For journalists
Transcripts you can check against the tape
Search an interview to find the line, click the timestamp to hear it said, and copy it out with the source and the time attached. Every recording you file stays searchable afterwards.
Source · Delgado
When did you first see the second set of figures?
Two weeks before the board signed it off.
TimelineI raised it in writing and nothing came back.
Open the sample workspaceNo account needed.
Built for filing, not for meetings
What Phonotheca covers
- Speaker-labeled transcripts with timestamps that jump to the tape
- Every interview you have filed, searchable years later
- Quotes copied with the source, the recording, and the timestamp on them
- Metered by audio hour, so a two-hour sitdown is two hours
What it deliberately leaves out
- Live transcription while an interview is happening
- AI summaries, action items, and suggested angles
- A bot that joins your calls
- Publishing, CMS, and captions for broadcast
A beat accumulates on tape
One query runs across every interview you have uploaded, so a name that comes back two years later can be traced through everything you already recorded. Each hit carries the recording, the speaker, and the timestamp.
Search and export stay open on every plan, including Free, so an archive built during a busy year keeps working in a quiet one.
9 results across 5 recordings
Delgado · 00:31:51
Two weeks before the board signed it off.
Chair · 00:48:12
the figures were circulated before the board signed it off, as I understand it.
Source B · 00:12:30
Nobody saw the revision before the board signed anything.
How a quote gets from tape to copy
Find the moment, then hear it
Search the transcript to locate the passage and click the timestamp to play it. The transcript is the index; the tape stays the record.
Quote with attribution attached
Copy a passage and the speaker, the recording, and the timestamp come with it, so a quote can be traced back before it runs.
Fix only what you file
Correcting a whole transcript is wasted work. Split a segment, reassign a speaker, and clean up the passages that are going in the piece.
Two weeks before the board signed it off.
Delgado · 00:31:51 · Source interview
Copy with citationEvery quote traceable to the second
A passage copies out with its speaker, its recording, and its timestamp, so an editor or a lawyer asking where a line came from gets an answer in one click rather than a scrub through an hour of audio.
Where recordings are processed and storedPriced for a freelance 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
Solo covers 20 audio hours a month at $0.60 an hour. Compare the plans
Common questions from reporters
- How accurate is it, and does that matter?
- Accurate enough to navigate by, which is the job. Nobody should file a quote off an automated transcript, so the useful measure is how fast you can check one against the audio. Click the timestamp on a passage and it plays from there.
- Does it write summaries or suggest angles?
- No. There is no summarizer, no action items, and no bot that joins your calls. You get the transcript, the search, and the archive.
- How long can a single interview be?
- As long as it ran, in a file up to 2 GB. A ninety-minute sitdown is one recording and one transcript, and it spends ninety minutes of your allowance. Nothing counts files.
- My tape is a noisy room, a phone call, and a strong accent.
- Set the language on the recording rather than leaving it to detection, which is where accented speech is most often misread as another language. Speaker separation holds even where the wording needs work, so you can still navigate to the right turn and hear it, and you fix only the passages that are going in the piece.
- What does it cost on a freelance budget?
- Three audio hours are free with the workspace behind them. Solo is $12 a month for 20 audio hours, which is $0.60 an audio hour, and the archive, search, and export keep working if you stop paying.
- Can I go back to interviews from years ago?
- That is what the archive is for. Old recordings stay searchable across every story you have filed, so a name that resurfaces can be traced through everything you already have on tape.
- What about sensitive or unnamed sources?
- Recordings are processed and stored in the EU, the transcription service deletes its copy once the transcript lands, and nothing is used to train models. For material where any network is the wrong answer, transcribe it offline instead. The data governance statement sets out exactly who touches what.
Related pages
Put your next interview in the archive
Three audio hours are free, and the archive stays readable whether or not you ever pay.