Closed Caption Service Conundrum: How to Choose the Best Provider

Finding a provider for closed caption service involves some careful review and planning. Make sure to consider factors such as accuracy rates, cost, and turnaround time for the captions before you choose a provider for your videos.  Be sure to ask the following questions to make sure that you choose a caption service that meets your needs.

1) How fast will I receive my closed caption file?

Turnaround time varies between captioning services, from a few hours to many weeks. If you’re in a hurry and need your videos captioned within 24 hours, you’ll also find that many providers charge rush delivery fees.

Rev’s turnaround time: To keep pricing simple, we do not charge rush delivery fees. While turnaround time does vary based on video length, files under 30 minutes are typically delivered within 12 hours, often much faster.

2) Do you guarantee a certain level of accuracy?

If you’ve ever used YouTube’s automatic captioning, then you probably know the accuracy can be hit or miss. To get the most accurate captions, it’s important to find a provider that uses people, rather than software, to do the captioning work. Many low-cost closed caption services use software, which tends to yield low-quality captions. If your captions aren’t accurate, it defeats the purpose of enabling them in the first place.

Rev’s accuracy: Our team of talented captioners, not software, deliver caption files with 99% accuracy or better. We also use a system of quality checks and client feedback on each project, ensuring only the best captioners stay in our network, and our clients receive high-quality captions.

3) Are there any hidden costs?

Advertised versus actual price for closed captioning services can vary quite drastically. A company may quote caption rates at $.80/minute, but after adding up the extra fees, you pay a lot more than that. Some companies charge more to achieve a certain level of accuracy or speedy delivery.

Rev’s pricing: We’re committed to keeping closed caption pricing as simple as possible. We charge $1.25 per minute of audio, no matter what. We also offer additional premium captioning options. Our rates are among the lowest you’ll find when you search for a captioning service. To see what it will cost to caption your video files, simply upload them on our site or paste a URL of a public video and you’ll get an instant price as seen in the image below.

4) Are my files secure?

It’s important to know that your files are protected when placing an order for captions. You’ll want to find a captions provider that takes maximum precautions to ensure the security of your videos.

Rev’s security: We encrypt and store all information on secure, US-based servers. Files are only visible to the professionals who have signed strict confidentiality agreements. We also delete files upon request from our clients.

5) How do you deliver the caption files?

Depending on the video hosting platform where you plan to upload your caption file, you may need a specific caption file format like an SRT or VTT file.

Rev’s delivery: We email you the file in the format you’ve selected, which you can easily download into another format or customize with our interactive Captions Editor.

Want captions added directly to your videos?

Rev now offers burned-in captions (open captions). Just check the “burned-in captions” box at checkout and you’ll receive a video with permanent, hard-coded captions added straight to your videos. Also available for foreign language subtitles!

6) Who is doing the captioning work?

It’s a common assumption that businesses offering low-cost services must be shipping those jobs overseas or depending on automation. To ensure that the end product of your captions order is high-quality, you’ll want to work with a company that uses skilled English speakers to complete the work.

Rev’s team: The majority of our captioners and transcriptionists, also known as Revvers, are actually based in the United States. In fact, 90% of our Revvers reside in North America with the remaining 10% primarily based in English-speaking countries such as England and Australia. We have a large network of more than 60,000 freelancers that passed stringent grammar, spelling, and skills test to qualify to work with us.

Wrap-up

When it comes to choosing a closed caption provider, there are lots of options to pick from. Map out your expectations and ask the questions above before placing an order to ensure that you’re selecting the best service for closed captions for your audience.

For additional questions about Rev’s captions, please visit our captions FAQ page.