What a transcription earns, by metro

Pay for transcriptions is unusually consistent across the country: $26,840 at the bottom of the range, $58,240 at the top, a spread of only 2.17×. Where you work matters less for this role than it does for most — which usually points to pay being set by structure (scales, licensure, collective agreements) rather than local bidding.

What the percentile band tells you

Ten per cent of transcriptions earn below $28,250 and ten per cent above $55,950 — a 1.98× band. The upside from median to 90th percentile is 38%, which is a normal amount of room for experience and specialisation to matter. An offer below the 25th percentile is worth questioning; one above the 75th is worth taking seriously.

Geography barely moves this one

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont (CA) leads and Southeast Oklahoma nonmetropolitan area () trails, but the gap is modest. For a role like this the more useful comparison is not between cities but between the 10th and 90th percentile within one — see the band above.

Highest paying metros

Lowest paying metros

Chico is the cluster

Chico has 5.94× the national concentration of transcriptions — the densest market in the country for this role, with 120 employed locally. It also ranks among the ten best-paying metros at $50,020, which is the rarer combination: deep market and good pay together.

Where the role is most concentrated

Largest employers by metro

Current openings

About this data

Figures come from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics programme, May 2025 release, SOC code 31-9094. OEWS surveys employers, so it reports what is actually paid rather than what job advertisements claim, and it excludes the self-employed. Estimates are published for 179 of 528 metropolitan areas; the remaining 349 had too few survey responses for BLS to publish without risking disclosure, so they are absent here rather than estimated. For a specialised role that is normal. Read the methodology.