Making the work
Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover captions & subtitles and transcription & show notes. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Checksub | Simon Says | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $12 | From $20 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free trial, then paid | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Subtitles, dubbing and voice cloning
Checksub subtitles a video, translates the result and will dub it in a cloned voice with lip sync, which puts the whole localisation sequence behind one credit balance instead of three services. Credits are issued for the year rather than the month, so a batch of back catalogue does not need spreading across quarters. Subtitle files export as SRT and VTT for anybody who wants to burn them in elsewhere. The entry plan carries a watermark and one translation per project, which is the ceiling most people meet first.
Our note
The watermark is the real difference between the two plans, so price Starter as the entry point if the output is going anywhere public. Count your hours across the whole year before choosing, because credits do not reset monthly and a batch of archive footage will eat the Junior allowance in one sitting.
Transcription built to land in an edit
Simon Says transcribes and translates, then exports into the editing software the footage is already in rather than handing back a text file to retype. The transcript editor pairs with a visual subtitle editor for checking how captions sit on the picture. An assembly mode on the paid tiers lets a rough cut be built by selecting lines of the transcript, which is the feature documentary editors buy it for.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.
| Their cut | None | None |
|---|
| Runs on | Web | Web |
|---|
| Covers | Captions & Subtitles, Transcription & Show Notes | Transcription & Show Notes, Captions & Subtitles |
|---|
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Podcast |
|---|
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
|---|
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
|---|
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
|---|
Our note
The break-even is a little over an hour a month, and below that the pay as you go tier is the right answer. Assembly mode is the feature worth paying the subscription for, and it is the one nothing else in this category does properly.
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