In the middle of September one of my marvelous sisters, and my other blog author, told me about Rev.Rev does general transcription, translation and caption for clients and you listen to audio or watch videos and give them the most accurate account of what you're seeing and hearing. Some work is verbatim which is exactly what you see and hear, generally they will tell you how they want you to write up what you see into the file. Other times you are left to ask staff or head to their forums. I've never had a question that wasn't answered by a Revver within minutes. They pay weekly! You are independent so you do not have a schedule, you do not always have work, you won't get fired unless you really screw up or unless you contact a client (big no no) and you don't get benefits but you are paid for what you do weekly and via paypal.
You have 3 levels you can choose from:
Transcription
Captioner
Translator
Transcription: This one is the only one I can tell you about, for fact, because I've tried it and do it almost daily. According to Rev's Main Freelance Page,Transcriptionists make $0.40-$0.65 per audio minute. This varies greatly. When you start out in transcription, you are ... you know what, lets back this up.
*insert rewind noise*
Okay, when you sign up for Rev you have to answer questions, go to a typing site (they give you the link) and find out your typing speed. Mine is 60+ WPM, which I knew, but you have to do the site link. Upload a resume and wait.
*back to the present noise*
When you pass your tests they send an email that you've been accepted or rejected. You don't have to be perfect. I see transcriptionists typing in the forums and it makes my skin crawl with the error, misspellings and grammar but they work. You do have to have basic grammar and, if accepted, you will have to go to their site (again they provide the links) and go through training and videos. I don't know about you but that made me terribly nervous. What if I forget? What if I don't have the time to complete this? It's okay. You have to complete these to move on. I did this in a few hours but I had other stuff going on.
After a week I received notification that I was accepted and ready to start.
You begin as a Rookie. That's your title. Jobs are not much. There might be 25 jobs at any given time. My first choice was a nearly 26 minute audio file. It was an interview with two people. I made about $0.42 cents per audio minute to start. I had no idea how long this would take me. It took me FIVE HOURS (certainly not the norm now). BUT I made a 5 out of 5 for accuracy and 5 out of 5 for formatting. These are important because REV works on a metrics system. We'll go into that in a bit. To move up in levels you need to have 60 minutes of work reviewed. Everything you do is graded (eventually) and sent on to the client. If they have to re-do your work you receive a poor grade and the amount they pay you is less than what you were promised. If they tell you that you will make $0.42 per audio minute that is IF you make 5/5 in accuracy and formatting. They take a few cents off if you do not. My first audio, with 5/5 I made over $10.
Rookie to Revver
My advice is to choose less minutes in the beginning. Make sure you ALWAYS listen to the audio before you accept the job. The less minutes, the more practice you get. You don't have someone over your shoulder telling you what not to do. Read their resources, take notes, make a special folder in your favorites just for Rev that you can refer to. Don't forget if you are stuck to use the forums but be SURE you get the work in on time. If you can't complete the work in a given time, you can get out of it. Generally, you have one hour to unclaim the work you are in for whatever reason and not receive a penalty. If you go over that time then they take points off of your on-time submission rate. That's why it's important to listen to the audio before you take the job.
Moving from Rookie up to a Revver you need to have 60 minute of work reviewed and have at least a 4.2 accuracy, 4.2 formatting, 75% of your work has to be submitted on time and 8 commitment ratio. Meaning the rate you've unclaimed after the hour given. I did this within a week but I focused a lot of time on it.
Revver to Revver+
You have to have at least 60 days of work in with Rev, 4.6 accuracy rate, 4.6 formatting, 90% on-time submission, 15 commitment ratio AND 400 minutes transcribed. I'm not here yet but I'm working on it. I have 40 or so days in, 4.8 accuracy, 4.9 formatting, 100% on-time, 19 Commitment ratio and 226 minutes. I can access my Metrics at any time and see where I missed something. I've only had one thing I had to back out of after an hour. I have 4 jobs that have yet to be graded because we don't always have graders. Once you reach Revver+, you CAN be demoted if you drop below their required numbers.
Pay : Pay for a Revver certainly goes up. I've hardly seen any where I get paid less than $0.50 but as a general rule they are $0.52-$0.65. Occasionally one comes through with $0.95. They tell you the range of pay is $0.40-$0.65 but the above is what I have seen in the more than a month I've worked there. They will never pay you more than that because they only charge $1 per audio minute to the clients and they'd not make money.
