Best dictation apps for Mac in 2026, with real prices

The best dictation app for a Mac depends on what you need, as of 2026-09-27. Free: Apple Dictation. Free, offline and open source: Handy. Polished, on every device: Wispr Flow, $144 a year. File transcription: MacWhisper, about EUR 64 once. Pay once and pick your own model: Nota ($79, $59 early bird) or Superwhisper lifetime ($249.99). Prices, 3-year cost and model choice for all 12 are in the table.

The short answer by need

• I want free. Apple Dictation. It is already on your Mac. No custom words, no per-app style, one language at a time.
• Free, offline, nothing else. Handy. Hold a key, talk, it pastes. Open source.
• Free local models plus my own API keys. Spokenly. Its local and own-key modes cost nothing.
• I mostly transcribe files. MacWhisper.
• I need it on iPhone, Windows or Android too. Wispr Flow or Superwhisper.
• Meeting notes. Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, MacWhisper or Monologue. On Mac, Nota also has Notebook for microphone and call transcripts, with notes generated by your configured AI.
• Pay once, any model, see what it costs. Nota. That is what we build, so weigh it accordingly.

Price and 3-year cost table (as of 2026-09-27)

Prices are list prices in USD from each vendor’s own site, checked 2026-09-27. 3-year cost uses the cheapest yearly plan. Superwhisper’s yearly and lifetime prices sit behind a toggle on its site; we read those on 2026-09-26.

App	Price model	Paid entry	3-year cost	Local models	Pick the model	Own API keys	Platforms
Apple Dictation	Free, built in	$0	$0	Partly	No	No	Mac, iOS
Handy	Free, open source	$0	$0	Yes	Local only	No	Mac, Windows, Linux
Spokenly	Free local and own keys, subscription for hosted	$99.99/yr	$0 on own keys	Yes	Yes	Yes, free	Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone
Voibe	Subscription or lifetime	$7.50/mo yearly	$149 lifetime	Yes	No	No	Mac, Windows
MacWhisper	Free tier, pay once	about EUR 64	about EUR 64	Yes	Yes	Pro	Mac
Superwhisper	Free tier, subscription or lifetime	$8.49/mo	$249.99 lifetime	Yes	Yes	Pro	Mac, Windows, iOS, Android
Nota	5,000 free words, pay once	$79 ($59 early bird)	$79, plus provider fees if you use cloud models	Yes	Yes, 30+	Yes	Mac
Wispr Flow	Free tier, subscription	$12/mo yearly	$432	No	No	No	Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android
Willow	Free tier, subscription	$12/mo yearly	$432	No	No	No	Mac, Windows, iPhone
Typeless	Free tier, subscription	$12/mo yearly	$432	No	No	No	Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android
Aqua Voice	Free tier, subscription	$8/mo yearly	$288	No	No	No	Mac, Windows, iOS
Monologue	Free tier, subscription	$144/yr	$432	Partly	No	No	Mac, iPhone, iPad, Watch

Nota’s cloud line: at 4 hours of speech a month on GPT Transcribe, the provider bills your key about $1.10 a month, about $40 over three years. On a local model it is $0.

Free options: Apple Dictation, Handy, Spokenly

Apple Dictation is the baseline every paid app has to beat. It punctuates on its own in supported languages and runs on-device on Apple silicon for many of them. It has no custom vocabulary, no style per app, no rewrite and no model choice.

Handy does one job: push to talk, paste. If that is all you want, stop here.

Spokenly is the strongest free option. Local models are free, and so is bringing your own OpenAI, Deepgram or Groq key. It is also on Windows, Linux and iPhone.

Pay-once options: MacWhisper, Voibe, Superwhisper lifetime, Nota

MacWhisper is built for files: lectures, interviews, podcasts, meetings recorded on the Mac, with subtitle export. It has dictation, but files are the point. More in MacWhisper vs Superwhisper.

Voibe sells a $149 lifetime licence for dictation, aimed at legal, healthcare and finance work. It runs on-device or in a zero-retention cloud mode, and it sells not having to choose models or manage keys.

Superwhisper lifetime is $249.99. It covers four platforms, has modes, meeting notes and a choice of voice and language models.

Nota is $79 once for 1 Mac, $119 for 2, $149 for 3, with early bird prices of $59, $89 and $109. The first 5,000 words are free with no account. It runs 30+ speech models: Parakeet and Whisper on your Mac, or 11 cloud providers on your own key, and it shows each cloud model’s cost per hour before you pick it. Modes switch by app and by website. Notebook adds microphone and call transcripts plus AI notes. Where it loses: Mac only, no speaker labels, no team plan.

Subscriptions: Wispr Flow, Willow, Typeless, Aqua, Monologue

These run on the vendor’s servers and models. You don’t pick the model and you don’t see what a minute costs them. In return you get polish, mobile apps, team plans, and, for Wispr Flow and Monologue, meeting notes.

• Wispr Flow: free up to 2,000 words a week on desktop. Pro $15 a month or $12 billed yearly.
• Willow: free tier with a weaker model. Pro $12 a month billed yearly.
• Typeless: Pro $12 a month billed yearly, $30 monthly.
• Aqua Voice: free for 1,000 words, once. Pro $8 a month billed yearly.
• Monologue: free for 1,000 words. Pro $144 a year.

If you need your dictation on a phone and a Windows laptop too, one of these is the honest answer.

How we compared (no speed or accuracy scores, and why)

We read each vendor’s own pricing and feature pages on 2026-09-27 and recorded what they say. We did not score speed or accuracy. Vendors publish numbers measured their own way (“200 ms”, “97.3%”), and those numbers depend on the model underneath, which in several of these apps you can change.

What you can compare fairly is on the page: price, 3-year cost, where the audio goes, whether you can pick the model, which platforms. If an app matters to you, the free tier or trial will tell you more about accuracy than any table.

Nota’s full price list is on /pricing, and the model list is in the models docs.