I Tried Typing Subtitles for $12 an Hour
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2022
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I tried typing captions for Rev.com for 8 hours straight - how much money did I earn?
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After a 5 month break, I'm back on it! New money-making videos coming in Jan 2023! 😍
only 9k subs making bangers like this? millionaire by jan 2024 for sure
youtube algorhytm is weird fr
On the way to 10k subs!
didnt ask
Never saw any video of that type, youtube algo is just odd, but I gotta say this was a very good vid even tho you have "only" 9.4k subs you defo deserve more!
I've done a lot of transcription work, and it is basically slave labor. Transcriptions with several people talking over each other are absolutely grueling, and the companies that contract transcriptionists have zero respect for how difficult the job is and expect you to be inhumanly accurate to their extremely complex guidelines... all for basically nothing. Never do this kind of work unless you are employed and guaranteed an hourly wage. Piece-rate tasks in general are never as profitable as they claim to be.
Not really. If you live in a 3rd world country and actually get good at it rather than doing it for only a single day it's not bad at all. Much easier than dying in a steel mill or working down a mine in 40c heat.
@@LawrenceTimme Absolutely. I just mean that it's not a viable choice at all for a main revenue stream in countries like the U.S., Canada, U.K., etc.
@@peperonypeperony7955 I would agree with that.
@@LawrenceTimme mine workers dont need a laptop, internet connection, internet etc..pretty big investment like buying a car
@@marcelzinho89 laptop and internet connection is cheap asl fam thats a very small expense compared to respiratory problems and general health problems
As a deaf person who relies on captions, I appreciate and am so grateful for the time and effort that people put into adding captions to videos that would otherwise be inaccessible to me. Thank you!!!
They should pay people more to do it then instead of ripping them off
@@tobymacdonald5893 Can't expect 60$ an hour from writing audio.. Besides, it's great for 3rd world countries.
@@danialrafid nobody expects $60 per hour... you're just making random numbers up, people just expect to be payed more than $1 an hour, which is practically sweatshop prices
@@tobymacdonald5893 This person didn’t say they’re appreciative of the company but the people who do the work. They’re also deaf which means they genuinely rely on captions which is very important to them. Like dude they never said the people are paid well or anything just expressing how important having captions in general is and how much work goes into it.
@@danialrafid no its not, i can make 20usd/day + tips in a night shift (7pm to 3am) serving booze and food and i live in a shithole of a country
worst part is this being a job where you have to consider other expenses, electricity, internet, computer, headphones, etc.
Going out to work at a bar saves me money cuz in not using electricity at home so yeah, this is a fucking scam and close to slave labor.
I'm assuming most people use AI generated captions and then just go through and fix them. When I used Rev in the past, it has me submit a script which the captioner can use so then all you have to do is set timings.
Thanks for sharing your experience 😊 And yes, a lot of comments have suggested AI autogenerating captions with proof reading
Sup CZs
I was hyped about starting transcribing recently using AI and fixing it's mistakes but when I read the style guide and all the ridiculous rules I'm supposed to follow I completely lost my motivation. I thought I was just gonna type what I hear and that's it, but nooo, they had to make it into a science.
@@GatsuKS can probably have an AI follow the rules
@@luxeayt6694 Which AI does that, you know some?
I gave Rev a try back in 2016 when I was a jobless high school student, and needless to say I didn't last very long. Mfers would literally submit recordings of meetings that sounded like they placed the microphone at the far end of a football field, and then reject my captions submission that I'd already worked upwards of an hour on because I didn't know how to interpret "liunfl gsk jdali uhsdf", which was half the recording. Seriously, I'd even get started on recordings attempted by multiple other transcribers (because if you give up halfway through, they still keep everything you already typed and not pay you) and would quickly realize why they all gave up. These Rev customers legitimately expected us to have the listening comprehension of a literal god.
Thank you for sharing your experience!
I had the same experience except it was the beginning of college for me 😭 Rev is absolutely insane
I guess thats why they hired you for the captioning process? To understand what they were saying 🤣
Still work with rev?
@@lexlexnikkohey would like to talk to you about rev
I really can't imagine anyone doing this as their full time thing, awesome vid!!
Thanks man!
Ayy what's up Valiskibum I saw one of your videos an hour ago lol
LMAO I do this for a living man ☹️ it’s tough but you get better with time.
@@liazavala1250 thank you
I type at 160wpm... I totally could do this full-time lmao.
They recently added a policy where, if your accuracy rating is graded to be less than 3/5 (meaning it needs to be re-edited by another transcriptionist), you just won't get paid for that project at all. So it makes it really risky to do longer projects, but those are the only ones where you really make any money at all. And the graders can be really finicky and unforgiving at times. I recently had a project where I got a 3/5 because I omitted one person's line when they said a complete sentence at the same time that someone else was also saying a complete sentence. The captioning software literally would not let me put all that text on screen.
Really! How recently did they implement that policy?
@@Holstead The announcement was made in December and was implemented on the first of this year. Full text of the email:
"Rev will no longer pay freelancers for unusable or poor quality TC and CP projects. This will impact projects that are sent to be redone during the Review or QC process AND receive a grade of 1 or 2 in accuracy, formatting, or alignment. The freelancer delivering the final project to the customer will ALWAYS be paid."
@@gsesquire3441 Sort of. The grader is not the one to redo the project. I'm not a grader, so I don't know entirely how it works, but I don't think they are even allowed to take that project, otherwise it creates a weird incentive system. Still messed up and wildly exploitative on Rev's part.
Feels like the money is in becoming a grader instead. Find one mistake. Ruin someone’s day. Get paid lol
that is so goddam frustrating - the reason captions/transcriptions may be inaccurate is because deadlines are rushed and the pay is so bad that you have to rush through the job. companies will do literally ANYTHING to avoid paying people properly for their labour even if that would solve your problem pretty much immediately 🙄
I've been a transcriptionist for over a decade. Rev and other ones that sell it as an easy gig are the worst, you regularly make sub-minimum wage. Rev's prices are ridiculously low for the quality of audio they give you.
