Dissertations and coursework · Checked 4 November 2026
Free transcription for students: what you can get without paying
If your university gives you Microsoft 365, Word transcribes 300 minutes of uploaded audio a month. noScribe is free and runs on your own computer. Spirelight gives you 1 hour free with no card, then €2 an hour, with speaker labels, timestamps and Word export. For interviews with participants, start with the tool your university approves.
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Before you choose
Three questions that decide which free option fits
1. Can anyone be identified in the recording?
In research interviews, almost always, even without names. Then your university’s rules come first, and a tool it approves beats everything else on this page. Lectures and your own voice notes leave more choice, but ask before you record a lecturer.
2. How many hours of audio do you have?
Eight 45-minute interviews make six hours. Word covers five a month. Otter’s free plan allows three imported files in total and 30 minutes per conversation. Spirelight’s free hour covers one interview, then it is €2 for each further hour. noScribe has no cap but needs 1 to 3 hours of laptop time per interview hour.
3. What will you do with the text?
Check it while listening, pseudonymise it, put it in an appendix and code it. Speaker labels, timestamps and a Word file save time at every step.
Comparison
Free transcription for students: six options compared
Free transcription for students comes in three forms: a tool your university already pays for, free software on your own laptop, or a free allowance from an online service. We checked everything in the table against the providers’ and universities’ own pages on 4 November 2026. We make Spirelight, so follow the links and judge for yourself.
| Option | What it costs you | Limits | Where the recording goes | Choose it when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your university’s approved tool | Nothing extra | Set by the university’s licence | Services your university has assessed, such as Teams and Word 365 at Aberdeen or ETTA at Edinburgh | Anyone in the recording can be identified |
| Word in Microsoft 365 | Nothing extra if your university account includes Microsoft 365 | 300 minutes of uploaded audio a month; .wav, .mp4, .m4a or .mp3; Word for the web in Edge or Chrome | To Microsoft; the audio is saved in your OneDrive | You need under five hours a month and your university allows it |
| noScribe | Free and open source | No cap; about 1 to 3 hours of computer time per interview hour; a download of about 3 GB | Nowhere: it stays on your own computer | The recording must not leave your laptop |
| Otter Basic | Free plan | 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation, 3 file imports in total | To Otter, whose privacy policy names Amazon Web Services in the United States for storage and lists training its AI on de-identified audio and on transcripts | Short live notes with nothing identifiable in them |
| Spirelight | 1 hour free with no card, then €2 an hour, or Plus at €14 a month with 20 hours | Files up to 1 GB; your account must hold enough time for the whole recording | Transcribed on servers in the US, with servers in the EU as a backup; files and transcripts stored in the US | You are allowed to upload the recording and want speaker labels, timestamps, Word export and coding in one place |
| Academic transcription service (human) | For example University Transcriptions: £1.10 per audio minute (£66 an hour) plus VAT for a two-person interview with a 14-day turnaround | A person types it, so you wait; strict verbatim and Jefferson notation cost more | To the company and its transcribers; Bristol lists the ones it has approved | Hard audio, focus groups or detailed notation, and you have the budget |
How to choose
Best free transcription software: the catch with each
Every free option costs you something: a monthly cap, your laptop’s time, or a question about where the recording ends up.
- Your university’s tool: search its website for “transcription” first. Aberdeen approves Teams for interviews held online and Word 365 for files such as dictaphone recordings, both through the university account, and other services only after a supplier assessment. At Edinburgh, the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures says University policy allows only approved providers, and names ETTA as approved for automatic transcription.
- noScribe: English is among its roughly 60 languages, it recognises speakers, and it has an editor for checking the draft. Download it only from noscribe.de: the developer warns that a paid service on a .ai domain is using the name.
- Otter Basic suits live notes, not a folder of recorded interviews: it imports only three files, ever. A transcription bot in a Teams or Zoom call raises a separate question: the University of Birmingham, for example, requires written approval from IT Services and the consent of everyone in the meeting.
- Typing it yourself costs only time, and an hour of interview usually takes several hours to type. For a few short interviews, or for conversation analysis where you listen many times anyway, it can still be the right call.
Dissertation
Transcription for a dissertation: from ethics approval to appendix
Most of the rules sit before and after the tool. The full method, with conventions and an invented example, is in our guide on how to transcribe an interview. In short:
- Ethics approval first. At Leeds University Business School, every undergraduate dissertation needs ethics approval before any primary data is collected, and without it the mark for the written dissertation is capped at 40 per cent. Say in your application where recordings and transcripts will be stored and processed.
- Consent. Tell participants which services will process the recording, for example in a participant information sheet. Their consent to the recording does not on its own mean you may use an external tool.
- Pseudonymise as you correct. Replace names, workplaces and place names that could point to someone, and keep the key separately. Our interview anonymizer swaps the names you choose for pseudonyms, right in your browser; read the whole text afterwards all the same.
- Check the draft while listening. Fix names, numbers, negations and speaker changes, mark what you cannot hear as [inaudible], and agree with your supervisor whether you need verbatim transcription.
