Top 19 Audio-to-Text Converters: Which One Is Right for You?

If you’re looking for the best from all the speech-to-text converters, you’ve come to the right place. In this blog post, we will compare 19 different software to transcribe audio and help you decide which one can give you your desired complete transcription. We’ll discuss price plans, features, and how easy each converter is to use. Some software offers free transcription. So whether you’re a business owner or an individual looking to convert an audio file or video file into text format, we have the perfect converter for you!

Types of Audio-to-text Converters

There are 3 types of software to convert audio to text:

Dictation apps

Dictation apps, as the name implies, transcribe audio into text format in real-time.

If you’re in the market for an app to take notes, dictate patient reports, or even write a book, dictation apps are worth considering for transcribing audio.

Transcription apps

With transcription apps, you can upload audio files and automatically create a text file.

If you need to convert audio or video files, these are the more appropriate online tools for you.

Audio Players

Some audio players come with playback hotkeys and time-coding to make transcribing simpler.

If you Google ‘audio-to-text converters,’ some less-than-savory sites that are not related to converting audio will come up. However, it is still important to understand what these sites do, even if they aren’t audio-to-text converters.

If you opt to convert an audio file or video file, then these automatic transcription tools are a more fitting choice in comparison to the stock players on your computer.

How to Choose the Best Audio-to-text Converter for Your Audio File

The market is full of various transcription software programs, making it hard to decide which one to use to transcribe audio. However, doing your research ahead of time makes the task to convert audio-to-text a lot easier.

When choosing software, keep the following in mind to ensure you make the best decision for your audio files.

Accuracy

The accuracy of audio-to-text converters varies, with some programs being more accurate in converting audio files than others. When making your selection, be sure to look for the program’s accuracy rating when their software converts audio-to-text, as well as reviews from other users.

The lower the accuracy rate, the more time you will have to spend editing the text files. If you think you might need to convert audio later, look for software that makes it easy to do so. This way, you can save yourself some time and frustration down the road.

Pick an app that has a good text editor, but be aware that if the main selling point of an app is its flashy text editor, it might not be as accurate to transcribe audio. Furthermore, you’ll want to select an app compatible with Word document types like Word and PDFs so you can share documents with coworkers using an audio file.

Security and Privacy

Keep these things in mind about security and privacy when choosing your software.

1. Make sure the company you’re thinking of working with has a good reputation and is trusted by other users when their app starts to transcribe audio to text.

2. Make sure the software you’re using encrypts your data to convert audio to text.

3. If you ever have any questions or problems, be sure to check and see what kind of customer support the company offers.

4. Make sure the company is following all relevant laws and regulations.

5. Always double-check that an independent third party has audited the software you’re thinking of using.

Ease of Use

When deciding on audio-to-text converters, it is important to choose something easy to use when it comes to converting video files. If the software requires a lot of effort to understand, it will take longer to transcribe an audio file and more mistakes will be made. Instead, go for software with a user-friendly interface that can be easily navigated.

А method to determine the software’s level of difficulty is by first taking a tour of its features. Another aspect to look for is if there are any templates available in various languages.

Many audio-to-text converter services offer customizable templates and free trial periods to help you make the best decision for your needs.

Availability

There are two types of audio-to-text converters you can use for transcription: offline and online. If you’re only going to be transcribing recorded audio or video files, an offline program will work just fine. But, if you need to text transcribe audio or video, then you’ll need an online program.

To make sure your employees in other countries can access the app, you’ll want to ensure that the software provider has a global presence.

The Top 19 Audio-to-text Converters to Transcribe Audio Files

Dragon Speech Recognition Software

At Nuance, they strive to provide the best speech, customer imaging, and interaction solutions for businesses and consumers globally. Their technologies make the user experience more fascinating by changing how people interact with information as well as how they create and share documents. Millions of individuals use their applications daily along with thousands of businesses who attest to the convenience and effectiveness of our services.

Pricing:

• $300 – One-time payment

Notes from Apple

Apple Notes notetaking app has some features that are exclusive to it and not found in other apps.

• Free.
• Comes pre-installed on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
• With iCloud, all of your devices can remain up-to-date with the latest notes.
• Dictate the contents of a new note on the go by connecting to Siri.
• Has been around since the beginning of iOS.
• Always up-to-date.

