How to Become a Transcriptionist and Work from Home

If you’re looking for a flexible work-at-home gig with a low upfront investment that you can do full- or part-time from anywhere, transcription fits the bill. Many transcription companies let you work as much or as little as you want, whenever you want – and as an independent contractor, you don’t have to answer to a boss day in and day out. If you’re wondering how to become a transcriptionist, this complete guide will set you on the fast track to your new work-from-home career.

A career in transcription isn’t suitable for everyone, nor is it a quick way to get rich working from home. The work can be frustrating and tedious at times, and few people can do it well. This is because transcription is more than just typing – it requires strong editorial and research skills.

If you struggle with grammar and punctuation, you and your clients will quickly become frustrated. (But that doesn’t mean you have to give up on working from home completely – check out this list of part-time online job opportunities to find something that matches your interests and skill set.)

On the other hand, if you’re a word nerd and a bit of an introvert, you’ll likely make a fine transcriptionist.

This is going to be a long one!

This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclosure for more info.

Step 1. Understand the different types of transcription work.

Transcription work falls into three broad categories: medical, legal, and general.

Many people are introduced to transcription by a friend or relative who does medical transcription (or medical editing). Although there’s great demand for trained healthcare documentation specialists, medical transcription isn’t the only field of transcription there is, nor even the biggest. In fact, most prospective clients who reach out to me are looking for general or legal transcription services.

In reality, transcription work can be broken down into many more categories than just the three above – for instance:

• Law enforcement/police
• Insurance
• Public policy/government
• Academic
• Education
• Research
• Market research
• Corporate/business
• Financial
• Entertainment
• Media

These are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. The truth is, whatever industry you can think of, there’s likely transcription work to be done.

While it’s a good thing to be a jack-of-all-trades as a transcriptionist, honing your skills in a specialized area, such as medical or legal transcription, will qualify you for more and better-paying opportunities. It’ll also give you an additional service that you can advertise to prospective clients.

A note about medical transcription: As VR becomes more widespread throughout the industry, you’ll see other job titles being used instead of “medical transcriptionist” to account for the slightly different role of VR editing, as opposed to typing medical reports from scratch. Today, the most common designations include:

• Medical editor (ME)
• Medical language specialist
• Healthcare documentation specialist

Medical or legal transcription – which is better?

Although medical transcriptionists and editors are still in high demand (and likely will continue to be), working for medical transcription agencies doesn’t pay as well as it used to. That said, if you want to provide medical transcription services to private clients or start your own MTSO, training as an MT is a necessary investment.

On the other hand, if you’re on a tight budget and you want to start working from home as soon as possible, studying as a legal transcriptionist presents a faster and more affordable route – and rest assured, there’s plenty of work to be done. I’ve trained in both medical and legal transcription, and I’ll provide links to my recommended training programs further down.

Working for transcription companies versus private clients

There are two ways to find work as a transcriptionist: 1) Apply to work for transcription agencies or 2) market for your own clients.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of each.

Option 1. Working as an independent contractor for transcription companies.

Many transcriptionists never market for their own clients, instead building their career around working for transcription agencies. (In the medical transcription industry, agencies are referred to as MTSOs, or medical transcription service organizations.)

Transcription agencies are middlemen: They find the clients, they send you the work, and they set your rates.

Most transcription companies hire remote staff as independent contractors (ICs). As an IC, you’re self-employed: a freelancer or business owner rather than an employee. The agency is essentially your client rather than your employer.

That said, working for an agency can sometimes feel like being an employee. There may be production quotas, shiftwork, tight turnaround times, glitchy infrastructure, or inconsistent QC editors. Work volume can fluctuate, and you may be competing with many other transcriptionists for audio files during the most desirable work hours.

There are, however, several benefits of working for these companies:

• Work is handed to you on a silver platter. This means you can spend all your time earning money instead of marketing for clients.
• Business overhead is low. Assuming you already have a computer with word processing software and an Internet connection, you can get started for under $200.
• The work schedule is flexible. Many companies let you work as much as you want, whenever you want, and you can take the day off whenever you feel like it. I don’t know of many gigs like this!
• You can start working sooner. Applying to work for agencies is the fastest way to get steady work as a new transcriptionist. Building up a private client base takes a lot longer.

There’s no limit to the number of transcription companies you can work with as long as you meet the production minimums (if there are any) of each of your contracts.

