Category: Subtitling

Learn the factors that subtitling service providers consider when pricing their services and why the prices are not everything when choosing a suitable provider.

The world has become a global village thanks to the internet. Video content has become popular, whether it’s for entertainment, educational, or marketing purposes. Platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok help creators reach a global audience despite their language, demography, or physical ability.

Videos are all about visuals and audio. But how can you use videos to reach deaf or hard-of-hearing persons? How about reaching and relating with international customers?

Subtitling and captioning services help you reach the hearing impaired, foreigners who don’t understand your native language, and get a global audience. Despite their locality or language, you can sell your products and services to anyone accessing your video content. When your video provides multilingual captions and subtitles, foreigners can relate to your content and thus purchase your services or products.

How Subtitling Services are Priced & Why the Price isn’t Everything

Subtitling services prices vary from one provider to the other. High prices do not guarantee quality services, while low prices don’t always give you a return on investment. But what factors influence the amount of money you will be charged for subtitling or captioning services?

Factors that Determine Subtitling Service Prices

When you search for subtitling service prices on the search bar, you will get different prices, as low as $1 per minute to $ 50 per minute. The cost depends on a variety of factors, including the following:

> Video duration

> Turnaround time(urgency)

> Multilingual/monolingual

> Audio quality

> File format

> The experience and competency of subtitling provider

Video Duration

Most subtitling service prices depend on the video duration. The longer the video, the higher the price. Some companies will charge different rates for corporate, educational, and entertainment content. At Wordsburg, we charge the videos per minute, whether a movie, corporate presentation, or university lecture.

Turnaround Time (urgency)

You will pay more for urgent orders. Most subtitling services pricing models have a turnaround option where the agency determines your quote based on the turnaround time.

Multilingual or Monolingual

Most subtitling services providers offer English subtitles and captions, but only a few offer excellent multilingual subtitling services. Multilingual subtitling services prices differ from monolingual ones. This is because the former needs translation into a different language first before the subtitling process.

Audio Quality

When searching for subtitling service prices online, you will come across many agencies without a straightforward pricing model. Most will ask you to fill a form and attach your file to get a quote. The providers want to gauge the audio quality before giving you an estimate.

Poor quality audio on a video will have you paying more because the subtitling process depends on accurate transcription.

File Format

There are different subtitle formats, and most agencies have a different price for each format. At Wordsburg, we produce closed captions(CC) in the following formats:

> Direct on video

> Subrip

> Scenarist

> MacCaption

> Timed Text

> Quicktime Timed Text

> Transcript

> WebVTT

> DFXP

> Cheetah. CAP

> Spruce Subtitle File

> Avid DS Subtitle File

> Facebook ready SubRip

Get in touch with us for the best subtitling service prices on any of the following formats.

Experience and Competency of Subtitling Provider

A provider with a solid portfolio and years of experience will charge more than a startup trying to woo customers into giving them gigs. When you hire an experienced provider, you will get high-quality services that will provide you with a good return on investment.

We are a trusted choice for video subtitling services, with a team of over twenty editors to subtitle your work in over a hundred languages.

What are the Steps in the Subtitling Process?

The subtitling process entails five steps. These are:

#1: Quality control- we use top-tier software and technology to check the audio quality, video quality, time codes, and whether the file is complete.

#2: Transcription and formatting- our experienced transcriptionists will accurately convert the audio into text and format the time codes and time stamps.

#3: Translation- our team of over 1000 translators will translate the transcript into the language of your choice if need be.

#4: Placing the subtitles in the right place will break down the subtitles and synchronize them with the video to appear in the right place. This involves making sure the words are not interfering with the clarity of the video.

#5: File output- polishing up the file to make it viewer-ready by embedding the subtitles correctly in the file.

Subtitling Service Prices for the Top 5 Agencies Globally

We have compiled subtitling service prices for the top 5 agencies globally. Take a look.

