Superwhisper alternatives for Mac, compared on price

Superwhisper costs $249.99 for a lifetime licence, or $84.99 a year (superwhisper.com, as of 2026-09-27). Cheaper pay-once alternatives for the Mac are MacWhisper (about €64), Nota ($79, or $59 early bird until December 31, 2026) and Voibe lifetime ($149). Free ones are Handy and Spokenly’s local mode. None of them copies everything Superwhisper does, so pick by the reason you want to leave.

Why do people look for a Superwhisper alternative?

Three reasons come up in almost every thread about it.

Price. $249.99 once, or $84.99 every year, is a lot for dictation if you only ever use a Mac.

Too much app. Superwhisper has modes, Super Mode (it reads your screen), a meeting assistant, translation and two model menus. Some people want to hold a key, talk and get clean text.

Model choice is a Pro feature. Picking your own voice model and bringing your own API keys sits behind Pro (as of 2026-09-27).

There is a fourth gap that no app we checked covers well: none of them shows what a minute of cloud transcription costs you. More on that below.

Superwhisper alternatives compared (as of 2026-09-27)

Prices are list prices in USD unless marked, taken from each vendor’s own site on 2026-09-27.

App	Price	Local models	Pick your model	Your own API keys	Platforms
Superwhisper	$8.49/mo, $84.99/yr or $249.99 lifetime	Yes	Yes	Pro only	Mac, Windows, iOS, Android
Nota	$79 once, 1 Mac ($59 early bird until December 31, 2026)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Mac
MacWhisper	about €64 once	Yes	Yes	Pro	Mac
Voibe	$7.50/mo billed yearly, or $149 lifetime	Yes	No	No	Mac, Windows
Spokenly	Free for local and own keys, Pro $99.99/yr	Yes	Yes	Yes, free	Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone
Handy	Free, open source	Yes	Local only	No	Mac, Windows, Linux
Wispr Flow	$12/mo billed yearly ($144/yr)	No	No	No	Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android

Sources: superwhisper.com, saynota.com/pricing, macwhisper.com, getvoibe.com, spokenly.app, handy.computer, wisprflow.ai/pricing. Wispr Flow is in the table because it is the most common subscription people compare against, not because it is cheaper.

Which pay-once apps replace Superwhisper?

Nota is the one we make, so read this paragraph with that in mind. It is a native Mac app sold in three tiers: Personal $79 for 1 Mac, Duo $119 for 2, Studio $149 for 3 ($59, $89 and $109 early bird until December 31, 2026). Updates are included for life, there is a 14-day refund, and the first 5,000 words are free with no account. It runs local models (Parakeet, Whisper, Apple Speech, Cohere Transcribe, SenseVoice) or cloud models from 11 speech providers on your own key. The Models page shows a price per hour for every cloud model and “Free” for local ones, which is the gap mentioned above. Modes switch on their own by app and by website.

Nota also has Notebook: microphone and optional call audio, transcripts, and notes with your configured AI. What it doesn’t have: Windows, iPhone, Android, speaker labels or a team plan.

MacWhisper (about €64, macwhisper.com) is built around transcribing files and meetings, with dictation as a second job. Its Pro version takes keys for a long list of providers. Pick it if most of your audio is recordings, not live typing.

Voibe lifetime ($149, getvoibe.com) is aimed at legal, healthcare and finance teams. It sells the opposite of model choice: no keys and no model menus to manage. It also includes meeting notes on its Work plan and runs on Windows.

Are there free Superwhisper alternatives?

Handy (handy.computer) is free and open source. Push to talk, paste, done. It runs local models only, and that is the whole feature list, on purpose.

Spokenly (spokenly.app) gives local models and your-own-key cloud models away for free, and charges $99.99 a year only for its hosted models. It is the closest free match to Superwhisper’s model choice, and it runs on Windows, Linux and iPhone too.

Apple Dictation is already on your Mac. It has no per-app styles, no custom word list and no choice of model, but for short messages it may be enough.

What does the cloud part cost on your own key?

With a local model, nothing: the audio stays on your Mac and there is no bill. With a cloud model on your own key, you pay the provider per minute of audio. At the prices in Nota’s catalogue (checked 2026-09-27), one hour of speech costs about $0.04 on Groq Whisper, $0.26 on Deepgram Nova-3, $0.27 on GPT Transcribe and $0.22 on ElevenLabs Scribe.

So 4 hours of speech a month costs about $1.08 on GPT Transcribe and about $0.16 on Groq. Nota shows the running total per provider on its Home screen, split into speech-to-text and the optional cleanup pass.

What does Superwhisper still do better?

Be fair about this before you switch.

• Platforms. Superwhisper runs on Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. Nota and MacWhisper are Mac only.
• Meetings. Superwhisper has a meeting assistant. Nota has Notebook for transcripts and AI notes on Mac; MacWhisper and Voibe also offer meeting workflows.
• Screen context. Super Mode reads what is on screen to shape the output.
• Compliance. SOC 2 Type II on its Enterprise plan. Nota makes no such claim.
• Devices and refund. Its FAQ says one licence works on as many of your devices as you like, and it offers a 30-day refund. Nota covers 1 to 3 Macs by tier, with a 14-day refund.

If you need any of those, stay with Superwhisper. If you dictate on one or two Macs and want to pay once for less, one of the apps above will do the job.

How we compared

We compared price, local models, model choice, keys and platforms, because those are facts you can check on each vendor’s site. We left out speed and accuracy scores. Every vendor publishes its own, measured its own way, and none of them are comparable. Prices change often, so check the linked pages before you buy.

See every model with its hourly price in the models guide, or compare the three tiers on pricing.