Rev Transcription Review
I am constantly on the lookout for work from home companies that are always hiring. It’s nice to know that, should you need it, there are places you can go to immediately to start the application process and (hopefully) have a new gig lined up by the end of the week.
Rev Transcription is one of those companies that leaves their virtual doors open 24/7/365 for applicants. So, if you wanted to, you could begin the application process today. Or, if you’re not quite ready, put Rev in your work from home repertoire for the next time you need work, sooner rather than later.
Curious what Rev is and what you will be doing for them? Me too! That’s why I went through the application process myself to find out. Spoiler Alert: This isn’t your typical work from home transcription job!
Read my firsthand Rev Transcription Review to find out what the job involves and what you can expect as an applicant.
What is Rev Transcription?
If you’ve never heard of Rev before, they are an online-only transcription and translation company. They offer transcription, translation, captioning, and subtitling services to clients across a number of industries.
Rev is based out of San Francisco but are on a mission to build their own platform that supports freelancers from all over. Their ultimate goal is to create millions of work opportunities for freelancers around the world (neat, huh?).
Sounds impressive? It is! They’re starting with captioning, transcription, and translation services and moving on from there.
What Jobs Are Available at Rev?
Rev contracts with freelancers to provide transcription, translation, and captioning services. You can apply to any of these positions at any time. However, it seems that, more often than not, Rev is most actively recruiting freelancers to provide captioning services.
What Exactly is Captioning?
Captions are the text that appear on screen when watching movies or television. This text helps provide more information or clarify what a speaker is saying. As a captioner, you will watch videos, listen to what is being said, and type out what a speaker is saying or identify atmospheric sounds like audience applause or background music. Afterwards, you’ll sync the captions with the video so they show up on screen at the right times.
At Rev, the videos available to caption are usually fun and/or educational. Most of their clients are top-tier video producers which means the quality of audio, on average, is very good. This makes it much easier to do your job well when you don’t have to make out difficult-to-hear audio or grainy video!
What Does it Take to Work as a Captioner at Rev?
You’ll need a computer with broadband internet and a strong command of English to apply as a captioner at Rev. Since you’ll be captioning videos that have already been recorded, you don’t need to be the world’s fastest typist. Although, the quicker you can accurately type, the greater your potential to earn!
You don’t need to be an experience captioner to apply at Rev. They’ll provide you all the information and training needed to get through the application process. If you perform well, you can be invited to contract with them — no experience required.
Do I Need Special Equipment to Caption for Rev?
Nope. Since this isn’t real-time captioning, you won’t need any specific software to get started. However, you will need a good headset
Rev provides the program you’ll use to complete captions. It’s called Dash. It’s what you’ll use to control playback of videos and type captions — no special word processing software needed.
How Much Can I Earn?
No Rev transcription review would be complete without discussing pay. Captioners earn $0.40-$0.75 for each minute of video they caption. According to Rev, the average captioner earns $240/month. Top earners can take home as much as $1,500/month.
How much you earn depends on a number of factors like the amount of work available and the number of hours you work each week. The good news is, you can work whenever, wherever, and how much you’d like. Payments are made once a week via PayPal.
Captioning for Rev is a very flexible way to contribute to your income each month. You don’t have to commit to any projects and can select which videos you want to work on.
My Firsthand Rev Transcription Review
I went through the application process as a would-be captioner for Rev. The application process was a bit lengthy, but Rev provided plenty of support along the way. Here’s what I learned.
The Application Process
Getting started is as simple as providing your name and email address. From there, you’ll have to answer a few questions like how many hours you’re available to work, whether or not you have a working headset/headphone, and your internet speed.
Note: Rev’s caption tool, Dash, requires Chrome or Firefox to work. It’s important you use one of these browsers to complete your application.
Grammar & Writing Test
There’s a short grammar and writing test to take once you provide your personal information. It covers things like verb form, word choice, and sentence structure. In total, it’s just nine questions and should take five minutes or so to complete.
