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.
| Happy Scribe | Simon Says | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $8.50 | From $20 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | None | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Everything, in an open format | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
| Covers | Captions & Subtitles, Transcription & Show Notes | Transcription & Show Notes, Captions & Subtitles |
| Works with | YouTube, Podcast | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Transcripts and subtitles in 60-plus languages
Happy Scribe does machine transcription and subtitles, and will sell you a human pass over the top when the machine is not good enough. The export list is long, including the subtitle formats an editor actually needs. Minutes are metered per year rather than per month, which suits lumpy production.
Only on this side
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.
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.
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.