Rev Slashes Minimum Pay for Gig Workers

An internal post reviewed by OneZero outlines new rates that would result in transcribers taking home less money as automation looms

Credit: Rev

The popular transcription service Rev has reportedly cut the pay of its freelance workers who produce transcripts for pennies a minute.

Rev launched in 2010 and has received millions of dollars in funding. Like many rivals, it offers automated transcriptions using speech recognition software, but also has a separate service for transcriptions that are “performed by humans, not A.I.” Users submit audio files to the service — interviews or recordings of meetings, for example — and contractors return a transcript within 12 hours. The company stands out for its accuracy and affordability — just $1 per minute of audio — but all of it comes at a human cost, say Rev gig workers.

Li Zilles, a Seattle-based contractor for Rev, tweeted on Monday that the company slashed its baseline rate for transcription workers on Friday, calling it “yet another example of a gig economy startup brazenly mistreating its workers.”

On Wednesday, a representative for Rev posted to an internal company forum that its minimum pay would drop from $0.45 to $0.30 per minute transcribed. A Rev worker, who asked to…