I see others in the comments saying transcription across the board is slave labor, which isn't true. It can be a wonderful and rewarding job if you know where to look for work, but it's getting more and more difficult to break into the industry. If you want to pursue transcription, the CHEAPEST you should accept is $1.00/audio minute, which if you're able to complete an hour of sound in four hours which is average, you make $15/hour.
Please if you ever need transcription for something, seek out a small business and pay them a fair amount rather than pay Rev or AI transcription to do it. It's a difficult job to be accurate and quick, and those of us who have been at it and are really good at it are constantly being undercut by the gig and AI companies who do far worse. It's difficult to find a place that pays fairly and has enough consistent work, but it can be really rewarding when you find a niche. I used to transcribe podcasts, Congress, oral history interviews, etc... and many of those client have taken their work to cheaper, worse companies to save a penny.
If anybody has been interested about transcription before and has questions, please don't hesitate to ask!
I’ve been looking to get into a side hustle is there any good companies out there can accept fast?
i’ve also been trying to find a transcription job so i can work remotely while at school. any places or tips on where to look?
I’m curious as well, is it worth it at all to start with a company like Rev just to gain the experience and then apply to better jobs, or is there a better way to start transcribing?
Commenting to get notifications for this thread bc I’m also interested in doing transcribing work
hey I'm super interested in transcriptioning
Writing captions for videos you care about is super fun. Helped write captions for a handful of Markiplier videos before Community Captions was removed because I loved the content and wanted to contribute. Being made to do captions for whatever the heck others desire, however.. not so much. I do enjoy that Rev gave you a style guide, as I have no idea what closed captions standards look like and would've appreciated it back in the day
Did you know it's Markiplier's birthday today, though?
Oh wait, nevermind. It's not.
Yeah, I did too. Funny how sometimes paid transcription are very accurate, but so wrong in specifics. Like, every time "Whyatt Cheng" is mentioned the transcription says "Watching" or stuff like that. I've edited a few of those, plus tried transcribed some short videos, but longer ones are a complete hell. I've tried one 10min educational video, it took three hour-long sessions and I still didn't manage to finish it before Community Captions were removed.
I wish they’d bring community captions back. It was a lot of work but I really enjoyed helping out for content I cared about! Plus youtube’s auto captions are just so bad sometimes
I agree! I used to do captions for random videos about topics I enjoyed, and I'm sad to see community captions gone. I feel like its removal contributed to the decline of quality captions on UA-cam as a whole
If only other UA-camrs would be half as honest. All those great captions beneath your UA-cam video that raises people expectation and only give them a shitload of work for nothing is so annoying. Thank you for this video and for putting all the work in just so we know. You are amazing!
🙏
Bro his typing skills and someone elses is 2 diff things. I cakculated what he said and seems he cant type without loiking for shit maybe he doing only 20 to 30 words a minute while someone like me can do 120.
Only other thing i can think of making him sooooooo slow is the syncing.
@@Fatpumpumlovah2 you still need to comprehend what the audio is saying, and put it in the correct format and correct grammar/spelling. Based on your comment, clearly you don't have the best grammar or spelling.
as Tom Scott once said:
" "Oh, look at me! I've Bought a Lamborghini!" Buy some damn subtitles. "
I’ve done a bunch of side hustles on my channel, breaking down how much you make and with full transparency 👌👌👌
As someone who’s been doing this for about 2 years, the first couple of months are so shitty. You don’t get paid well at all and it honestly feels like it’s not worth anything at all. After a while, you’ll realize that it gets easier. It took me about a year to be able to make a decent amount of money. In Ecuador, where I’m from, a minimum wage job will make you $425/month. This is obviously not enough in more developed countries, but a job like the one that’s been reviewed should help live quite comfortably in a country like mine.
A good insight to have! Thanks
Did you get paid in US dollar?
I was gonna say this is absolutely crap pay for the USA, but maybe not in less developed countries like Ecuador. That's great it can work for you though!
@@GirtonOramsay in brazil minimum wage is like 300$/month
Ps.: Rounding up
This is so validating. Ive struggled with work and tried doing transcripting IT WAS NOT WORTH THE PAY AT ALL and so much of the audio I was doing was so hard to understand. It wasn't for UA-cam videos, where people are more likely to be clearer or using better audio equipment, it was for ANYTHING. Once I transcribed an abusive phone call ;-; hearing those weird things was interesting but yeah an hour of work for 50 cents? I'm good thanks. Although I think a lot of people actually use the assistance of programs making auto captaions then you just edit and format it. I started doing that but still doesn't feel worth it idk.
I had a similar experience. Transcription is not worth it. I was doing a lot of hard to hear audio that either had poor quality or loud music over the voice or both. The system I used had an autotranscriber but it was useless unless the audio was clear. It's just not worth it relative to what you make.
Then any better suggestions?
@@danninagy6895 Nobody knows where you live, so how can they make realistic suggestions? If you live where I do, I’d laugh at such a question because there are SO many higher paying jobs that it’s silly to even ask. But if you’re somewhere that doesn’t have many jobs or where the pay is that low, maybe this is the best job for you. Nobody here knows you.
what a useless answer@@user-sf9gs2pg1b
I did audio for people in a gymnasium and music playing in the background. I don't think there was any actual parts for me to transcribe, so I gave that one back. Way too chaotic.
This video is eye-opening and sheds light on the often overlooked and undervalued work of subtitling. It's astounding to see how much effort and attention to detail is required to create accurate subtitles, and yet the pay for such work is often meager. It's important to recognize the importance of subtitling in making content accessible to a wider audience, and to ensure that those who do this vital work are compensated fairly for their time and expertise. Thank you for sharing your experience and bringing attention to this issue.
Thanks for the thoughts Andy 😊
Glad I’m not the only one who found Rev work mind-numbingly bored and horrendously underpaid. After doing a couple of jobs I quickly worked out that the wetter paid jobs were the ones with longer sessions which I could not afford to start for fear of not meeting the deadlines and getting booted off the platform as Jon says. It’s dreadful work really.