This is how a lot of professional transcriptionists build their businesses: They secure as many contracts as they can; then, they work mainly on the highest-paying contracts and use the others as backup gigs.

To apply for work with a transcription company, you’ll often be required to take an unpaid aptitude test, such as an advanced grammar test or an audio transcription test. Other companies will require you to submit a resume and do a Skype or phone interview.

The best-paying opportunities usually require training, experience, and/or advanced transcription credentials.

Option 2. Working with private clients.

Now that we’ve looked at the benefits of working for transcription agencies, let’s look at some reasons for pursuing your own clients:

• Earning potential. You can charge your own rates, and there’s no middleman to take a cut. Standard rates for North America-based transcriptionists are $1.50-3 USD per audio minute – sometimes more for highly challenging audio or “extras” like timestamps and strict verbatim transcription. And if you hire help, there’s no cap on your potential earnings.
• Control. You can say no to new projects if the audio is terrible, if you don’t have time, or if you simply don’t want to work with a person because they’re rude or shifty. You also have full control over the way you work and the tools you use. (In theory, this is also true of Independent Contractor arrangements, but some transcription companies require you to schedule shifts in advance or work on certain software platforms.)
• Security. The last thing you want to do in this business is rely on one “employer” that can lower your rates on a whim, delay payment, run out of work, or close your account without warning.

There are downsides to working with private clients as well. Marketing for your own clients takes a lot of time and/or money. Additionally, there’s more responsibility involved in running your own transcription service. You have to worry about contracts, invoicing (and possibly payroll), website maintenance, taking care of your clients, and so on. That said, I think the pros far outweigh the cons.

So, should you focus on applying to agencies or building your private client base?

The good news is, you don’t have to pick one or the other: You can easily do both.

Thanks to the flexible nature of this work, it’s possible to get a couple of good contracts under your belt while advertising for your own clients on the side, even if that just means putting up a simple ad in the free classifieds.

Step 2. Get the right equipment.

Transcription is a simple business to run. Overhead is minimal compared to many other types of businesses.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started.

Home office equipment

In addition to a quiet place to work, you’ll need the following office equipment:

• Computer with a recent version of Microsoft Word installed (some transcription companies require ICs to have a Windows PC)
• High-speed Internet connection
• Desk and ergonomic chair
• Printer/scanner (recommended, especially if you have your own clients)

Transcription equipment

There are three main tools you’ll need to perform your daily work as a transcriptionist:

Transcription software. Attempting to transcribe using a regular audio player and a mouse to control playback is about as fun as you’d expect. Transcription software is a special type of audio player that helps you transcribe audio and video more efficiently. Using a transcription player, you can control audio playback with hotkeys or a foot pedal. Some transcription software comes with other useful features, like audio cleanup or automatic timestamping.

Most transcription software has a limited free version. You might be able to get by on this at first, but you’ll quickly need to upgrade so you can play back longer files and different formats, use advanced features, etc.

The pro versions of top transcription players are very affordable. I currently use Express Scribe (Mac and PC) and The FTW Transcriber (PC). You can get The FTW Transcriber here for 7% off.

Foot pedal. A transcription foot pedal lets you start, stop, rewind, and fast-forward audio using your foot. This frees up your fingers for typing instead of messing with the audio playback controls – a huge time and sanity saver.

The Infinity IN-USB2 pedal is compatible with all the major transcription players and is favored by most professional transcriptionists. To connect it, you just plug it into your computer’s USB port and it’ll automatically install the required drivers. If you don’t like the Infinity, I’ve provided a list of recommended transcription foot pedals here.

Headphones. A good pair of headphones can help you transcribe faster and reduce the number of [unclear] tags in your transcripts.

You don’t have to spend a ton of money on high-end headphones when you’re just starting out. At the same time, though, you’ll want to spend what you can afford on a transcription headset that produces clear sound and that you can wear comfortably for hours at a time.

Another option is the Spectra USB headset from the makers of the Infinity foot pedal. At around $25, this headset is as affordable as they come. It has an under-chin bow instead of a headband, so the top of your head won’t get sore or irritated after a long day of transcribing.

Currently, I use the Logitech H600 wireless headset, which currently retails for about $35 USD. It has an adjustable mic that works great for voice typing in case you need it. (My whole body is an RSI waiting to happen, so for years I’ve been “re-speaking” my transcripts with Dragon instead of actually typing them. I highly recommend this to anyone who suffers from hand and wrist pain.)