Pricing:

• Free for all Apple devices

Windows Speech Recognition

Microsoft’s very own speech recognition program, WSR, has been built into Windows operating systems since the release of Windows Vista. Not just for their Microsoft edge.

Pricing:

• Free for all Windows Operating Systems

Google Docs

Google Docs has audio-to-text converters that convert speech into text, which can be very helpful for those who find it difficult to type or just prefer speaking. This feature can also be used as a transcription tool by uploading any audio or video recording from their Google Drive or computer. Have a live conversation and you need to add subtitles? No problem! Turn on Google Voice Typing during your video conference and watch as it transcribes text automatically.

Pricing:

• The app is available for free.

Braina

Braina is a leading audio-to-text converter and voice-control product.

Braina empowers you to convert speech into text files and write emails or books– all hands-free. Just plug in a microphone and start talking; Braina will do the rest by translating your words into on-screen text.

Pricing:

• Free
• $139 Lifetime Version

Speechnotes

Speechnotes is an audio-to-text converter that assists professionals in transcription and converting audio to text files so they can take centralized notes. With this program, users can add punctuation marks automatically by saying words such as ‘question mark,’ ‘comma,’ ‘colon,’ ‘period,’ or ‘dash.’

Pricing:

• The app is available for free.

Transcribe

It’s tough for computers to understand people since humans can have a hard time communicating with each other.

Deciphering someone’s words is a tough and tiresome task, so any type of assistance from audio-to-text converters is deeply appreciated by transcriptionists.

Pricing:

• $20 One-year access
• With a $6 cost for each hour of transcription time.

Inqscribe

InqScribe is the answer to manual transcription problems. This comprehensive solution includes playback controls, notes & timecode insertion capabilities.

Pricing:

• $99 for individual license

Express Scribe

Express Scribe is an audio player that has been tailor-made for typists and transcription work. By utilizing a foot pedal, you can control the speed of playback, as well as integrate it with an audio-to-text converter. Additionally, this application supports a plethora of popular audio formats like WAV, MP3, and WMA. Audio recordings from sources such as CD emails, LANs, FTP servers, local hard drives, and more can be automatically loaded into Express Delegate.

Pricing:

• $39.95 – Basic
• $49.99 – Professional

VoiceBase Web App

VoiceBase provides enterprise and contact center customers with omnichannel interaction analytics. With cutting-edge voice and text analytics, VoiceBase allows businesses to unlock data points and capabilities from customer calls and text channels. Our AI-powered audio-to-text converter solutions enable analysts, business owners, and developers to extract, organize, and visualize data across the entire enterprise.

Pricing:

• $0.01 cents/minute.

Descript

Descript is the only audio-to-text converter you need for a media project. It’s as easy to use as a word doc- simply upload your clips or record directly into Descript to transcribe it into text, then adjust the text to edit your audio file formats. Transcriptions are done quickly and accurately, with an automatic audio transcription program. You can even eliminate filler words and silence gaps with one click!

Pricing

• Free
• $12 monthly – Creator
• $24 monthly – Pro
• Enterprise

Trint

Trint has an audio-to-text converter platform that makes it easy to search, edit and share any audio or video content, or add images. We use artificial intelligence to automatically transcribe speech, making it easy to find the moments that matter. Trint has collaboration tools that connect teams for seamless, fast, and secure content creation, whether you are working from the office or home.

Pricing:

• $15 per user monthly

Happy Scribe

Happy Scribe is a transcription service that offers machine-based and human-based transcriptions in over 45 languages.

Pricing:

• €0.2/minute

Go Transcribe

Their transcription services use cutting-edge artificial intelligence to get you the most accurate transcript possible.

Pricing:

• Free trial
• $10.80 one-time payment

Otter.ai

Otter recognizes the value in conversations and makes it easier to record and store them. It is an audio-to-text converter and collaboration tool that automatically captures meeting notes, saving you time so you can recall key takeaways later. Otter integrates with video conference tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, New Microsoft Edge, and Google Meet to give a subtitle file for your call.