Yes, there's always the risk of relying on the platform and then getting kicked off for not following their extensive rules
@@Holstead The rules are designed to weed out people who have respect for themselves and their time.
that's pretty wild, I always thought Rev was auto generated and then humans simply come in to correct any issues. I used them for every new video when it was $1/minute (and my channel was more profitable) and the captions were almost always perfect and quickly delivered. I have to assume it's non-English speakers, because there were often words that sound similar to what I was saying, but didn't make any sense in the context. Like, if I said "We're taking a walk in the park" and the captions read "We're taking a walk in the cart".
You weren't wrong. It is common to auto generate captions and fix issues to save time.
Hi Alex :)
It seems like the only people who actually do the job, are people from non-English countries, where the US dollar is worth a lot to them so it's a good job for them. So you're right.
exactly why i thought these were auto generated lol
$3 an hour in the Philippines is 3x the minimum wage here. No wonder people outsource their business here. My country is so defeated. 🇵🇭
Wow, this is so surreal! I worked full-time at Rev for over two years, and remember crying after my first day because of how little I made ($4.30). I got WAY faster with time though and even ended up doing quality control for other captioners (knew that damn Style Guide front to back). But even with how fast I got, and with being one of the top captioners on the site, I could never pull more than $250 from 32-hour work weeks... which is REALLY FREAKING GOOD by Rev standards and also well below minimum wage in my state.
Rev is an okay-ish option for people in VERY specific situations (like me, I was a student and living at home, so I didn't need much income-wise), but otherwise it's straight up exploitative. Their turnover is extremely high and their captions end up being pretty hit-or-miss because of it. It's a shame because good captions are such an important service and Rev could really stand to make a difference if they cared more about compensating/retaining agents.
Does that even pay for the produced electricity bills?
As long as people continue to work for Rev despite their horrible wages, nothing will change.
If you are spending 40 hours per week on rev for less than $300, why not just get a 40 hour job instead and make minimum double to triple that? That makes literally no sense
@@vicc6790 For me, I didn't have a car at the time and lived in a remote rural area with no buses, so I wasn't able to transport myself to a job. I needed online work that I could start right away, and Rev was the best I could find. For as crap as the pay was, I was saving it to purchase a car :)
Other companies who offer similar work (know the long pdf, do boring tasks whenever you like) pay more for less demanding jobs. So from the sound of it this one would never be worth it.
Ayyy Rev was my first "job" out of high school and after dropping out of college. It was decent for pocket money given the fact that i wasn't doing anything else with my time. I didnt have a car or any way to get a ride to work either, so Rev actually worked out well for me for about half a year until i was able to get something more stable going. The trick is to level up your account to at least tier 2 (better pay rates, more options to choose from, etc) and to hunt for podcasts. They usually have decent audio, are long (pays more per audio minute and in general is just a better use of time than doing a bunch of short ones) and some were even interesting to listen to. I avoided court cases and bodycams cuz they are near impossible to hear due to poor audio quality. All in all Rev was ok, or at the very least held me over for a bit.
Thanks for sharing your experience with it! 😊 Those are good pieces of advice
You still work with rev?
I worked as a transcriptionist for a short time. The audio files were all horrible, but I tried my best. There were some projects that paid $30. Those took over 4 HOURS to transcribe because I really had to focus and decipher what the hell they said. For a while, I was doing good at it, but then I moved to a different state and tried to update my address... My account was immediately terminated. Immediate, no hesitation. They really don't want people to work on Rev in certain states. I can only imagine why.
Like what states ?
Probably states with decent labor protection laws.
If you moved to Colorado, that'd be a reason. Since they're required by law to state their true wages, a lot of online wfh places will say basically that if you're from Colorado, don't apply.
@@Stothehighest That's the dumbest thing ever, and a very shady business practice. I'm glad I don't have to deal with these types of people
Yup probably for California too because they protect their employees
I worked for REV as a salesperson for a short time. Not long after I was hired, there was a drastic change in direction with their sales leadership. This change unfortunately led to myself and all of the other recently hired sales employees being laid off due to the fact that they chose to entirely eliminate the inside sales team that they had spent months filling out. Why they even hired us in the first place is a mystery to me, and this event acts as a constant reminder to me that employers see us first and foremost as units of productivity to be discarded when they think they no longer need us.
It's really interesting to see this candid review from a transcriber's perspective. It seems like working for REV doesn't just suck for salespeople.
Too true you look out for yourself, no one else will. Certainly not corporate entities
Why would they need a sales staff?
Note, this isn't on you, but the company does seem poorly ran a disorganized. While I'm sure it was difficult at the time, it's probably a good thing you didn't actually work there.
Of course that's how they see you, did you think companies hire people to be their friends or as an act of charity?
@@lewis6590 No. I did not think so. This event simply acts as further evidence of that truth
why would an employer not only care about profits?
They're not your family. Expecting to be treated as some needy celebrity is your fault
I used to do Rev, I was only on it for a few days. After I was accepted I "leveled up" after a day or two to get higher paying gigs. I got a bad grade on one of my transcriptions and it leveled me down. Got another bad grade on another assignment and it kicked me off the platform all together. They grade pretty harsh for low pay.
The most positive thing about the experience was being able to transcribe a not yet released episode of one of my favorite reality TV shows. Everything else was pretty boring.
Thanks for sharing victoria. Hope those exclusive early episodes were good!
As a person who can’t hear well, heavily rely on captions. I tried doing rev, but the thing that annoyed me was. I would write out the whole transcript. Someone would proof read it and say it’s not formatted correctly. So I won’t get paid and someone will take my spot with everything I typed up already and all they did was “format” correctly and they get paid.