#1 Wordsburg

Wordsburg is a top subtitling services provider with offices in the UK, Singapore, and Malaysia. We offer subtitling and captioning services at affordable rates and fast turnaround. Our pool of over 1000 translators will translate your project to the language of your choice, while the team of over twenty editors will ensure you get industry-standard subtitles.

We also offer transcription, voiceover, translation, legalization, and interpretation services, making us a one-stop-shop for most of your content creation and distribution needs.

Wordsburg charges $4.44 per minute, but the price could go up to $10 for videos with a short turnaround time. The best way to get a detailed price card is to contact us for a personalized quote.

#2 Day Translations

Day Translations is a leading New York-based communications agency specializing in subtitling, captioning, translation, localization, and interpretation services. It offers subtitling services for businesses and entertainment sectors such as movies, documentaries, tutorials, corporate videos, and public announcements.

Day Translations subtitling prices are quite pricey, starting at $15 per minute.

#3 GoTranscript

GoTranscript is a global agency that provides subtitling services alongside other services such as transcriptions and translation. It is a pretty modest subtitling provider offering the service in around forty languages. However, the agency outsources work to offshore employees, who sometimes compromise the accuracy of subtitles with accents, typos, etc.

GoTranscript subtitling rates start from $8.50 per minute. The price may vary according to language requirements, the number of speakers, audio quality, and the urgency of work.

#4 Voquent

Voquent is a top language services agency specializing in voiceover, subtitling, translation, and captioning. It offers subtitles in over 100 languages with industry-standard accuracy. However, their services are pricey.

Voquent price model depends on whether your project is an entertainment, educational or corporate video. The firm price ranges from$ 18 to $33 per minute, the most expensive being corporate videos.

#5 Happyscribe

Happycribe is a leading language services agency specializing in transcription, translation, and subtitling.  The firm offers both AI-aided and human subtitling to guarantee businesses satisfactory captions. They have a native translator and subtitling experts that maintain the original meaning of captions in multilingual subtitling.

Happyscribe charges different rates for AI and human subtitling, with the latter pricing starting at $23.56 per minute.

Wrap Up

Subtitling service prices vary from one agency to another. The prices depend on the length of your video, the urgency, the audio quality, subtitle format, and language requirements. When choosing a subtitling service, the price is not everything, but it is a significant factor.

Content creators on the Internet do massive work every day not only creating impressive video content, but also making sure it reaches out to their target audience. Living in a global community, their content can not only transcend geographic boundaries but also language capabilities.

Let’s talk about the second biggest search engine in the world and one of the top social media platforms, YouTube. If you notice, more and more videos on YouTube nowadays come with subtitles. This is how content creators reach out to more viewers globally, YouTube subtitling.

 

What are Subtitles?

Subtitles are the text version of speech or voice content in videos, translated into different languages for foreign viewers. It doesn’t incorporate non-speech sounds made in the videos. Therefore. subtitles are not as suitable for the hearing impaired for an immersive video watching experience as having captions. However, they can still understand the content of the video and may enjoy it just as much.

YouTube is not only the biggest video content platform, it also hosts a variety of video content types. You can find skits, comedies, music videos, home videos, short movies, series and many more.

With so much video content in YouTube from all around the world, people can consume whatever they like with the use of subtitles. Viewers don’t have to wonder what was being said and figure out actors’ body language anymore. Whether it is a mukbang in Japanese, makeup tutorial in Arabic, or pranks in French, we can understand and enjoy them all.

 

Why Must There Be YouTube Subtitling In Your Videos?

First of all, is there a need to add subtitles to the videos you upload on the Internet? The answer is YES! When you add subtitles to YouTube videos, your video will rank higher in search results. 

As mentioned before, people from different corners of the world can consume the content you put out, regardless of individual language and/or physical capabilities. 

And last but not least, high audience engagement is very important in social media. Viewers are aware of you and what you have to offer, your messages get sent across better and you get better reach to your audience. In other words, having more views, likes, comments, shares, mentions and subscribers help to grow your ROI.