You can apply to be a Grader once you have everything you need to be a Revver+. From what I've read on the forums, however, the graders have been far too strict on some, taking points away on accuracy and formatting when it wasn't necessary (you can dispute if you feel you did better) and you don't really make that much more money. We shall see, I'd like to try that once I get enough minutes.
Captioner and Translator:
I'm afraid I can't give you information on that as I have not applied to those. I couldn't translate anything unless it's 11 or 16 yr old lingo so I'm out of that one completely. I was reading today that Caption is different in that you can still be a Transcriptionist and work Captions. They are the same company but two branches that are separate. I'm considering trying out for that one this week. You have to apply the same as you would for Transcription and you may or may not be hired, however, you will not lose your job in Transcription if you don't make it or if you are fired.
Pay : I didn't bold this one because I haven't been hired in those so I don't know for certain.
Captioner is said to make $0.40-$0.75 per video minute.
Translator is said to make $0.05-$0.07 per word.
The differences here are audio minute and video minute are not by the word!! I want to make that really clear. The most I've made in the month+ I've been a Revver is $31.90. I did 4 jobs that week. Yesterday I did a 21 minute 21 second transcription and made $16.01. One week I did 3 jobs, each were 10 m 4 s each (we'll talk about that in a sec) and only 1 was scored (yet). I made $5.03, $7.55 and $6.54.
I keep track of everything in a notebook just for Rev stuff. At the end of the year I'll have to file and pay taxes on what I've made so I want to know what the job was, what I made and how long it took me. One was an officer interviewing a guy in a murder case (like reality, not made up show, a real officer interview), another was an interview with two former football players (a couple original guys that went from all black schools and were integrated in the 40-50s) and some other interview. Two of them took 3 hours each, one took 2 hours.
TIME: This depends. As I said, you'll see a lot that are 10m 4s. This is because sometimes audio is uploaded that's 60+ minutes and people try to do it but they can't or no one does it and it sits there. The client will still want that audio so they break it down into parts. Then you have 6 audios where you had 1. The police interrogation took me 3 hours. The officer was Hispanic and the young man was African American. I could understand them perfectly for the most part but you will have to pause and go back so many time's it seems crazy. You'll have phone calls, you'll have the kids text you and need picked up, dishes that need done, laundry needing put in the dryer, dog that needs out, grab a drink or a potty break or even just have to pause and glare at your home phone that won't stop ringing. ("CAN'T YOU SEE I'M WORKING HERE?!!" When clearly, they can't, they're on the phone. Moron.)
I start work in the mornings, listening to audios and seeing what I can/can not do. If I accept one I need about 2-3 hours for a short one, 3-5 hours for one that's 20-30 minutes.
I have to weigh what is important for me that day by what job I choose. I generally like to do shopping for groceries in the mornings so i don't take a project before I shop. I don't want to not complete it and have to back out. I have my mother in law that a few times a month needs a lift to town for things. I never know when she will get up. I set times but those are relative and don't matter. I go over and she's not up or she is and after waiting for 5 hours she decides to go another day. Or, as has happened and did today, one of the kids gets to school and wants to come home with some random illness.
This job is not a long term solution for finances. This is a job you do if you want to make $100 or so a month extra. (Again, don't forget to set some aside for when you do taxes. You are now an Independent Contractor.) On my best week, I made almost $32. The audio I completed came to just over 56 minutes transcribed or an average of $0.57 per audio minute. Looking at my notes I can tell you the 4 took me a total of 10 hours that week to do. So even though it took me 10 hours I was paid for 56 minutes. That's $3.20 per hour. You do this for the experience and the love of typing...not the pay.
WHAT YOU NEED:
A computer or a laptop that can run their page and their audio files
Typing skills
General understanding of Grammar!
That's it.
It's nice to have a set of headphones that you have a volume control on. You can use a foot pedal but I do not have one yet and work just fine.
That's about it.
I'm here and available for any questions anyone might have.
REV is a real company. It offers you REAL work at home. If you have silence, nothing at all to do and nothing but time, you can make some good money with this company. For my situation I just make peanuts. I can't work when the teen, preteen or hubby are home because it's time to cook, clean, talk, homework, etc. Daytime is the only time but even that is limited.
I will try to take some screenshots and add those this week! Again, if you have questions or comments, we get notified and will respond. :)
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