Writing Sample
The writing sample you need to submit is also very short — minimum of 50 words and no more than 200. When I went through the process, the writing prompt was about your hometown. In the writing sample, you needed to address what it was like growing up there, things to do, and popular foods in the area.
Learn to Caption
The grammar test and writing sample should only take 15-20 minutes or so to complete. Afterward, you’ll learn how to caption.
Rev provides instructional videos and guides that will teach you best practices when captioning. This includes everything from how to break up captions at logical spots (like the end of a sentence or when a speaker pauses) and how to properly type out atmospherics (clapping, music, etc.).
Go through the materials slowly and make sure you understand one section before moving onto the next. How well you do on your sample videos will depend on how closely you follow the rules presented here!
Using Dash
As I mentioned, Rev uses its own online captioning program called Dash. Dash is what you’ll use to control video playback, type your captions, and sync captions with the video.
Before starting your first caption test, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with Dash. There’s a helpful video you can watch that shows someone captioning using Dash. You’ll also be given a written guide that covers everything you need to know. It’s a good idea to bookmark the Dash Guide so you can easily refer back to it as you start captioning!
Caption Test
As part of your application, you’ll need to caption three sample videos. You can begin the first caption test once you learn how to use Dash. But keep in mind, you will only have three hours to complete your video once you start.
If you’re not ready to take it, you can save your application until you have enough time. It might not take you the full three hours to complete your test — but it’s best to err on the side of caution. Captioning videos does take some getting used to. Your first one will definitely take you much longer as you get used to captioning and using Dash.
Completing Your Application
In total, you’ll have to caption three sample videos as part of your application. After each one, you’ll get a chance to see a properly captioned version of it. This lets you see what you missed and improve the quality of your next video.
Once everything is complete, your entire application will be reviewed. You may be invited to become a paid captioner depending on how well you performed on everything from the grammar and writing test to captioning your sample videos.
Final Thoughts
Captioning videos for Rev is not your typical transcription job. If you’re looking for traditional home-based typing work, be sure to check out the Become a Transcriptionist Guide for tons of helpful hints and advice.
Remember, the average captioner takes home about $240/month — so this should be looked at as a way to earn extra money each month and not necessarily a full-time source of income. Since you get to watch videos that range from classic TV shows to modern movies, captioning for Rev can actually be a fun way to supplement your income each month.
Ready to apply? Head on over to their application page to get started. Don’t forget to like Work from Home Happiness on Facebook for a daily dose of work from home job leads and reviews that will help you find the perfect home-based opportunity!
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how long did it take for them to approve your application?
Hi Timo,
Thanks for stopping by. It was approximately 3 days before I heard back from them. However, they just changed up their hiring process so applicants can get through it much faster. Now you can get up and running in 24 hours or so. Good luck!
Best wishes,
Ashlee
Rev got back to me in two days. I thought I did a good job on the test as I have done transcription in the past however Rev
chose to not move forward with my application. They would not mention why nor am I allowed to contact them for the reason?
I am attempting to further test again, if allowed.
I enjoy this type of work and see no reason to be discouraged.
I also just applied and within 5 hours received the reply that they were not interested in ‘moving forward’ with my application. They choose only 12% of applicants. No stated reason, just a list of probable reasons. I will reapply. It was fun just doing the application
I noticed that your article is mainly in Rev Caption.
As somebody who works for Rev Transcription, and has been doing so for 8 months now, I will say that they are a great company to work for, especially for a beginner. They are a very safe company, and I have never seen anything fishy about them. They always pay through PayPal every Monday, guaranteed.
It is also very easy to advance through their ranks, as your promotions are based on the amount of work you have done for them and your average grade on projects you have completed (graded at random). Also,they even have occasional bonuses if you reach a certain amount of minutes transcribed during certain time periods (I have really only seen it in December, though, to entice people to keep working through the holidays).
Also their minimum for keeping a job there is very low. Depending on your turnover rate for projects you might even be able to get away with just putting in six hours a month, depending. Obviously, the less projects you do, the less you will get paid per minute transcribed, but if that’s all you can put in, they cater to you.