 

How Did YouTube Subtitling Come About?

Subtitles were traditionally used for the hearing-impaired viewers. Today, captions are better suited for them as it includes non-speech sounds, giving non-verbal cues for better watching experience.

In the past decade or so, consumption of foreign video content has increased and now it has become available for foreign viewers who don’t understand the language used in the videos. 

Sometimes, due to different accents in the videos, it gets really hard to understand what the speaker says, and subtitles are hands down the best solution to this problem as well. 

 

How To Get Started With YouTube Subtitling?

YouTube subtitling has the option of transforming the submitted data into metadata, which will help make your videos appear in search results. The end result of this is that you will get more viewers on YouTube. This has a great potential to increase the number of your viewers, helping your video rank better in search results.

If you submit the actual texts of the subtitles of your videos, YouTube will immediately send the caption file to Google Translate, and this happens automatically. Your foreign audience can then easily select the Translate Captions option and enjoy your video in their preferred language.

YouTube Studio has also simplified the process of YouTube Subtitling where content creators can add captions to their video content automatically via Google’s voice detection software.

 

Drawbacks of Automated YouTube Subtitling

As a content creator, your ultimate goal is to ensure that your viewers keep watching your videos until the end. Incomplete video views will decrease or hamper your earnings from Youtube, thus, reducing your ROI.

However, due to the limitations of technology, automatic subtitling sometimes fail to correspond with the voice content of the videos. And viewers end up with badly written and/or translated subtitles. This may reduce the comprehension of the content itself and reducing viewer’s satisfaction.

Although it holds a supporting role in your video production, bad subtitling may annoy viewers, thus, causing incomplete video views, negative comments, dislikes and potential viewers to stay away from watching your content.

 

Why Engage Professional YouTube Subtitling Services?

To avoid bad subtitling and its consequences, there are many professional YouTube subtitling services available that can help you. These professional subtitling services are done by real human beings, painstakingly listening and transcribing and/or translating every word manually, thus, providing the correct grammatical, punctuational and syntactical sentences for your video content.

You may decide to go DIY and add the subtitles to your videos yourself. However, it is a very tedious job and takes a lot of your time. You could otherwise use the time for producing more interesting video content that viewers want to see. 

And with the recent announcement made by YouTube to discontinue its automated captioning functions due to underutilisation, there is a greater need for professional subtitling and captioning services.

 

What Languages Should You Have Your Youtube Subtitles In?

You don’t need to have subtitles in every language just yet. That would be a huge undertaking and definitely costly, especially for new and mid-level YouTubers. However, you can check out your audience demographics in YouTube Analytics. You can see your audience’s geographies and get subtitles for your biggest fans in respective languages.

 

To conclude

Youtube subtitling benefits video content creators by:

– Reaching global audiences

– Getting more engagements to videos

– Ranking better in search results

– Increase earnings and ROI

There are many other video content platforms apart from YouTube such as Vimeo. Streaming giants such as Netflix and Disney+, and new social media apps such as TikTok and Snapchat, are also sprouting into the market more and more. Subtitling services may be more in demand now than ever.

 

As the world becomes more globalized, the demand for high-quality subtitling and captioning services continues to grow. While captions and subtitles may seem straightforward — translating speech to text, or text to speech — they are in fact vital tools for entertainment, education, and accessibility.

Why You Should Think About Subtitling And Captioning Services

Visual storytelling is a powerful promotional tool that can greatly help a business draw attention from potential clients. If you’re going to the trouble of crafting high-quality videos and neglecting to caption or subtitle them properly, you’re leaving money on the table.

With all the videos we consume today — from eLearning content to news coverage to anime, entertainment, and TV shows — it is essential to have an accurate, consistent way of conveying language that benefits everyone.

Subtitling Vs Captioning: What’s The Difference?

While subtitles and captions are essentially the same things, they are two different forms of translation that require a different skill set. Captions are primarily for live video or audio, while subtitles are for movies, television shows, or recorded videos.