- The appendix. In the University of York’s Department of Health Sciences guidance, interview transcripts are a typical appendix, appendices do not count towards the word count, and nothing in them is marked. Check your own handbook, and include only the pseudonymised version.
Data protection
Is a voice recording personal data? What the ICO says
A recording can identify someone without a single name in it. In an ICO example, an employer may recognise a staff member from a meeting recording even if they never say their name, so the recording holds personal information about them. Most interview recordings work the same way, and a draft transcript often does too.
Pseudonyms reduce the risk but do not take the data out of the law: the ICO says pseudonymised data is still personal data for whoever holds the key. In Ireland and the rest of the EU the GDPR applies, and the questions for your university are the same.
So your university’s rules decide the tool, not the price. That includes Spirelight, which is not on any university’s list of approved tools. Transcription runs on servers in the US, with servers in the EU as a backup, files and transcripts are stored in the US, and optional AI summaries and chat are processed in the US. Standard accounts include no data processing agreement (DPA); organisations can ask for an individual agreement at contact@spirelight.net, and the details are in our terms and privacy policy. Where your university has an approved tool, identifiable recordings belong there.
Spirelight
Student transcription with Spirelight: when €2 an hour makes sense
Spirelight runs in the browser and is built for interviews. It makes sense when you are allowed to upload the recording and want the rest of the work in one place.
- What you get: a draft with automatic speaker labels and a timestamp at each change of speaker, a built-in player for checking it, and speaker names you change once for the whole document. For English you can choose “Word for word”, which asks the draft to keep filler words such as “um”, or “Cleaned up”.
- Interviews in another language: choose the recording’s language or let Spirelight detect it. The transcript stays in the language that was spoken: Spirelight does not translate.
- Transcription software for qualitative research: mark quotes and assign codes in the same project, and export to Word (.docx), plain text or SRT. More on interview transcription.
- Files: MP3, M4A, WAV, MP4 and other audio formats up to 1 GB, and WebM from our voice recorder. MOV is not accepted, so extract the audio first.
- Lectures: a 50-minute lecture fits in the free hour; for a 90-minute one, add time first or cut the file. At the University of Birmingham, for example, you need the lecturer’s permission first, and lecture transcripts are for your own use only.
- Choose something else when the recording must stay on university systems or your own computer, or when your university requires a data processing agreement.
After your free time
Prepaid hours
€2
per audio hour
No subscription. Bought hours never expire.
Spirelight Plus
€14
per month
20 hours every month, cancel anytime. Unused Plus hours do not roll over.
Enterprise
For organisations that need a custom data processing agreement, invoicing or larger volumes.
Prices include applicable tax. If you have paid before, your account may use another currency. Review the final price at checkout.
Questions about free transcription for students
Is there free transcription for students?
Yes. With a university Microsoft 365 account, Word transcribes 300 minutes of uploaded audio a month. noScribe is free software for your own computer, Otter’s Basic plan is free with tight limits, and Spirelight gives you 1 hour free with no card. For interviews, check first which tool your university approves.
What is the best free transcription software?
For recordings that must stay on your computer: noScribe, if you can install it and wait. For a few hours a month with a university account: Word. For speaker labels, timestamps and Word export in the browser: Spirelight’s free hour. For identifiable interviews, the best choice is the tool your university approves.
Is Word transcription free for students?
If your university account includes Microsoft 365, it costs nothing extra. In Word for the web, in Edge or Chrome, go to Home, then Dictate, then Transcribe. Microsoft allows 300 minutes of uploaded audio a month and labels the voices Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on. If you cannot see the Transcribe button, Microsoft’s advice is to check that you are signed in with an active Microsoft 365 subscription.
Can I use Otter for free as a student?
Yes, on the Basic plan: 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation and 3 file imports in total, according to Otter. Its student discount on Pro needs an email address ending in .edu, so a UK .ac.uk address does not qualify. Before you record participants, check your university’s rules: Otter’s privacy policy names Amazon Web Services in the United States for data storage.
Can I use AI transcription for my dissertation interviews?
That depends on your university’s rules on AI in assessed work and on personal data, so ask your supervisor or ethics committee before you upload. The ICO treats a recording as personal information when someone can be recognised from it, even if no name is said.
Is an academic transcription service worth paying for?
Sometimes. A human transcriber costs far more per hour than automatic transcription (the table above has an example), so it pays off mainly for hard audio, focus groups or detailed notation such as Jefferson. A service is an external provider too, so ask about university approval first.
What does Spirelight cost after the free hour?
You get 1 hour free after confirming your email address with the code we send. Any email address works, not only a university one, and you need no card. Earlier free use counts towards the hour, and free time does not renew. After that, it is €2 per hour of recording, or Spirelight Plus at €14 a month with 20 hours. Bought hours never expire; unused Plus hours do not roll over. Prices include applicable taxes. Your account must hold enough time for the whole recording before transcription starts.
More on transcription
Interview transcription
Interview transcription: file formats, prices and export on one page.
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