Ouch 😔 That's annoying, thanks for sharing
Yeah I did a ten minute video about someone reviewing a local sushi restaurant of theirs and quite enjoyed it, it's a subject I'm very familiar with(worked as a sushi chef's assistant as my first job) and I actually was happy to sit through the video. She was well spoken and, while she didn't know much about the topic, I was able to understand everything she said. I spent about 45 minutes captioning and syncing everything, and made about 5 dollars.
I thought, okay this definitely isn't viable as a full time job, at least not yet, but maybe if I enjoy the subject matter it isn't so bad. I spent a week looking for a video that A, wasn't taken, B, had a single presenter or person speaking at a time, C, had minimal accent/bizarre inflections, and D, was a subject I was vaguely interested in/knowledgeable about.
They don't exist! And even if they did, the pay is absolutely not worth it.
I found out quickly that there are a LOT of English words, even I as a native English speaker, don't understand because they come from a field of work I have zero experience in. Imagine trying to caption a video where someone is describing a complex chemical process and using words you've never heard in your day to day. Rev tells you to Google them to make sure you have them spelled correctly, but that can often take 5+ minutes per word. That's time you aren't paid for, and it really adds up.
I'd really only recommend it to someone who doesn't really need income, and just really enjoys watching videos about random topics.
nobody who doesn't really need income is going to spend their free time transcribing videos for 50 cents
You'd honestly just have to be a super selfless humanitarian, who wants to make videos more accessible to deaf people that's the only reason I can think of
@@cinnamonnoob4166 I've been doing this full time for five years. To be absolutely frank, If you're good enough, you can make it work. That necessarily means it isn't for everyone. A lot of people significantly underestimate the skill curve and then complain when they realize it's not mindless work.
That's so stupid that this is so little money. Thanks for sharing this with us Jon, I always love watching your videos because they are so money informative. Keep it up!!
I know! Outrageously little money for non-stop focussed work
I personally havent tried this yet but every video i saw did this alot quicker and was making 15 dollars an hour so if they transcript 10 mins of video it should take around 20 mins for a good job and you get paid about 50 pence per minute so 5 dollars in 20 minutes is okay
@@investmentsandnews15$ per hour isn't enough but i guess its typing haha
It’s actually a great wage for certain people. I don’t really think it’s targeted at westerners. Poverty line living at 5$ a day and it’s a good job. There are plenty of people with these skills who can live off that.
It all depends on where you live. One of the best things one can do in life is travel but not just for vacation. You'll see that ppl work a lot harder for much less $. Its just that we have a higher standard if we're in more financially attractive countries/cities.
I once did voluntary closed captioning for a creator I like -- it's surprisingly difficult. Not just getting the words accurately, but timing and spacing the words as well. For example, if someone says a really long sentence, you can't have that whole sentence on screen at once. Then you need to decide where to break that sentence up so it does not become confusing to read. But also, the words have to stay up long enough for the average person to read comfortably.
Harder still, trying to get all that right, but still preserving a semblance of comedic timing. Your punchlines can't appear too early, or you spoil the joke, or too late that it loses effect. (Honestly, I once watched a DVD of a musical - Little Shop of Horrors to be specific - where they not only did not transcribe the song lyrics, but lazily typed "Sings a song about X" where X was a sudden punchline a whole minute down the line. Worst closed captioning ever.)
If people are speaking off-screen, like multiple people on a phonecall, you have to be mindful of identifying who is speaking during the back and forth.
And then describing tone, which is important for the hearing-impaired. Describing sounds etc. A lot goes into it.
Thanks for sharing your experiences 😊 There sure are a bunch of considerations and challenges that can come with the work
@@Holstead I think it's a worthwhile endeavour. Without closed captions, people with hearing or cognitive impairments are effectively excluded from a lot of content. Not to mention the people who think they should censor closed captions. (No, don't treat people with hearing impairment like they need protection from swear words!)
I transcribe audio for a podcast part time, and you’re spot on with your gripes in this video. I feel lucky I get paid by the hour, because this per minute bs looks scammy.
Thanks for sharing 😊
Could you name the site or the platform please ?
@@marouazaidi1379 happy scribe
@@marouazaidi1379 You can try looking for work as a customer support agent. Try job searching boards, and apply to as many as you can. The more certifications you have, the better. You can search up courses free or paid and upon completion you'll receive a certificate that will make your application more appealing to hiring managers.
Seein the quality you provide, the 100% Honesty, and the fact that you're not one of those youtubers that makes fake how to earn money videos just to make money on youtube, I don't understand why you don't get millions of views. One day you will! But for the mean time, I want to thank you for making such great videos! Your Editing skills, ideas are great!
My guy! Thanks 😍
this video has a million views
@@Holstead I live in a Tent with my 4 kids with Rev as my only source of income outside prostitution...
Thanks for the transparency and honesty, plus effort you put into this video 👍
Glad you reviewed this! This is really helpful! Also gonna go checkout your other videos!
I've created videos in the past as a job and part of that was making captions for them. Honestly it's such a mind numbing process, even using tools to get the timings correct I couldn't do more than a couple of videos a day without losing the will to live, so I mixed it up with other jobs to just stretch it out and take breaks from it. Kudos for doing that for 9-5 straight (and for peanuts!) because I wouldn't have the mental fortitude to manage it.
😂
Yeah I worked there for a bit, spent 8 hours on one video and made like $27, never again. Not to mention it's a major pain trying to get everything right, there's so many rules and when you think you're following them the people that double check your work say you're not
So many rules absolutely
Can you help me get the account
Can you help a brother, just give me that account. I will work on it
@@Holstead I got into trouble on rev with an editor for not following their style guide. Problem was, the customer specified they wanted it in a different style as I entered it originally. I challenged it but only got one changed in my favor over 5 errors. Spent about an hour and realized I was getting like .98 cents while the editor was getting like $3 per hour. I signed up for work at the nearest restaurant that week. Made about $17 per hour as a busser.
U didn't answer the question
Ty for how honest this video is. Appreciate all your hard work
Thanks for the support!
