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of 6— Create your Otter.ai account
What you'll accomplish
By the end of this guide, you'll have Otter.ai set up to transcribe your focus group recordings and in-depth interviews automatically. A 90-minute session that previously took 3–4 hours to transcribe manually will be ready in under 10 minutes — with speaker labels already separated — leaving you to spend your time on analysis, not typing.
What you'll need
- An Otter.ai account — free tier includes 300 minutes/month; Pro at {{tool:Otter.ai.price}} for more
- Your focus group or interview audio/video file (MP3, MP4, WAV, or M4A)
- Time needed: 10 minutes to upload; transcript ready in 5–15 minutes depending on file length
- Cost: Free tier (300 min/month); Pro plan for higher volume projects
How-To Guide: Focus Group & Interview Transcription with Otter.ai
Step 1: Create your Otter.ai account
Go to otter.ai. Click Sign Up Free and create an account with your email or Google account. Confirm your email if prompted.
What you should see: The Otter.ai home screen showing your conversation library (empty at first).
Tools:Otter.ai