How much does transcription cost in the UK?

The short answer

Published UK rates for clear English audio mostly run from about £0.90 to £2.40 per audio minute, before any VAT. A one-to-one interview with a standard turnaround commonly costs between £1.10 and £2.00 per minute. Group recordings, fuller verbatim levels, timecodes and fast delivery all add to the price.

These figures come from providers’ public price lists, checked on 11 October 2026. They are ranges, not quotes, and providers change them.

How pricing works

Most providers charge by the length of the recording, not the time spent typing. At £1.50 per audio minute, a 45-minute interview costs £67.50 before any adjustments. Ask how part minutes are rounded, and whether separate files are added together first.

Some prices are given per hour of audio instead. That is the same measure: £1.20 per minute equals £72 per audio hour. A rate for the transcriber’s working time is different, so ask for an estimated total if a quote is based on hours worked.

The main factors are:

• Turnaround. Faster delivery costs more. One price list raises a two-speaker rate from £1.10 per minute at 14 days to £1.90 at 24 hours.
• Speakers. More voices take longer to separate and label, so many price lists set tiers by the number of speakers.
• Audio quality. Noise, distant microphones, phone lines and overlapping speech slow the work. Some providers add a surcharge, while others charge extra only if the audio is largely inaudible.
• Verbatim level. Published supplements for full or strict verbatim on a two-speaker recording range from about £0.20 to £0.45 per minute. Jefferson notation for conversation analysis is priced separately and costs several times more.
• Timecodes. Published supplements range from £0.20 to £1.60 per minute.
• Formatting. A custom layout, house template or question and answer format can add time and cost.
• Minimum charges. Published minimums for short files range from £15 to £55.
• VAT. A business must register for VAT once its taxable turnover passes £90,000 in 12 months. Registered providers add VAT, normally at the standard rate of 20%, and many list their prices without it.

Typical UK price ranges

The table summarises published prices from seven UK providers for clear English audio. Each range runs from the slowest listed turnaround, often 14 days, to the fastest listed, often 24 or 48 hours.

Some providers publish only a starting price. Same-day and weekend work, where offered, is usually priced higher. Difficult audio, extras and VAT can all add to these figures.

Human or automated transcription

Automated transcription is fast and cheap, and many meeting platforms include it. One UK provider’s published AI plan starts at about £18 a month. For a searchable archive or an internal draft, that may be all you need.

The trade-offs show up in three places:

• Accuracy. Error rates vary with audio quality, accents and overlapping speech. A 2020 study of five commercial systems tested speakers in the United States. It found an average word error rate of 0.35 for Black speakers and 0.19 for white speakers. A 2024 study found that roughly 1% of one system’s transcriptions contained whole phrases or sentences that were never spoken.
• Confidentiality. Audio is processed on the provider’s systems. Check where it goes, how long it is kept and whether it is used to train models.
• Checking time. Someone still has to check the output against the recording before relying on it. The ICO says that when using an AI tool, "organisations must check that the outputs are accurate". That checking time is a real cost, especially for long or sensitive recordings.

Human transcription costs more and takes longer. In return, the transcriber checks the text as the work proceeds and marks unclear passages instead of guessing. Human work can contain errors too, so a review against the recording still matters for important records.

How to get an accurate quote

Give the provider enough detail to price the work, without sending any confidential material:

1. The total duration of all files, to the minute.
2. The number of speakers, and whether they must be named.
3. An honest description of the audio, including noise, phone lines or overlapping speech.
4. The verbatim level you need.
5. The layout, including any timecodes or question and answer format.
6. The deadline, as a date and time.
7. Any confidentiality terms, such as a non-disclosure agreement or a required transfer method.

Then ask what the price includes. Check the minimum charge, how duration is rounded, whether checking and corrections are included and whether VAT is added. Get the final price in writing before you send the recording.

You can work out an estimate from this site’s published rates with the estimator.

Sources

Provider prices checked on 11 October 2026.

• University Transcriptions: Prices
• The Typing Works: Prices
• TypeOut: Prices
• Fingertips Typing Services: Prices
• Transcription Centre: Transcription prices
• Absolute Translations: Audio transcription prices
• Verbit Go: UK transcription services
• GOV.UK: When to register for VAT
• GOV.UK: VAT rates
• ICO: Innovation advice, previously asked questions
• Koenecke and others (2020): Racial disparities in automated speech recognition (PDF)
• Koenecke and others (2024): Careless Whisper, speech-to-text hallucination harms

General information. Prices and guidance change; check the sources above for the current position.