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How to transcribe interviews for your thesis or research

In qualitative research, transcribing your interviews is a required step of the method: you can't code or analyze what participants said until it's in writing. And it's the most tedious part of a thesis — one hour of interview can take four to six hours to transcribe by hand, and a study usually has twenty or thirty interviews.

With Dolcenota you upload each recording — from your phone, your recorder, or even WhatsApp voice notes — and get the full transcript in minutes, with each participant identified. Then export it to Word to code it in atlas.ti, NVivo or MAXQDA, and ask the AI anything about the content.

Transcribe your interview in 4 steps

  1. 1

    Upload your recording

    Create your free account, click "Upload file" and choose your interview recording. We accept audio (mp3, m4a, wav and more) and video (mp4, mov). If your focus group is split across several files, upload them together and we merge them into one transcript.

  2. 2

    Get the transcript in minutes

    Dolcenota transcribes and automatically separates who said what. A one-hour interview is usually ready in a few minutes, not a whole afternoon.

  3. 3

    Identify each participant

    Rename each speaker — interviewer, participant 1, participant 2 — and the name is applied across the whole transcript, especially useful in focus groups with several voices.

  4. 4

    Export to Word and analyze

    Export the text to Word, PDF or TXT to import into your qualitative-analysis software. Generate a summary of the key themes and ask the AI to guide your coding ("which participants talked about trust?").

Transcription is part of your method

In qualitative research, the interview text is the data: open coding, category identification and methodological rigor all rest on it. That's why you need a faithful transcript, with good accuracy and speakers cleanly separated.

Dolcenota gives you the full, editable text. If your methodology requires strict verbatim, the transcript is your starting point: you review it against the audio and adjust what you need, with far less work than transcribing from scratch.

How much does transcribing your interviews cost?

Manual transcription services in Mexico charge roughly MX$1.75–8 (about US$0.10–0.40) per audio minute. A thesis with twenty-five hours of interviews can cost MX$2,600–12,000 and take days or weeks to arrive.

With Dolcenota you start free with 60 minutes per month and every feature. For a full thesis there are plans from MX$149 per month and minute top-ups from MX$29, which fit a one-off project without committing to a subscription. Pay by card, OXXO or SPEI.

Built for qualitative research

  • Speaker identification: separates interviewer and participants, ideal for focus groups.
  • Long sessions: transcribes in-depth interviews of one or several hours without splitting them.
  • Merge several files or sessions into one continuous transcript.
  • Export to Word to code in atlas.ti, NVivo or MAXQDA; search any phrase and quote it verbatim.
  • The AI summary extracts themes; chat lets you explore the content to guide your analysis.

Consent and privacy

As the researcher, you obtain and safeguard your participants' informed consent; Dolcenota is the tool that transcribes material you already have permission to process.

Your files are processed securely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, are never used to train AI models, and you can delete them from your account whenever you want.

Frequently asked questions

Is the transcript verbatim?

Dolcenota produces a highly accurate, word-for-word transcript of the audio. If your methodology requires strict verbatim (with fillers, pauses and overlaps annotated a certain way), use it as a base and adjust against the audio — it saves you most of the manual work.

Does it work for focus groups with several people?

Yes. Dolcenota separates turns by speaker and you can name each participant; the name is applied across the whole transcript, exactly what you need when there are several voices.

Can I export to analyze it in atlas.ti or NVivo?

Yes. Export the transcript to Word, PDF or TXT and import it into your qualitative-analysis software to code it. You can also generate a summary of the key themes before you start.

How good is the accuracy?

Dolcenota is built for Spanish and transcribes with high accuracy, even on long, multi-speaker interviews. You can always review and correct the text before using it in your analysis.

I only need to transcribe my thesis once — do I have to subscribe?

No. You start free with 60 minutes per month, and for a one-off project you can buy minute top-ups from MX$29 with no subscription. If you'd rather have a monthly plan while your fieldwork lasts, plans start at MX$149.

Can I upload WhatsApp voice notes?

Yes. If you ran interviews or captured testimonies as WhatsApp voice notes, upload them — even several at once — and we merge them into a single transcript.

Transcribe your first interview today

Create your free account and turn your interviews into text, a summary and AI answers — in minutes, ready for your analysis.

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