have a decent free plan, it’s not quite up to scratch as some of the other tools on this list. The first plan is $8 per month, while a more comprehensive one is $16.
Free Plan Features
- 10/mo meeting
- 5 AI credits
- Time-stamped notes
- Basic integrations
- Speaker identification
- Highlights
- Save in-call chat
- Meeting Engagement
4. Fireflies.ai
Vouched for by enormous industry names like Netflix, Uber, Nike, and Expedia, Fireflies.ai has a proven track record of being a top quality meeting and interview transcriber. Fireflies.ai is also a groundbreaker in the AI field with its AI note taking and meeting organization.
Their powerful AI is also behind the search function, empowering users to review a one hour meeting in just five minutes. Fireflies also empowers you to create a library of recorded meetings that can act as a ‘hub of knowledge’. Collaborate with co-workers, analyze meetings, and automate your workflow all with this epic tool.
Pros
- Salesforce integration
- Records, transcribes and analyzes voice conversations
- AI-powered search function
- Good for team collaboration
- Available on Google Meet, Zoom, MS Teams and more
Cons
- No video recording
- No speaker recognition
- Limited free plan
Pricing
The paid plans for Fireflies.ai start at $10 per month per user (when billed annually). They offer a free plan too. Unfortunately though, for video recording, you need the Business Plan at $19.99 per month.
Free Plan Features
- Limited transcription credits
- 800 mins of storage
- Record on Zoom, Google Meet, MS Teams, and more
- Search within meetings
- Different playback speeds
- Comments and reactions
- Clip out moments and soundbites
- Uploads
- 3 public channels
5. Otter.ai
Otter.ai is a text-to-speech interview transcriber that you must have already heard of. In real-time, it transcribes audio from virtual meetings so that you have a full transcript by the time you’re finished.
Otter also allows you to add timestamps, highlights and other edits to the transcription, then share it with your colleagues to align collaborative efforts and cut down on unnecessary meetings.
The software is widely used by journalists, media teams, and universities, but it’s not the first choice among remote or async work teams, and not firmly established in the realm of Product or UX.
One of the downsides is that Otter.ai’s transcription service is only available in English. That number seems miniscule when compared with tl;dv’s transcriptions, for example, which are available in more than 25 languages, free of charge. You can even instantly translate a transcript from one language to another using tl;dv (also free of charge!)
Pros
- Easy to use
- Includes timestamps, highlights, edits and transcription services
- Search transcripts by keyword
Cons
- Transcriptions only available in English
- Doesn’t record video
- No speaker recognition
Pricing
The paid plans for Otter.ai start at $8.33 per month when billed annually. They also have a business plan for $20 per month. Both are great plans, well-equipped with a variety of features, and there’s also a free plan for everybody.
Free Plan Features
- Record and transcribe your meetings in real time
- Otter Assistant joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet to automatically take and share notes, even if you can’t join the meeting
- Takeaways and Automated Summary
- 300 monthly transcription minutes; 30 minutes per conversation
Get Transcribing
So what are you waiting for? Now you know the best interview transcriber, and you have a list of other tools that you can use to make your transcription dreams come true.
If you aren’t sure how to transcribe interviews, check out our guide to using tl;dv above. Otherwise, this list of interview transcription software is all you need to get started.