Pricing:

• Free
• $8.33 monthly – Pro
• $20 per user monthly – Business
• Enterprise

Audext

At Audext, they understand that your time is valuable. That feature is why they created their audio-to-text converter to help you save time when transcribing audio files.

Pricing:

• Free – Classic
• $30 monthly with a $5 each-hour – Subscription
• Enterprise

Sonix

Their audio-to-text converters are reliable because many users have independently reviewed them and found them to be the most accurate.

We provide transcription in over 35 languages, including but not Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic.

Sonix is an innovative audio-to-text converter that employs the most cutting-edge technology. It takes a few minutes to transcribe an audio recording, and Sonix even offers auto speaker separation, punctuation, and captioning of videos. With its multiuser permissions function, team members can easily do an automatic transcription or manual transcription. There are also many different export options and integrations with other software platforms.

Pricing:

• $5 per hour – Premium
• $10 per hour – Standard
• Enterprise

IBM Watson Speech-to-Text

Watson Speech to Text can create speech recognition for personalized optimal text transcription. This cloud-native audio-to-text converter listens to grammar, language structure, and audio/voice signal composition to provide an accurate result and you do not need to download it.

Pricing:

• Free – Lite
• $0.02 per minute – Plus
• Premium

Podcastle

Podcastle is the simplest way to create your podcast. With their easy-to-use, web-based platform, podcasters, and other creators can record, edit, improve, transcribe, and export their content quickly and easily.

With their studio-quality recording capabilities, you can remotely transcribe interviews with up to 4K video and lossless WAV audio for each participant without any professional equipment. Their AI-powered sound editor will make your content look polished with features like auto-leveling, trimming, and fading, while also providing access to 7,000+ professional music tracks and sounds. You can enhance your recordings with echo & noise cancellation and 1-click silence removal.

Podcastle will help you explore your creativity and start podcasting as efficiently as possible. Our customers frequently tell us how user-friendly and time-saving our app is, so trust us when we say that we know what we are doing!

Pricing:

• Free – Basic
• Starting at $11.99 monthly – Storyteller
• Starting at $23.99 monthly – Pro

Pros and Cons of Audio-to-text Converters

Pros

• Speed
  This audio-to-text converter does have accurate transcripts and does not have the time to wait for human transcription. This feature will save you more time as it can generate transcripts from audio formats faster than any person could. In just minutes, online transcribing software can finish what would take hours for a human!
• Spelling
  Auto-correct is a feature that immediately checks and corrects words against a digital dictionary as you type them. It is great for getting rid of typos instantly to achieve a complete transcription.
• Accessible
  There are a lot of machine-generated transcript converters available online, which makes it very easy to get transcripts of your audio recordings. You do not need to use a separate recording device – you can use online speech recognition or dictation software that will turn your voice into text as you speak.
• Cost-effective
  Automated transcripts are much cheaper than hiring a professional transcriptionist, NONE to just a couple of cents per minute. Your staff will also be more productive as they can spend their time on more tasks.
• Timestamps
  With speech-to-text software, you can automatically insert timestamps into your transcript at your desired time transcribing. This way, you do not have to listen back and manually input them yourself anymore.

Cons

• Accents and Fast Talkers
• Software-generated transcripts are often inaccurate when different speakers have regional accents or talk too fast. In these recordings, the software is more likely to misunderstand what was said, which gives you an unusable transcript.
• Audio Challenges
• The most frequent issue with transcripts is background noise. If it is bad enough, the audio of the people speaking can be affected, making an accurate transcript impossible. Other problems that make an audio file hard to transcribe are when speakers whisper, mumble, or stutter; if there is feedback or static in the recording; and if echoes are present.
• Limited Vocabulary
• Machine-generated transcripts are quite frustrating, but they also have a limited vocabulary in proper nouns and specialized terms. Speech-to-text recognition software usually has trouble transcribing or understanding unique or local names in their correct spellings – the same goes for establishments and brand names.
• Technical Difficulties
• Technical difficulties are frustrating when you rely on machines to do tasks for you. If you use audio-to-text converters, even the slightest glitch can cause problems and delays in your work.
• Customization
• If you have the desired format or other particulars for your transcript, then the transcribing software cannot do that automatically–you will have to add those in yourself.

FAQs