Captioning quickly and accurately is a highly specific skill, to hold that attention for so long and have it all done just right. It deserves more than a measly few cents when 1 full minute is on average going to take someone 8 - 15 minutes depending on the content, how many speakers, music or audio interference, technical/legal/medical terms that need to be researched to double check if they mumbled the right word or not, etc. I tried doing it and I have a natural knack for it, but these ‘agency’ type sites are highly competitive with long wait times and not enough jobs to go around. Accessibility features such as CC aren’t valued enough for the time and work it takes to really make it anything more than a desperate experiment between jobs, or a hobby to make pocket change off of. 😢
Thank you for sharing your experience 😊
Hey, just wanted to say - check data privacy and compliance rules at your company before using any third party speech to text services! The audio/video uploaded is shared confidentially with Rev, so if you send it to another company for machine transcription, that might actually be illegal
Nobody will know or care.
Interesting video! One of my side hustles is teaching English online for a little above minimum wage. It's fairly easy, but you'd go stir crazy doing it full-time.
The same with this captioning hustle too I'd imagine!
What company do you teach through?
Ah to do this you need to know a language that’s not English already
Thank you for uploading this video. I'm a full time translator and sometimes I feel tempted to join these types of sites to make money during down times, but it's never been worth it. I did a transcription job recently and charged $2 per audio minute and I charge on the low side. It shouldn't be legal for anyone to pay less than a dollar for 30 audio minutes.
I have a huge respect for transcribers. I'm not a transcriber, but it took me ~22 hours to transcribe a ~2 hour recording by hand. Writing word for word of a long recording takes several hours to finish.At least from my experience. I had to pull an all nighter to get the transcript done. The second I was done, I immediately fell asleep from ~9am to ~5pm, for ~8hrs. Again, I have a huge respect for transcribers, it's a mostly underappreciated job. I know what it's like to transcribe a long recording. Most people don't get that. Especially, when more than one person is talking at the same time, as someone else. It makes transcribing even harder, speak one at a time please.
Thanks for sharing your experiences! 😊
@@Holstead No problem.
I’m so happy this blew up! I’ve been watching your videos for a little bit now and you’ve put SO much effort into your videos and dedication. All of your videos are amazing! I can’t wait to see your channel grow more!☺️
Thanks so much 😍
@@Holstead of course!
Wow finally an honest youtube channel about side hustles, thanks mate it's really refreshing to see someone genuine among all these gurus claiming that you can be a millionaire in a year with some bullshit courses haha, subscribed !
😂 Glad to have you!
I transcribed 20 hours of interviews as part of my master's degree. I used a speech to text program and basically just repeated *very clearly* what was said in the interviews, while playing the recording at ~60% speed. That went a lot faster than typing. However, once there are several people speaking and/or with heavy accents or dialects (words I don't know and which are difficult to find online) it became a nightmare. I think it took me around 40 hours to transcribe it all. Even though I was quite fast, the only reason I worked so quickly was because it was breaking my spirit...
The start was extremely disheartening since I really had the idea the work would be rather relaxing and quick. However, it would take me around two to three times as long as the interview to transcribe it (for example: 1 hour of interviews took me nearly 3 hours at first). So I had to learn quickly how to speed it up and got to around ~1.5hours of transcribing for every hour of interviews (speech to text really helped me, even though I had to correct the output frequently). Nowadays I would try and find an AI that transcribes it for me and I would only fix errors in its output. It's too intensive and precise work otherwise.
Thanks for sharing your experiences!
Dude. I love that you made this video. Thank you so much.
No worries at all! Hope you enjoyed!
Wow, just found this channel and watched a few videos. The effort and transparent insight into side-hustling methods is super valuable information to have. I'm very thankful for this and subscribed, excited for more content!
Great to hear 😍
As a secretary I have done both medical (psychiatric and radiologic) and legal (workers comp) transcription. I could potentially do this as a side hustle but refuse to do so. They want to make you jump thru ridiculous hoops for peanuts. I would literally work/make more money in fast food where at least you might get a free meal.
For sure, a minimum wage job is at least reliable income compared with rev.com
I have an idea -
What if instead of YOU listening and typing, you use the voice recorder tool on Google docs and connect the rev video to the doc via a microphone? Maybe then you could leave it running in the background for the whole day on a secondary device and come back every once in a while to just copy paste the captions that Google docs wrote into rev and place the captions with the video timestamps? If you try do this for some big videos maybe you can scrape the $20-$30 mark per day?Correct me if I am wrong.
Ooo very interesting idea 🤔 Thanks!
These are exactly the details I was searching for. Thanks for suffering through it!
Hope the video helped!
Haha. I did this for a while. I actually enjoyed some of the transcriptions, like a little fly on the wall of some things. The money was abysmal. You start to learn what's hard fairly quickly. Most of the scripts are American but it's easier to do your own accent so less options. But as someone else noted, getting your script marked is the worst part. Numerous times they'd mark something as wrong and I'm sure they must have been people with a different accent because they were clearly right, yet if you complain they really disapprove.
Thank you for saving my time. Trust me, I was literally doing the pre-tasks to appoint myself. Thats the reason why its hard for the freelancers. Thank you.
You're about to blow up fam. Keep going!
Omg... & to think i almost signed up... thank you so much for this video!!! Your sacrifice is well appreciated 🙏🏽 thx a mil!
Hope you enjoyed the video! Glad it could help
oh man, thank you for this video! i thought about doing this job briefly since i notice so many wrong subtitles on tv (and feel bad for those who can’t hear properly), and i also just wanna find a stay-at-home job. this seems tedious and frustrating tho😭 so, thanks for the warning haha
👌
Great video as ever. Had wondered about caption side hustle. Def won’t bother trying that! Make more videos like this please! I think there are translation versions of Rev as well. Most UA-camrs will have you believe Rev can be done almost full time. Clearly not.
Maybe it could if you're fluent in a foreign language like you say but nah! Yes, more to come!