For doing a second pass on difficult audio files, I use my Bose QuietComfort headphones in combination with The FTW Transcriber player for maximum audio quality. The Bose headphones have a noise-canceling switch, and they’re so comfortable that I sleep with them on sometimes to block out noise. However, they aren’t cheap. If you’re on a budget, I recommend getting a $25-100 headset to start with. You can always wait until Cyber Monday rolls around to treat yourself to a pair of high-end headphones at a steep discount.

Step 3. Get training.

Training will be your biggest start-up cost, but it’s the most valuable investment you can make as a new transcriptionist.

Most companies that provide medical and legal transcription services require their transcriptionists to have a career diploma or certificate in lieu of experience. This is because certain industries or fields follow norms that don’t apply to transcription work in general.

For example, different types of medical reports follow specific templates, and you’ll often be required to add in the proper subheads even if they aren’t dictated by the physician. Your account style guide may also require you to expand or contract medical acronyms and abbreviations – for instance, EGD to esophagogastroduodenoscopy or vice versa.

Some universities and community colleges offer career diplomas or certificate programs in transcription. I’m a big fan of online training, because you can work at your own pace from wherever you are in the world.

The only general transcription training program I know of is General Transcription: Theory & Practice, offered by Janet Shaughnessy of Transcribe Anywhere.

Below are the courses I recommend for legal and medical transcription, based on firsthand experience.

Legal transcription training

If you’re interested in becoming a legal transcriptionist, I recommend Janet Shaughnessy’s certificate program, Legal Transcription: Theory & Practice. I’m currently taking the course to learn about the U.S. legal system. (I’m in Canada, but I also work with U.S.-based clients.)

Janet is the author of the popular Transcribe Anywhere blog and the owner of Zoom Transcription Services. I chose to enroll in her legal transcription program over others for a few reasons:

• It’s 100% online. You can take the course from anywhere and work at your own pace. The final exam is also online. Although the course is based on the U.S. legal system, many American transcription companies hire remote workers based in Canada (and sometimes abroad).
• It’s an AAERT-approved legal transcription school. As the Transcribe Anywhere website states: “There is no national accreditation for general or legal transcription programs. However, TranscribeAnywhere.com is an approved school by the American Association of Electronic Reporters and Transcribers (AAERT), an organization that offers the Certified Electronic Transcriber (CET) examination and certification.”
• It costs less than other legal transcription programs. Most certificate programs cost thousands of dollars. At $697 and the option to pay as you go, Legal Transcription: Theory & Practice is the most accessible complete legal transcription program I’m aware of.
• It’s comprehensive. In addition to an overview of the legal system and plenty of practice dictations, the course includes lifetime support and a section on how to market your transcription business.

Legal Transcription: Theory & Practice is designed to be completed in two to four months. Janet also offers a general transcription training program at a slightly lower cost.

Once I finish the program, I’ll be posting a full review.

Medical transcription training

I started my transcription career as a medical transcriptionist (MT). My program followed the Career Step curriculum, which is the most widely recognized training program for North American medical transcriptionists. The program is fully online, including the final exam and practicum. Very shortly after completing the program, I landed my first couple of contracts.

You’ll note that Career Step offers a variety of online training programs. The medical transcription program is now called Medical Transcription and Editing, and you can find it here. The program is designed to be completed in four months of full-time study.

Over the course of the program, you’ll learn about grammar, anatomy, pharmacology, medical terminology, medical record types and formats, HIPAA compliance, and VR editing. You’ll also transcribe plenty of practice dictations in preparation for the final exam.

Step 4. Find work.

The fastest way to find work as a transcriptionist is to apply to transcription agencies, so that’s what I’ll be focusing on in this post. (If you’re interested in building your own client base, I’ll cover that in a future post, so stay tuned.)

The first place you’ll want to begin your job search is my list of 75+ online transcription jobs for beginners and pros, which is currently a work in progress – my goal was originally to get it up to 365 companies! I don’t know if I’ll get that far, but I am still working on it, so make sure to check back for updates.

The above list should be enough to get you started – and maybe even keep you busy for years to come! But in case it’s not, here are my best tips for finding remote work as a transcriptionist:

How to find transcription companies on Google

As a transcriptionist, you’ll be using Google a lot – not just for researching unfamiliar terminology, but also to scope out new job opportunities.

