Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Dovetail
Score 8.7 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Dovetail, headquartered in Sydney, aims to enable the world to create better products and services through deep customer understanding. Dovetail states they empower 45,000+ people, from agencies to universities to Fortune 100 companies, to make sense of their customer research in one collaborative research platform.
$0
per month
Express Scribe
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Express Scribe Professional is a foot pedal controlled audio player software specifically designed for typists and transcription work. Featuring foot pedal control, variable speed, speech to text engine integration and support for a wide variety of audio formats including .dss, .dct, .wav, .mp3, and .wma. Audio recordings can be loaded automatically from CD, email, LAN, FTP, local hard drive and Express Delegate. Traditional hand held dictation recorders can also be docked and the audio…
$39.95
per user
Pricing
DovetailExpress Scribe
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Professional
$15
per month
Enterprise
Contact Sales
per year
Basic
$39.95
per user
Professional
$49.99
per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DovetailExpress Scribe
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual billing on the Professional plan.Lifetime license
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DovetailExpress Scribe
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Dovetail
Dovetail
Score 8.7 out of 10
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Optimal
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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User Ratings
DovetailExpress Scribe
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(23 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
6.9
(22 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
5.5
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
DovetailExpress Scribe
Likelihood to Recommend
Dovetail
We've been using Dovetail for going on 4 years now, and I can not imagine not having it now. Dovetail is perfect for research teams where findings are scattered across many different areas, allowing you to bring all your customer findings into one place that anyone on your team can search and sort. Dovetail is also an amazing tool to speed up analysis, especially of qualitative data. Highlighting and tagging your transcript really helps you discover patterns and insights. I do find it's a little lacking for quantitative data, and you may need additional tools to analyze things like survey data.
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NCH Software
It has a free trial, which is very nice if someone just needs temporary access to use, and it's not an expensive program overall. It may not be the most robust program available, but it gets the job done at a good price point. It might not be the best if you need something that allows transcriptionists to collaborate (i.e., working on the same file at the same time).
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Pros
Dovetail
  • Tagging with a teammate. This is great for general topics and tracking trends for later analyze. We usually cross tag by sentiment + topic from our testing session. Creates a system that can be used by multiple people.
  • User repository. For each interview we create a new user or cross reference if existing. This helps us keep track of who we have talked to across sessions and helpful if we want to see the change in responses for various features as we move through the app development process.
  • Having all the tag options in the insights. I like having the columns where we can mark it by progress, type, user working on it, status, etc.
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NCH Software
  • Cost efficient - This is a fairly low-cost transcription software that can be downloaded quickly via web
  • Easy to use - New users can get the hang of this software pretty quickly
  • Customizable - Foot pedal controls and other preferences can be set based on what feels intuitive to the user
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Cons
Dovetail
  • Increased metrics tracking for individual projects/folders.
  • Use case sharing across different companies...how are others utilizing Dovetail that maybe we haven't even considered yet...maybe in a newsletter.
  • Research Newsletter development feature, direct from/within Dovetail, would be amazing. What my team primarily does now is link reports into an email or email builder tool. It would be amazing if maybe AI could whip that up for me in the Dovetail platform..
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NCH Software
  • Interface - The look and feel of the software is quite dated and could use a refresh
  • Enhancing audio - When we need to manipulate an audio file to try to enhance it (amplifying, for example), we have to use another program to do so
  • Hotkeys - Setting up hotkeys may not be as intuitive for new users as would be ideal
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Likelihood to Renew
Dovetail
Because we are really happy with the tool and it’s capabilities at the moment. The price increase is the main issue we can have but the features are getting better and better. It really saves a lot of time for our team and allow us to collaborate more efficiently with certain stakeholders that often did not réalise how much research we conduct. Now they can just have a look to it by themself!
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NCH Software
No answers on this topic
Usability
Dovetail
As I said, since the navigation changed, I’m a bit lost. The previous structure felt more intuitive, and I could quickly access the sections I needed. Now, some areas seem reorganized in a way that’s less predictable, which slows me down. I sometimes have to click through multiple menus to find specific features or content
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NCH Software
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Dovetail
I’ve never had any access issues with Dovetail, so I don’t see any problems in that area.
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NCH Software
No answers on this topic
Performance
Dovetail
Regarding performance, I would say it’s satisfactory. Adding data and transcriptions is really fast and efficient, and can be done in the background, so I’m never hindered by these aspects. However, all the new AI-generated features are still somewhat slow to run. It’s nothing major, but it should improve in the future.
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NCH Software
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Dovetail
Support was good, especially when it comes to the capability of your support agents and engineers. But as i am located in Europe, the difference in the time zone made it hard to communicate with your offices and kept my work way back
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NCH Software
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Dovetail
The training went very well, and we co-built it to really address our needs. I also think it was beneficial to have feedback coming from someone other than myself (since I manage the tool), as it helped reinforce the points I wanted to highlight. The team’s feedback on the training was very positive.
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NCH Software
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Dovetail
I have used Condens for qualitative analysis in the past, and I really like that product. I think that Dovetail is more powerful in its ability to analyze with AI and organization. One feature I really liked about Condens was the ability to clip and tag quotes directly from the video, as if it were a movie-editing tool.
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NCH Software
No answers on this topic
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Dovetail
It’s very expensive, and we use a lot of features in beta. I think we could also be rewarded for our usage and frequent feedback on the tool.
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NCH Software
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Dovetail
Management is quite straightforward; it’s easy to change access if certain stakeholders need to use it. The repository features are accessible to all teams, making it a good entry point into the tool. The more people use it, the more powerful the tool becomes, so it seems truly scalable to me. The limits are more financial, in terms of accessing additional features.
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NCH Software
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Dovetail
  • Researchers and designers now spend less time digging through scattered notes or redoing similar studies. Centralizing everything in Dovetail has significantly reduced the time needed to prepare synthesis reports, align stakeholders, or onboard new teammates into past research.
  • With Dovetail, user insights are no longer abstract or anecdotal—they're traceable, searchable, and backed by real quotes. Product teams feel more confident making roadmap decisions based on what users actually need, not assumptions.
  • Dovetail has encouraged more non-designers to engage with user feedback directly. This democratization of insights helps align everyone around real user problems, which ultimately leads to better product-market fit and faster iteration loops.
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NCH Software
  • Very few 'inaudibles' (spots where we're unable to decipher what was said)
  • Transcribing allows analysts to read scripts rather than listen to audio files, which saves time and money
  • Low cost of software
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ScreenShots

Dovetail Screenshots

Screenshot of the Contacts interface, used to find, schedule, and incentivize research participants.Screenshot of a visualization of customer feedback, used to identify patterns before they become problems. Using LLM and ML techniques, Channels continuously classifies and tracks themes in large data sets like support tickets, app reviews, and feedback.Screenshot of an example of a conversational insight, available in Slack. Here, users can quickly ask questions to access automatic podcast-style updates for all related data across Dovetail in Slack and Microsoft Teams.Screenshot of the navigation and project interface, designed to makes it easy for everyone to get started and find what they need in Dovetail.

Express Scribe Screenshots

Screenshot of Load DictationsScreenshot of Playback OptionsScreenshot of Optional Foot Pedal or HotKey ControlScreenshot of Express Scribe Mini Control