How should I start making money as a Indian 17 year old
With only a phone
@@abhinandannandan3863 Get a job like the rest of us. You can use your phone to call your mom so she can pick you up from work.
appreciate the honesty bruv. its a rarity for job youtubers these days
The only well-informed video ever on the internet. Truth people! Truth! Thank you Jon. 🙌
I'm glad to hear it was informative! 😊 Thanks for the support
I do some transcription work for Rev on the side for some extra money, if you choose jobs carefully and know some tips and tricks you can just about work for minimum wage. I can earn anywhere from £10-20 per hour depending on how lucky I get with the jobs. Only downside is that as most of the jobs come from the US you only really get good jobs from 11pm-4am UK time so really if you want to earn any sort of worthwhile money you have got to do it during the night.
Useful info!
Can you help me with the Rev test?
thats perfect, i start my other job at 4am, so a little pocket change before work
I have don 3 rev test and they rejected all so i lose my trust for rev. How do u guys do this test and get acepted
$10-20 an hour when you get lucky isn't a good thing.
Make more videos like this, you will blow up to 1 million subs for sure. Just keep posting good ideas, good titles, good thumbnails, make multiple thumbnails, test out, build a community. Come on.
Let's go 😁
Awesome video man, I was hooked right at the beginning! I’ve been wanting to start creating content and I will definitely keep an eye out for your videos for some inspiration!
Thanks Nathanial! Best of luck!
Great video! I worked for them before they started doing subtitling. It was mainly translations then, as in one language to another language. I worked as a translator for about 5 years for them. With something like a birth certificate, you could easily do 5 of those an hour and make $22 or so for each one, making over a hundred/hour. Then they got rid of all transparency, and told all of us translators to get lost or take a $100/hour to $2/hour pay cut (lol) and start doing subtitling. I tried subtitling for a week or so but it was grueling and paid nothing at all, like you say here.
Thank you for sharing, hope you found something better 😊
Hell yeah!! A new video - can’t wait to watch this 🤘🤘🤘
My dude
thanks for being honest and showing the truth. I was so excited to start working on rev but it doesn't worth it
Glad it helped!
You can create an account and sell it..it will be helpful to some of us out here
@@zimkhithakutwana28 Yeah I still do want it
I did some transcribing for Rev for a couple years, and it was excruciating. Even when I really need the money, I just do not have it in me to go back to that. As others have said, the audio quality on most of the videos was essentially static, the deadlines were ridiculously tight, and the grading was totally arbitrary. I would get docked for things that the style guide told me to do!
Yes!!! I got feedback on my first 3 videos that was totally contradicting what they teach. And to get marked down for following the rules is infuriating!!
I like to watch your this kind of videos because it's your genuine opinion about the work you are doing as you know their are many UA-cam channels out their who claims that you make that much huge money by doing this or that but no one practically do it
I really like your work, take care
Thanks!!!
I work a lot with speech to text (computer generated, in many many languages) for my day job. Especially lately (whisper) it's become super good, and can transcribe very accurately in real time, including punctuation, speaker identification, music, etc. Haveing this background, I could NEVER do this job, let alone for dollars a day. Interesting video, thanks.
I wonder if rev will implement this soon!
I tried to join Rev years ago, I never got accepted though. The application process was super complicated for me. I had to write captions for very strange videos, and they never said I did good enough. There's a lot of random things that confused me and made me not want to work with them.
In my country if you convert $ to my currency, if I got $1 an hour and worked from 9-5 for 7 days a week, if you didn't have a job, then with the amount of money you got just for that it would be a substantially decent amount for the type of work. My country has a very bad currency rate so here that is A LOT of money. And yeah, it's kind of a norm to be fairly very fluent in English as our second language. Sometimes even third language. So for someone living in a country like that it's decent work because our minimum hourly wage, converted into $ is about $0,70
I made okay money doing Rev when I did it, but that was a long time ago and more 'in the beginning'. The ability to make money was all built on picking the right jobs. I preferred old westerns or certain TV series which had very little dialogue and often a caption file or script I could use to assist if needed.
I was able to caption while watching the videos at 2x speed as well, which helped.
Made for an okay job while I was traveling around in parts of the world that are cheaper than the US, but not so much at home
Still work with rev?
Did it for pocket money when at uni. I quite enjoyed it. Money wasn't great, at all, but I'm quite nosey and like listening to things. I did an interview with a speedway legend, several lectures about heart surgery, a bunch of adverts and some police things too.
😂
Awesome and eye-opening... Please do this for more transcription websites
I always wondered about this exact thing, saw people advertising it and the idea of just making a few bucks to spend on games or whatever when I’m bored caught my attention however I never bothered with the signup process because it just felt like too many hoops to jump through. Now that I found this video I’m almost thankful I didn’t end up wasting my time.
Subscribed exactly what I'm interested in. Educational. Very good quality.
Cheers for the support! 😊 Hope you enjoyed
Thanks for going through this for us and saving us time
🙏
I've written translated captions without rules, for a fan-channel and the ("wriggle-room")-freedom that came with typing was great!
I would transfer English stories into Dutch and would have a blast finding similar sayings, proverbs or certain typical posh/urban words that I felt so-and-so would say.
I knew the people that were speaking in the video, I knew the roles that they were playing and the jokes that they'd make or not-make and I found it a great adventure to translate untranslatable jokes into similar (or better) ones in Dutch.
I don't know, it was a lot of fun. I hate that UA-cam took the function away. Accents as well, were so much fun to translate. I made Northern into Amsterdam and posh into Gooisch or oldfashioned Dutch (like spoken in the 50's.) Not fully ofcourse, but once a sentence like 'that would be correct' was used with a posh accent, I would make sure that the translation had a similar feeling to it.
Welsh became Twents (or, if you get to the core-element of Twent's dialect, you get farmer) and so on.
Plenty of Dutch folk know enough English to watch the whole thing in the original language, but the captions in Dutch are nice anyway, for when you want to learn Dutch, show your grandma or younger sister, and for if you're just tired that day and don't want to put effort into understanding English.