Most people start by searching for an obvious keyword like “transcription jobs” or “list of transcription companies.” You can get some good results this way, but they’re the same results everyone else is seeing, which means more competition.

Here are some tips for using Google to uncover hidden gems:

• Use region-specific keywords. Try narrowing your search to a random city, state, or province – for example, “transcription companies seattle wa” or “legal transcription services ontario.”
• Use industry-specific keywords. Remember the list of all the different types of transcription at the beginning of this post? Try using these keywords in your searches – for example, “academic transcription company” or “entertainment transcription la.”
• Use random keywords. Try a regional or industry-specific search with a couple of extra keywords sprinkled in, such as “transcription captioning toronto accurate.”

A final thing to remember is that not all companies that hire remote transcriptionists are transcription companies per se. They might be video production agencies, post-production houses, law firms, etc., so keep this in mind if you get stuck on what kinds of keywords to use in your searches.

How to find transcription companies on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a goldmine of company data. Here are three ways to find transcription work on the site:

1. LinkedIn job search.

Head to LinkedIn and click on the Jobs link at the top of the page. In the search bar, type “transcription” or “transcriber.” In the “Search location” field, you can type your location, or else choose “Worldwide” or “Remote.” Then click Search to see what comes up. You can apply to jobs right from within LinkedIn.

2. LinkedIn company search.

In the search bar at the top of the page, type “transcription” and click on the magnifying glass. Then, click on “More” and choose “Companies” from the dropdown list. At the time of this writing, my search turned up 5,981 results. Not all of these are going to be quality results, but it’s an excellent starting point for your job search.

3. LinkedIn people search.

Type “transcriptionist” or “transcriber” into the search bar at the top of the page and click on the magnifying glass. Then click on “People” to filter the results by user profiles. By browsing the profiles of other transcriptionists, you can get some insight into companies that hire transcriptionists. Additionally, you can infer pay rates …

If you reach the monthly commercial use limit for searching LinkedIn profiles, you’ll need to upgrade to continue searching.

Finding transcription jobs on Upwork and other freelance marketplaces

Upwork is a site that connects clients with freelancers. Clients post ads for fixed-rate or hourly projects and freelancers submit proposals. The client then selects a freelancer for the project.

While Upwork has no shortage of job postings, it’s a bit of a controversial entity in the freelancing space. Its bidding system essentially pits freelancers against each other based on price, so the site attracts a lot of clients who are more concerned about budget than quality work. That said, if you Google around you can find case studies of freelancers who have done extraordinarily well on Upwork, so I’ve included it here as a resource.

A couple of other popular freelancing platforms include Freelancer and Fiverr.

Transcription and work-at-home (WAH) forums

Online transcription and virtual assistant communities, such as forums and Facebook groups, often post job leads and other info about transcription companies. Here are a couple of resources worth checking out:

• Transcription Essentials. This private community abides by the principle that transcription companies should pay their workers a minimum of $1 per audio minute. If you’re the HR rep for a transcription company that pays less than that, the admins will run you out of town on a rail. This makes the TE forum a great source of higher-paying job leads.
• Transcription Haven. Another private forum for transcriptionists. Their tagline is: “A safe place to post and ask questions regarding transcription and working at home.”

Remote work sites

The following sites are well-known and trusted sources of work-from-home job leads:

• FlexJobs. This site offers a hand-screened database of telecommuting, part-time, freelance, and other flexible job opportunities.
• Virtual Vocations. Another hand-screened job database focused exclusively on telecommute-friendly jobs.
• Remote.co. This is a job board for remote work, and it’s free for job seekers to use. The site charges employers a $249 fee to post a job for 30 days. This weeds out low-quality gigs and companies that are noncommittal about hiring.

Avoiding work-from-home job scams

The Internet is rife with scammers preying on people who are desperate to work from home. Avoid getting burned by keeping the following tips in mind:

• Legitimate companies will not charge you a fee to work or test for them. However, it is standard in the transcription industry for applicants to take an unpaid aptitude test.
• Legitimate companies pay their ICs consistently and on time. If a transcription company claims they can’t pay you until their clients pay them, run the other way!
• Be extremely wary of work-at-home job boards that charge a fee in exchange for access to job listings. Most of them are junk (with a few well-known exceptions).
• Don’t respond to ads on Craigslist with your personal information.
• Don’t agree to do any work for random individuals without an upfront deposit.

Step 5. Increase your earnings.

