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Media captioning, transcription, and audio description vendor pricing

Compare discounted rates available in ordering captions, transcripts, or audio descriptions from the UW-Madison contracted vendors: 3Play Media, CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit, and Cielo24.

Captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions make media content more accessible to students, employees, and members of the public and help to ensure that your content is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Review the multimedia accessibility guidance to learn more about when they should be used, review vendor information below, and set up an account.

Negotiated Pricing Contract Update: 

Get Started and Help Information

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Captioning and transcription pricing

To produce captions, the vendors typically create a transcript (including speaker info, sounds, and tone information) and align the transcript based on the media you provide, before generating a variety of caption and text file options (.SRT, .VTT, etc.) that you can download and use with various media players.  

If you already have an accurate transcript with speaker, sound, and tone info, you can alternatively upload the transcript along with the media, and then order alignment services to generate the captions.  

For alignment only: 3PlayMedia costs $0.90/min and CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit costs $0.95/min. You can also use a script to create captions for media in Kaltura MediaSpace (free).

Standard captioning and transcription (English)

Standard captioning and transcription English price table
Turnaround Time 
3PlayMedia Negotiated Price (English)

(Adds $1.00/min audio difficulty charge.)
CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit Negotiated Price (English)

(Adds $0.75/min audio difficulty charge.)
4 hours or less $6.95/min
$6.70/min (audio transcription only)		 Service not available
8 hours or less $3.95/min
$3.70/min (audio transcription only)		 $3.39/min
$2.55/min (audio transcription only)
1 day $2.55/min
$2.30/min (audio transcription only)		 $2.79/min
$1.95/min (audio transcription only)
2 days $2.15
$1.90/min (audio transcription only)		 $2.09/min
$1.50/min (audio transcription only)
4 days or less

$1.75/min
$1.50/min (audio transcription only)

$1.99/min
$1.40/min (audio transcription only)
4 days or more

$1.60/min
$1.35/min (audio transcription only)

N/A
5 to 10 days

N/A

$1.59/min
$1.25/min (audio transcription only)

Additional services and charges:

  • 3PlayMedia: 
    • Can offer caption placement:
      • Automated caption placement service is $0.25/min.
      • Manual caption placement service is $1.00/min. 
    • Caption Imports: Importing existing files not done by 3PlayMedia is $5.00/file.

Non-English captioning and transcription

Languages:

The following are descriptions of non-English captioning and transcription languages offered by our negotiated contractual vendors.
3PlayMedia Non-English Captioning Languages Cielo24 Non-English Captioning Languages
 CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit Non-English Captioning Languages
  • Spanish
  • French
  • German
  • Japanese
  • Chinese
  • Portuguese
  • Czech
  • Italian
  • Russian
  • Dutch
  • Arabic
  • Bosnian
  • Croatian
  • Latvia
  • Polish
  • Romanian
  • Slovenian
  • Swedish
  • Turkish
  • Indonesian
  • Korean
  • Thai
  • Hindi
  • Hebrew
  • Arabic
  • Chinese - Mandarin (Traditional) and Cantonese
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • Finnish
  • French, French (Canadian)
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Indonesian
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Norwegian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal)
  • Russian
  • Spanish, Spanish (Spain)
  • Slovak
  • Swedish
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Vietnamese
  • French
  • German
  • Spanish
 

Non-English Pricing:

Turnaround Time
3PlayMedia Negotiated Price (Non-English)

(Adds $1.00/min audio difficulty charge.)
Cielo24 Negotiated Price (Non-English)
 CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit Negotiated Price (Non-English)
(Adds $0.75/min audio difficulty charge.)
8 hours

$5.45/min (Spanish)

N/A

N/A
1 day  $4.05/min (Spanish) N/A

$2.79/min (Spanish, French, German)
4 days or less $3.25/min (Spanish)

$5.00/min (All languages listed above)

 $2.09/min - 2 days - (Spanish, French, German)
4 days $3.10/min (Spanish) N/A $1.99/min (Spanish, French, German)
1 week

 $6.65/min (French, German, Portuguese)
$8.85.min (Czech, Italian, Russian, Dutch)
$10.45/min (Arabic, Bosnian, Croatian, Latvian, Polish, Romanian, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish)
$11.40/min (Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Hindi, Hebrew)		 N/A N/A

Dual-Language Pricing

Turnaround Time
3PlayMedia Negotiated Price (Dual Language)
 CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit Negotiated Price (Dual Language)
1 day N/A $2.79/min (Spanish and English only)
2 days N/A $2.09/min - 2 days (Spanish and English only)
4 days or less $3.75/min $1.99/min (Spanish and English only)
More than 4 days $3.60/min N/A

Additional offerings and charges:

  • Alternative languages:
    • Cielo24: $12.50/min per language
  • Speaker identification:
    • Cielo24: $0.60/min

Audio description pricing

Standard Audio Descriptions: A voice-over track that describes what is visibly happening in the video.

Extended Audio Descriptions: Used when more detail is needed than can fit in the timing of the video. Extended audio descriptions pause the video intermittently to add additional voice-over detail.

Turnaround Time 3PlayMedia Negotiated Price (Audio Descriptions) CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit Negotiated Price (Audio Descriptions)
1 day $11.25/min (Standard)
$12.25/min (Spanish Standard)
Upgrade to $3.00/min (Extended)		 N/A
2 days $9.25/min (Standard)
$10.25/min (Spanish Standard)
Upgrade to $3.00/min (Extended)		 N/A
4 days $7.25/min (Standard)
$8.25/min (Spanish Standard)
Upgrade to $3.00/min (Extended)		 $8.50/min (Extended)

*Pricing prorations and other services: 

  • Computer-generated captions for audio descriptions: $0.10/min.
  • Caption Imports: Import existing files not done by 3PlayMedia: $2.00/file.
  • Prorations:
    • 3PlayMedia’s pricing is prorated to the nearest second. 
    • CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit pricing is prorated to the nearest minute.

Services and features

All services

Results review service

  • 3PlayMedia - $1.00/min

  • CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit - $0.60/min

Caption encoding

  • 3PlayMedia - $10.00 for the file

  • CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit - $1.00/min

Caption import 

  • 3PlayMedia - $5.00 for the file

  • CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit - $1.00/min

Edit captions from Livestream

  • 3PlayMedia - $0.40 (captioning and transcription)

Video platforms available

Contract details, training and languages

UW-Madison contract

For full details, see the UW-Madison contract.

Training

Free vendor-provided training is part of UW-Madison's contract is available by contacting the vendor directly.

Languages available

3PlayMedia and CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit offer language translation negotiated pricing. 

  • CaptionSync (AST)/Verbit
    • Automatic translator: $0.65
    • AST translator: $4.75


Keywords:
Automatic Sync Technologies, Caption Sync, AST, Verbit, 3Play Media, Cielo 24, price, terms, process quality, account system, interactive tools, platform compatibility, minimum charge, transcript, transcription, caption, captioning, format, audio, description 
Doc ID:
15016
Owned by:
Leah B. in IT Accessibility and Usability
Created:
2010-08-30
Updated:
2025-04-07
Sites:
DoIT Help Desk, IT Accessibility and Usability