It did take some time, but I was having enjoying it so much, it didn't feel like work and the satisfaction was enough to keep me going for I-don't-know-how-many video's.
I wish that I could have continued.
Sounds like a good time 😂
@@Holstead It really was :D But it was voluntarily (hobby) without any deadlines or things I 'had' to translate, it was optional.
I cannot imagine having a good time if I am not able to pause the 'work' or having to translate video's I did not care for.
The only thing I miss about working for Rev is that I used to learn about so many things! It was very interesting, but I also found it very stressing due to the metrics, and now you’ll find barely any work if you’re not a revver+
Thank you for sharing!
"Up to" is one of the most evil phrases in the English language.
I use rev on and off for hobby money. Based on how long it takes me to hardcore transcribe audio, my hourly rate would be half of the minimum wage here, but that’s not counting the ungodly time spent even looking for a decent project, of which are so few.
The only pro is that sometimes you get cool projects like unreleased celebrity interviews.
"Yeah transcribe this Genius interview with this mumble rapper for me"
"Mumble? Oh...."
I did Rev transcription about ten years ago (they were just introducing video transcription when I stopped) and I would average $10.00 an hour. I tried to do it full time but there were never enough jobs I deemed acceptable so I would average $300/week. It was very hard on my body. I did find some of the content really interesting and that helped pass the time.
i had this same experience. i used rev for extra income during college and it was nice to be able to work whenever i had time available. the work was grueling and the job availability was inconsistent however
Were there some other online ways you guys used to get money ? Can u name them please ?
U too funny 😂 that face at the end😂
With rev, I used to sort them by most attempts, and usually, those were audios worth $30-60ish, and they would more often than no be like 80% done
Interesting 🤔 thanks for the comment!
I took the tests to sign up before I realized you had to be over 18 to sign up (through I think they should've put the age requirements at the start but whatever) it was pretty fun to me personally, tho seeing you actually do rev it seems like a scam as when I looked it up most closed captions make 20/hr
Signed up for Rev. Tried to transcribe a 30-minute-long recording of a focus group. 9 people talking over each other. I got maybe 6 minutes in before I quit and never looked back.
😂
@@Holstead you still work with rev?
You should make a content on how to earn 6 figures in monthly profits cos I've been reading about investors making up as much and I'd really love to know how to such substantial profit in this current market.
that requires a fair amount of research and good market timing.
That's how I made 100,000$ than lost all of it months later. Investing is hard. :/
In your dreams pal. You don't learn to make six figures per month. You either get insanely lucky investing an initial lump sum, run an extremely successful business, or own some stake in a successful business.
I did captions for youtube quite a while ago and I didn't even get paid for that, it was pretty easy, you typed the captions in chunks so it didn't have to be perfectly synced up. Would've been nice if they did something like that
If you keep doing these types of videos and upgrade your quality, then you will get 100k and even a million subs in no time! My friend I see a lot of potential in you, keep doing your thing, I believe you will become very successful. I hope my words will have an impact.
Thanks dude! More videos coming in Jan 2023
Thank you so much for letting us know the truth about this kind of jobs. Definitely not the best way to make a living.
No problem!
This video hit my algorithm around 3-4 weeks ago, I think it's because as the year comes to a close and the new one starts, everybody is looking for ways to maximize profits and find new hustles.
These websites are only worth it if you live somewhere where being paid in USD is worth it.
A couple dollars an hour in North America or Europe is terrible. But if you live in Venezuela, where the average MONTHLY salary is $25.00/hour, all of a sudden it becomes a lot more appealing.
Rev is ridiculous... I got straight A's in all of my English and writing classes in school and actually did copy editing and proofreading for a major publishing company for a few years. I tried Rev to make some quick money for a trip and apparently my skills just weren't up to what they were looking for 😂. I wasn't using the right punctuation, I wasn't using the correct sentence structure... according to them of course. I flew through all of their little training scripts with flying colors, and did pretty well the first few days. I then started questioning some of their editing because it was flat out wrong, and realized I was talking to someone roughly 25 years old and fresh out of school. At the time I was 54 and had a bit of experience under my belt and this thing didn't like being told she was wrong. Suddenly I was on the bad girl list and my services were no longer required. It amazed me that one of their "checkers" would think my work was great and the next one acted like I was speaking a completely different language. I think they need to get some across the board training for their people before they start telling former professionals how to write copy.
Believe me, no great loss. I do have to say though, transcribing the prison phone calls was entertaining! 😅
*** This was done type to text and I didn't check it before I posted so don't forget for me over what I assume are going to be numerous mistakes lol.
This comment is incredibly ironic
Thanks for this. I'm between jobs and have been looking for some work to pay the bills. This site was on my radar...and you just saved me a lot of time.
Glad it was helpful 😊 Best of luck!
I live in South Africa and with our exchange rate, working on Rev was somewhat viable. If you're fast, you can make some good money. However, the work availability became abysmal and the pay rates kept decreasing to the point where it was insulting. I worked there for three years and became really good at it, but once I found a real job that paid me well, I left Rev in the dust very quickly. Transcribing body cam footage and mind-numbing meetings really eats away at your sanity. I'm grateful that they provided me with an income, but I couldn't help but feel like I worked in a word sweat shop that I could be thrown out of if I mispelled someone's name once in a 10,000 word transcript
The realest , thanks for not selling us a dream like other UA-camrs
👌
I've enjoyed working for Rev and earned useful money to supplement my regular income. However, I wouldn't recommend it for most people due to the sheer amount of time it takes to earn $200 a week. I don't have a family and don't go out much, so I can afford to spend those hours working. It has led to some late nights, however. Rev has always paid me on time and I've worked on several TV programmes and films, some of which are properties recognised worldwide. I generally like the work a lot and have learnt a lot as a result of captioning some documentaries, but it's not for everyone unless you're happy to invest a lot of time. It's also seasonal, so as I type this in late December (holiday season), work's a little thin on the ground.
Great insight, thanks!
You'd think TV and film would pay someone more than that for their subtitles...
