Scoping Made Affordable
(SMA)
How much do scopists make?

Most scopists earn between $14 - $20 or more per hour at a minimum.  Granted, as your skills improve and
you increase your knowledge and use of the shortcuts within your CAT software, your rate will increase.

Here are the variables:

Turnaround time ranges and page rates:
Dailies (turnaround within 12 – 24 hours) from $2 - $2.50 per page.
(This is for the very experienced scopist who is very efficient and can work quickly, mostly
evenings and nights.)
Expedites (turnaround is 1 – 3 days) from $1.50 per page and up.
Once you have gained proficiency and accuracy in your scoping work, many scopists can do this.

Normal turnaround is 3 – 5 days from $.90 per page without audio to $1.20 with audio.
Once you have gained experience, you can time your work over an hour to see how many pages you can
scope during that time.  

Other variables:
1.  The court reporter's writing and translation skills.
2.  Level of difficulty with expert witnesses and terminology needing to be researched.
3.  Your own schedule and pace.

During the first year of scoping, you will need to read through the work twice until you have developed the skills
to catch everything.  After that point, you will only have to proofread tough areas, depending on the court
reporter.  

During the first year, if you scope 250 pages a week, in actuality you will be reading 500 pages because, as
was previously mentioned, you will need to read through the 250 pages twice.  So 250 pages x normal
turnaround of $1.00 per page (just an example) means you will make $250 per week or $1,000 per month.
Within six months, you will likely get up to doing 500 pages per week (reading 1,000 pages) at the normal rate
of $1.00 or going to $1.10, you can be making $550 per week and $2200 per month.

Income will only increase from here and you can do the math.