Obviously, there are slow times for work (Christmas vacation, summer vacation), but their pay is decent; 40 cents per minute transcribed (beginner tier) up to $1.00 per minute transcribed (hard to find until you get to top pay (which took me 3 months of 4 hour weeks)).
Also, if you can dedicate the time, I could easily see this being a full time gig, because at 20 hours a week, I make almost $1800 a month (Obviously this depends on the time of year and the availability of jobs at that time).
Added bonus; they provide all the software you need, as long as you have a computer and good internet speeds (which saves you between $300-$700 in start up costs).
All in all they are a great company for beginners to work for.
Can you do both captioning and transcription work on their website?
They say that they’re always hiring but that’s not true. Before I applied, I saw someone mention this in a website and I ignored It but It turned out to be the truth. I tried contacting them about this and I didn’t get a response. If they’re not hiring,they should let it be known and not let people just waste their time going through the application.
JC, yes, you can do both. They also have a 3rd job, translator. You can also apply to be a grader. You can do all 4 jobs at once.
Angry, they did stop accepting applications for a while. I signed up to be put on an email list to be alerted when they started accepting applications again. A couple of months later, I got the email that they were hiring and I applied and was hired.
The “average” may be $200 something a month, but I made that my first week alone. At this rate, I will make $600-800 this month. And I’m not even a Revver+ yet.
You have to understand that people who never or rarely ever pick up a job are going to get just pennies a month, dragging the average down.
Let’s get real about this company. I have been there for years at their highest level (Revver+). The pay is abysmal–far, FAR below minimum wage. The worst thing is the management knows this and refuses to increase the pay per minute. Instead, the pay has been steadily falling. As far as finding work at $1 per audio minute. Lots of luck. Ain’t gonna happen. That’s less than 1% of the work in the workspace.
The jobs start out at 45 cents per audio minute and barely rise if they rise at all. The audio quality is for the most part as abysmal as the pay. That means instead of transcribing at the industry standard (for clearly dictated audio) of 4:1 (in other words 4 hours to transcribe one hour of audio) that becomes more like 6:1 or 6 hours to transcribe an hour of audio.
Then you can tack on another hour for proofreading since–despite the low pay–they expect perfection out of you. Not only do you have to carefully proofread, but you are expected to research names and terms that are unfamiliar. That increases the time required. So, make that at least 7 hours of work to earn $27 (at 45 cents per audio minute). That’s less than $4 an hour. That does not count the time you need to spend looking for a job to do in the workspace. Add another hour a day (at least for that). So, including that it takes your hourly pay down even further to more like the $3 an hour mark.
So as far as making a decent living working at Rev.com–Forget about it. They treat you more as a slave/drone than a valued worker.
And by the way, as if that isn’t bad enough, accounts are closed without warning, despite your performance metrics meeting all the requirements. This has happened to countless now-former Revvers. Apparently, if a customer complains, (keep in mind these customers often have unrealistic expectations) Support goes back and reviews your work and can grade you retroactively on projects that either weren’t graded or ones that got good ratings. Based on Support’s assessment, they can and do close accounts without warning, with no chance to correct the situation and bring up your scores. It hasn’t happened to me, but that is very unfair.
The other major negative is the strict deadlines they’ve now imposed. If you are as much as an hour past your deadline (even on a long project that can take over a day to complete) that job will be automatically taken from you along with any work you had done in their Editor up to that point and you will not be paid a single penny for it. Again, something that is very unfair. If you are close to completing a project, have spent many hours on it you should be allowed to finish and get paid (within a reasonable time) or compensated for your work up to that point.
Just so people know–Rev wasn’t always this bad. The pay used to be much higher and $1/minute or more pay was quite common. They were more lenient with deadlines. Not anymore. I would have once recommended Rev as a great place to work. Sorry, to say that is no longer the case. Management went to the dark side and started to get greedy to the point of becoming cruel slave drivers looking to exploit whomever will let them. Do yourself a favor and AVOID!!!