There are four ways you can increase your earnings as a transcriptionist:

• Boost your transcription speed
• Land higher-paying contracts
• Work with private clients
• Offer additional services 

Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

Boosting your transcription speed

As a transcriptionist, you’ll most often be paid per audio minute (most types of transcription), per line (medical transcription), or per page (legal transcription). In all cases, the faster you work, the more you earn. Boosting your transcribing speed even by a small percentage can result in a significant increase in earnings. Therefore, learning how to work faster should be a top priority as you progress in your new career.

Here are my top tips for transcribing faster:

• If you don’t have a foot pedal yet, get one! Connecting a foot pedal to your transcription software is the easiest way to massively boost your transcribing speed, and it makes for a much less frustrating experience than starting and stopping the audio using your mouse and Windows Media Player.
• Master the tools of your trade. Microsoft Word and the top transcription players come with several features than can help you automate many repetitive transcription tasks. Check out my tutorial for tips on transcribing faster using Express Scribe and Microsoft Word.
• Use word expander software. A text expander tool can increase your typing speed by an estimated 30%. As an example, you might create a keyboard shortcut for “pmh” and have it expand to “past medical history.” There are some good fully-featured text expander tools available, like TextExpander (20% off) and FastFox by NCH (the makers of Express Scribe). TextExpander tracks the characters you save, as well as the time you save by using the program. You can also use Microsoft Word’s built-in AutoCorrect feature to create your own text expansion entries. I use it for inserting speaker labels.
• Upgrade your equipment. You can waste hours of time per week fiddling around with an old, slow computer, and cheap headphones make for poor sound quality and more “inaudibles” in your transcripts.
• Take a touch-typing course. If you were never taught in school how to type properly, don’t despair: Nowadays, there are online courses that can help you un-learn the bad habits that slow you down. I’m a long-time fan of Udemy’s courses.

Qualifying for higher-paying contracts

When you land your first transcription job, it’s easy to get complacent. However, it’s a good idea to keep your job search active as long as you have “breathing room” in your current contracts.

As you acquire more contracts, you can phase out the lower-paying ones or keep them on as backup work, steadily increasing your earnings.

Here are a few ways you can stand out from the competition and land more contracts:

• Learn transcription in other niches. If you’ve been doing strictly general transcription up to this point, consider taking a legal transcription course to qualify for more and better-paying opportunities.
• Improve your grammar and punctuation skills. The ability to punctuate a sentence correctly is one of the rarest and most underrated skills in this industry. Brushing up on your English language skills will set you apart from the competition when it comes time to write a cover letter or take a transcription test.
• Get an advanced credential. In addition to getting a career diploma or certificate in medical or legal transcription, you may also want to consider attaining an advanced credential or certification. Examples are the CET (offered by AAERT) for legal transcribers and the RHDS and CHDS credentials (offered by AHDI) for medical transcriptionists. There’s also the ACT credential for Canadian legal transcriptionists.

Finding private clients and offering additional services

Building your own client base is by far the best way to increase your earnings as a transcriptionist. Not only can you earn a much higher hourly rate, but as your client base grows, you can hire help and scale your business.

I’ll be covering tips and tools for finding and working with private clients in an upcoming post.

A final way you can increase your earnings is by expanding your service offerings. For example, in addition to audio transcription I also provide copy typing services, which is transcribing from handwritten notes or a digital document rather than an audio file.

As a virtual assistant, you can offer any service that can be done online, such as data entry, copywriting, and social media management services.

Action steps

If you set your mind to it, you can launch a transcription career from home very quickly – within the next few weeks or months.

Here’s a checklist to get you on the fast track:

• Set up your home office.
• Download and install transcription software, such as Express Scribe or The FTW Transcriber (7% off).
• Order a transcription foot pedal and headset. If you’re on a budget, I recommend the Spectra SP-PC or the Logitech H600 wireless headset. The latter has a mic, if you want to experiment with voice typing.
• Enroll in a transcription certificate program. Set a goal for when you’ll complete it.
• Create a resume detailing your transcription training, as well as any past administrative experience and references.
• Put an ad up for your services in your city’s local free classifieds.
• Refer to this list of transcription companies. Set a goal for yourself – for example, to apply to five companies per week – and get on it!

Your turn

Did I miss anything in this guide that you would like to see included? Let me know in the comments.

Are you a professional transcriptionist or virtual assistant? Share your best tip for new and aspiring transcriptionists!