Let's take 12 cpl and see if the numbers add up.

I'm going to make the following assumptions about a company charging 12 cpl.

a line is defined as 65 characters

all characters are counted, including spaces, tabs, returns

transcriptionists are employees

transcriptionists are in the United States and therefore the company is responsible for paying employee taxes

transcriptionists are paid minimal benefits

transcriptionists are paid for the same characters as the client is billed and a line is 65 characters

the vendor utilizes an ASP platform and toll-free dictation is included in the service

Editors (QA) are employees paid on a production basis

the vendor maintains a physical office location, with some employees working in the office and production and QA working from home.

Because the rate (12 cpl) is at the low end of the scale, the figures are taken from the low end of an industry range.

In addition, 7 cpl is a low rate for transcriptionists, even employees. Most likely, this company would carry a heavy QA load. The cost of $0.014 for editing is based on editors being paid 3 cpl, editing 40% of total documents.

Production MT: 7 cpl

Production QA: 1.4 cpl

Total production costs: 8.4 cpl (70%)

Employee benefits/taxes: 1.05 cpl (15% of MT line rate)

Technology platform: 1 cpl

Overhead, including support staff, office space and equipment: 1.2 cpl

Total overhead costs: 3.25 cpl (27%)

Total production and overhead costs: 11.65 cpl

Total profit: 0.35 cpl (0.3%)

As you can see, there is no room in these numbers for any kind of business development and the owner didn't get paid (unless we count the owner as part of the support staff!).

These numbers are also extremely low. For example, some ASPs charge as little as 1 cpl, but not with toll-free phone in service, which is extra and charged by the minute.

Summary

Price. This is undoubtedly a low price. If your rate is lower, ACT 's experts would be happy to perform a contract audit.

Quality. Most likely, the quality of work produced by this service is in the high 80% accuracy range, possibly low 90%. The rate doesn't allow them to pay enough to get experienced MTs, nor is it enough to perform the kind of QA/editing that would be required with less experienced MTs.

Turnaround. Turnaround may also be slow with this service, as they would most likely have staffing issues.