Because subtitles are meant to be read by a person (not necessarily heard) they are much more detailed than captions.

As a business owner, you must know how important it is to get your message across to the customers in the most efficient manner. The right subtitling and captioning services will help you in effectively delivering your message.

7 Reasons Why You Need To Use Subtitling and Captioning Services

Today we’re going to look at the top 7 benefits subtitling and captioning services can provide to your business.

1. Accessibility

The most obvious and arguably most important benefit is that captions and subtitles are a way to give hearing-impaired individuals an opportunity to watch and enjoy your content. 

But captions are not only for the deaf and hard of hearing. They are critical for understanding for those with learning disabilities and for those who are in areas with a lot of background noise.

Being able to understand what people are saying in a video is important for several reasons. Captions and subtitles can help clarify the meaning of a video when it’s not possible to hear the audio clearly. Ever struggle to understand a particular tricky accent? Subtitling and captioning can help there too.

Subtitling and captioning also help people enjoy videos without volume, which is important when 69% of Internet users watch videos in public places without sound.

2. Improve SEO

The importance of subtitles and captions is not limited to accessibility.

Subtitling and captioning can also increase SEO.  Videos, unlike blogs posts, cannot be crawled or indexed by search engines. This is why closed captions are so important for online video content — they allow search engines to crawl and classify your content, making them much easier to find by potential customers.

3. Global Reach

Video is the most persuasive medium on the planet. It’s also the most global, too!

In fact, on YouTube alone, we consume over 1 billion hours of video each day. That means that your audience isn’t limited to your neighbourhood or city — they can be visiting from halfway across the globe. And if you want them to understand what you’re saying in your video, then captions translated into multiple languages are a must.

4. Include Additional Information

Subtitling and captioning services include additional information such as the speaker’s name, a sound effect, or a musical cue. This allows deaf and hard-of-hearing people to enjoy video content with a similar experience to that of other viewers. It also enriches the experience for users watching without sound.

5. Legal Requirement

Depending on where your business operates, providing subtitles and captions may even be a legal requirement.

In America, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires subtitles and captions on television, in movie theatres, and on the Internet.  Over in the UK, the Communications Act 2003 requires that all programmes except news, current affairs, sport and advertising use subtitles or sign language for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers.

While we appreciate not all of our customers will be producing content for television, adopting subtitles and captions is a good practice we recommend to all.

6. Strengthen Brand Identity

You might think that subtitles and captions are just for movies and TV shows, but they can be a great way to strengthen your brand. 

When you have subtitles or captions, you can control how your brand is represented and how it is positioned in the marketplace. You can also use subtitles and captions to creatively convey your company’s message clearly and concisely.

7. Increase Engagement Rates

People who watch videos and listen to audio files with subtitles and captions have a higher engagement rate than those who don’t. In a recent study by Verizon, 80% of consumers were more likely to watch an entire video when captions are available.

They also found that marketers who create captivating videos that tell a story that customers can relate to are 20 % more likely to receive word-of-mouth marketing, and in turn drive up their profits.

Videos and audio files with subtitles or captions are more accessible because they’re easier to understand. This means your customers are more likely to hit the share button.

How Our Subtitling and  Captioning Services Can Help

Wordsburg is the leading Singapore-based translation and interpretation service provider. We understand that communication works best when paired with a personal touch. That’s why we pride ourselves on our community of wordsmiths. We take the time to translate your content into the target language but also choose the right wording for it. It’s the tiny details that make all the difference.

With our affordable video subtitling and captioning services, you can ensure that your video content has maximum impact. And not just at home. Our expert translators will translate your English subtitles into more than 100 languages — making it possible to reach audiences worldwide and work around language barriers.

Conclusion

Video is a great way to get your message across to a larger audience, but not everyone gets to hear what you’re saying. This is why it’s so important to have your content subtitled and/or captioned. Well executed subtitles can make a world of difference to the reach of your content.