Phonotheca and NVivo
An NVivo alternative for everything before coding
NVivo is a desktop licence for coding, with transcription sold on top and a project file tied to one machine. Phonotheca transcribes the round in the browser, keeps every interview searchable from whatever machine you sit at, and exports the project as REFI-QDA when the coding starts.
P03 · Second-year interviews
Who did you ask when the guidance was unclear?
Whoever was in the corridor, which is not a system.
Informal supportThe written policy came out months after we needed it.
Open the sample workspaceNo account needed.
What the licence leaves you to pay for
Most researchers get NVivo through an institutional site licence, so the licence itself is not the cost. Transcription is, because it sits in an add-on that is bought separately either way. Phonotheca includes it and meters it by audio hour.
See what each plan includesNVivo transcription add-on
Sold separately from the licence, whether or not the licence is free to you
~$300
Phonotheca Solo
20 audio hours a month, transcription included, cancel any month
$144
Phonotheca Pro
50 audio hours a month, transcription included, cancel any month
$348
NVivo figure is its published transcription add-on. Prices shown as of August 2026, tax exclusive.
Where they differ
NVivo is a licence you install and renew, with transcription priced on top. Phonotheca is a browser workspace that transcribes the round inside the subscription.
| Capability | Phonotheca | NVivo |
|---|---|---|
| Transcription in the base price | Included | Add-on |
| Speaker-labeled, timestamped transcripts | Included | Add-on |
| Runs in a browser on any machine | Included | Desktop |
| Same project on Windows and Mac | Included | Separate versions |
| Search across every interview at once | Included | Per project |
| Free plan with the full workspace | Included | Not included |
| Cancel any month | Included | Annual licence |
| Priced by | Audio hour | Licence |
Run both, in order
Transcribe in the browser
Upload the round, get speaker-labeled transcripts back, and correct the labels in place. Nothing to install, and the same workspace opens on the machine you have with you.
Export the project as .qdpx
Transcripts land in NVivo as sources and your tags as codes, each still attached to the passage it marked. Re-exporting updates the same records instead of duplicating them.
Keep the audio in the EU
Recordings and transcripts stay in European regions, the transcription service deletes its copy once the transcript lands, and nothing is used to train models.
Which tool fits which job
Phonotheca fits when you have
- A round of interviews to transcribe before any coding starts
- Themes you mark as you read rather than a formal codebook
- Quotes headed for a chapter with participant and timestamp attached
- A laptop, a budget of your own, and no departmental licence
NVivo fits when you have
- A codebook to apply systematically across a large dataset
- Framework matrices, memo networks, and coding queries
- Two coders whose agreement has to be measured
- Literature, surveys, and social data analysed next to interviews
Both products change. Check each vendor’s site before you switch.
Quotes come out with the citation on them
Copy a passage and the participant, interview, and timestamp come with it, ready to drop into a chapter. A tag gathers the same theme from every participant, and the Markdown and CSV exports carry those citations through.
Whoever was in the corridor, which is not a system.
P03 · 00:27:22 · Second-year interviews
Copy with citationPriced for a dissertation budget
Every limit is audio hours. Never a file count.
Free
Enough to see a corpus take shape.
$0forever
3 audio hours, once
- Unlimited projects, interviews, and tags
- Full-text search across every transcript
- Markdown, CSV, and REFI-QDA export
Solo
A study's worth of interviews, every month.
$12per month
20 audio hours a month
- Hours reset on your renewal date
- Everything in Free, never gated
Pro
RecommendedFor a fieldwork season or a whole cohort.
$29per month
50 audio hours a month
- Hours reset on your renewal date
- Everything in Solo
A 20-interview round of hour-long interviews fits inside a single month of Solo. Compare the plans
Common questions from researchers
- Does this replace NVivo?
- For a study analysed through tagging, search, and quotes, it covers the work end to end. For a formal codebook, framework matrices, coding queries, or inter-rater reliability, NVivo does things this does not, and the export exists so you can use both.
- Can I open an existing NVivo project here?
- No. Import reads transcripts as TXT, SRT, or VTT, so a transcript already inside an NVivo project has to come out as text first. The traffic in the other direction is the supported one.
- What does the REFI-QDA export contain?
- A .qdpx archive with each transcript as a plain-text source and each tag as a code, with coded passages addressed by character range. NVivo, ATLAS.ti, MAXQDA, Dedoose, and Quirkos all import it. Audio is left out of the archive.
- My university already licenses NVivo. Why pay for this?
- Because the licence covers coding, not the work before it. Transcription sits behind a separate add-on, the project file is tied to one machine and one platform, and the access ends when you leave. This transcribes the round in a browser, keeps the corpus reachable from any machine you sit at, and hands the coded project to the licence you already have.
- I know a participant said something. How do I find it?
- Search runs across every transcript in every project at once. Results come back with the interview, the speaker, and the timestamp, and one click puts you at that point in the audio. Nothing has to be coded first for it to be findable.
- How accurate are the speaker labels on a two-person interview?
- Interviewer and participant separate cleanly on most recordings, including rapid question and answer. Short interjections sometimes get absorbed into the other speaker's turn, so any segment can be split at a word and reassigned, and tags follow both halves.
- What can I put in an ethics application?
- Audio is processed and stored in the European Union, deleted from the transcription service once the transcript lands, and never used to train models. The privacy notice sets out the subprocessors and retention so it can be quoted or attached.
Related pages
Transcribe the round, then code it wherever you like
Three audio hours are free, which covers the first few participants.