Hi Revver,
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. It’s always appreciated when reviews come in from current or former workers of a company. I’m sure many readers will benefit from reading about your time at Rev 🙂
Happily,
Ashlee
I have to agree with Revver+. I honestly loved working with Rev and was doing so for about three months until the day I got an email that my account was closed and that their decision was final. I have attempted to contact them for some sort of explanation as to why this is acceptable twice now and have received no response. I know which transcription it was that caused it and it was GOOD. That’s the funny thing. Otherwise it’s simply frustrating as a college student trying to make money when you run into a company running business that way.
Do u have any idea if they are hiring currently? I’m getting to knw that one can take hours to go through the rigorous application only to be told after submitting that they’re not hiring!
Would really like to know before starting the application, thanks
Hi Rufinus,
Thanks for stopping by. Rev is always accepting applications for captions, translators, and transcriptionists. But whether or not they’re actively adding to their pool of freelancers, I can’t say. It seems your chances of being offered a contract are higher the better your test score. But that’s not to say there will be a ton of work available. The best I can say is to go ahead and give it a try — worse case scenario you’re out a couple of hours of work 🙂
Happily,
Ashlee
Rev is well known for paying you well below minimum wage. The videos you work on are difficult to caption because of accents or audio issues. They are not movies or commercials. Most are medical audios, you-tube videos and people playing games. What should take an hour to caption, can take you 3. At .40c per caption minutes you just paid them to do it.
A little known thing they do is higher Rev Recruits to get cheap labor. Every recruit must put in 150 minutes and is graded on each caption job. The graders are encouraged to keep your metrics just below passing. They let you go and there are 1000 other suckers waiting in line.
Please be leery. They are paying less and less, the jobs are terrible and they could care less about you.
Do they pay through PayPal?
Hi everyone. I’ve read the reviews here and I want you to know I’m a real person who works at Rev. In March I read about them. I figured it was a scam but I would give it a chance. It’s real. I’m both a transcriber and a captioner. Some audio/video is bad, some is good. Some is boring, some is thrilling. Except for the week I joined, which was on a Saturday which is the cut-off day for being paid on Monday, I’ve Earned $125 or more per week. Even the week I had to go to the ER and was out 3 days, I made that. Pay has been on-time every week and in the amount expected. Projects range from mere seconds to 4 hours. We do gaming videos, school board meetings, and TV shows. No account has been closed, to my knowledge, for no reason. People always claim they were kicked out for no reason, but i’ve Never seen that happen. The amount of time a person is given to complete work is generous and you only lose pay if you exceed your allotted time by more than an hour or submit incomplete work. Even jobs that need to be redone get paid for. You can step aside indefinitely or work 24 hours in a day, it’s up to you. If you do get a job there, head straight to the forum for great advice! The other Revvers are generally great and want to help good workers thrive. I make around $5 per hour but my only expense is my internet connection, which I have anyway. Rev is real and it’s real fun, but you do have requirements to meet and you only get paid for results. It’s not a free ride.
Hi there dear I wanted to say that I live in PayPal restricted country so one question
Before taking payment do you need to attach a verified PayPal account with your account
Please reply thanks
Hi there, thanks for sharing! I’m curious about how you dealt with taxes…is it a W4 job, or do you have to save on your own for taxes? Was it a nightmare at tax time?
Thank you!
I’m sorry, but Rev is a joke. You’re led to believe you’ll be transcribing high quality recordings/interviews. The jobs available are mostly recordings of school lectures where all you can hear is background noise.
Hi Jeni,
Thanks for sharing 🙂 I’ve heard both good and bad things about Rev, as it seems to go with all work-from-home jobs. Transcription is tough enough as is, harder still when the audio or video quality is poor!
Happily,
Ashlee
I want to earn money everyday I’m a hard working person and we do have an internet
please any information for aplliying in Rev freelancers translators