@@YehNahYehAyy That used to be the case, but as with everything, when a cheaper way to do something comes along...
@@YehNahYehAyy
Tv ads cost hundreds of thousands if not millions.
Even if the captioning is just a fraction of a fraction they make probably a thousand to ten thousand?
So yeah.
I can guarantee if it is American media networks the transcribers are probably getting .1% or .01% of the contract cost. Whoever owns Rev probably gets 98-99% of the contact money.
It makes "fast food worker" look like a neurosurgeon pay.
as someone who needs subtitles at all times, it's downright infuriating that so many captioning jobs are freelance. this is an extremely important accessibility option, and captioning through these companies should be a job that offers benefits, above standard wages, and opportunities for growth and movement (references and recommendations for captioning cable networks, streaming services, specific sports/news outlets, at events with live captioning devices for attendees, et cetera). if we actually acknowledged the sheer amount of education, competency, computer and language literacy, and time this service requires and treated it like a real career, subtitles would be more widely available in general.
this especially applies to translators! i've used captioning devices at live (pro wrestling and hockey) events, but, in new york and toronto, there've only been english options - even if performers/athletes weren't speaking english! there isn't even a freelance market for live caption translating comparable to same language captioning, from what i can tell; as i understand, the only translating that's prioritised is when someone such as yourself captions a video, then the company repackages the video and subtitles for freelancers to translate. you'd be surprised how hard it is to even get french or quebecois subtitles in french canada on certain programs...!
anyway, as someone who can barely hear: thank you for having CC on your video and shining a light on this industry. i'm sending you one million dollars telepathically
Cheap gig economics
Wouldn’t that be great… too bad catering to the tiny % that’s hard of hearing isn’t profitable. Unless you want them to charge for captions.
@@flyingchimp12 you are so incredibly stupid i won't cater to your need for an intelligent explanation unless you pay for it. get off the internet before it melts whatever grey matter you have left, dude. love you. peace
You see, if only that million dollars was real
@@flyingchimp12 i mean captions are also important for not just HoH people but children (helps with literacy), people learning a new language or watching something in their second language, etc. They’re helpful for a good portion of people (and even if they somehow were only helpful to people with hearing issues it would still be worth it to cater to them)
I worked for gengo doing translation work with a similar structure like this. Just like this 90% of the jobs weren't worth it, due to heavy competition and unreasonable time expectations. It was also difficult getting customers to reply to you in time to get context.
👍👍
I did this for about a year as a way to make a bit of extra money on the side but ultimately realised it wasn't worth it. Getting paid pence to transcribe horrible quality audio and then having to worry about being down rated into oblivion just isn't worth the stress.
I'd really recommend UserTesting for people looking to make an extra bit of cash. It's basically website testing for companies but you make $10 per 10/20 minute test which isn't bad at all.
I made another video about UserTesting 😁 ua-cam.com/video/pNGtku7TNLs/v-deo.html
Thank you for the honesty. Much appreciated.
Hope the video was useful!
I didn’t do captions online, but i did work as a transcriptionist for a few months about five years ago. You got paid based on your hourly output, no pay for breaks or the time it takes to log in or set up macros and other tools to help make things faster. It was all financial advisors talking, too, so you had to learn a BUNCH of lingo. I got pretty fast so i was making decent pay, but the minimum was 15 hours a week and even that was KILLING my hands. It was also super demoralizing and mind-numbing to listen to these people talk about their millionaire clients and how much money their money was making while I was barely hitting minimum wage. Never again.
Where can I find work like this I type pretty fast and wouldnt mind doing some extra work like this.
I caption for my university, and although it’s a simple job, it takes so much attention and intense typing that it feels more grueling that a simple labor job. Luckily I am paid hourly but being paid per video would be hell!
👌
As a South African who has done Rev, the exchange rate makes it a lot more worthwhile. It's not super lucrative but it's a good side hustle. For reference, our minimum wage is the equivalent of $1.17 currently
Were you transcribing videos or audios? I'm also from South Africa and waiting to be accepted by Rev
@@nomamajola8494 both. The list of available jobs is constantly updated, and you choose which one appeals to you.
It took them 10 weeks to get back to me, so hang in there
the worst thing is that in my country getting over 1 dollar an hour is quite a lot
You definitely can make more than a minimum wage job with it. I've been with them for about 5 years now and honestly, the reason you struggled is because you're running it 9-5 UK time. You have to remember that the company is based in California/Texas (they have HQ's in both) so the most active times are always gonna be American time. I've always worked better on night shifts than during the day anyway so it suits me fine. I do between 8-10 hours a day and I've only had a few weeks where I've made less than £450.
It's not for everyone though. I love it as it means I can still work and keep my mind active while not being able to go out and work in "the real world" due to my disabilities.
Time wise, you're on the very slow side of cracking them out. Ideally you wanna be aiming for no more than three minutes to type each minute of audio out and then an additional two minutes to sync it at the end. So a ten minute video shouldn't take you longer than around 45-50 minutes to fully complete and submit. Without being around that kinda timing, you're never gonna make any money from it.
Apples and oranges, though. It isn't for everyone and some people prefer the stability of a full-time job elsewhere whereas that just isn't possible for me. So long as I can earn enough to keep a roof over my head and food on the table, I'm happy.
This is definitely worth looking at
😍😅
Honestly in a very under developed country this would be a gold mine. Obviously the people in those countries don't speak good enough English to do the subtitling, but if they could that amount of money would be a ton for the cost of living in their country. That's why you see people visiting and giving street vendors like $5 as a tip and the people lose their minds because that's basically an entire days worth of money normally.
This is true, honestly. In my place the minimum wage is around US$250 a month. But this can actually give more than that. $25/day for a month with 10 days off is already twice the minimum wage. It's actually a gold mine for us.
@@hnggg4427 wow. Minimum wage here is around $2400 CAD/month. Renting a one bedroom apartment is $2000 CAD/month, so I'm not leaving home anytime soon. At least it's not New York...