Aqua Voice vs the free dictation apps: what stays free

If you will ever dictate more than 2,000 words in total, Aqua Voice's Free plan runs out and Superwhisper's no-cost tier is the pick: unlimited dictation on local Whisper models. That single limit is the criterion for this whole search, and it kills most of the pages ranking for it, because they are comparison pages published by the competitors themselves. We run Wispr Flow here as the daily dictation tool, so its free tier is in this comparison too.

What Aqua Voice costs, and where the Free plan stops

Aqua Voice's pricing page, read today, lists four plans. Free costs nothing and includes 2,000 words, the Avalon 1.5 model, deep context, MCP and CLI access, and your first 3 Notetaker meetings, with no credit card. Pro is $10 a month billed annually or $12 month to month, with unlimited words, a personal dictionary and 3 meetings a month. Max is $19 billed annually or $24 month to month, adding unlimited meetings, realtime mode and voice commands. Business is $19 a seat billed annually, $24 month to month, minimum 2 seats.

Over twelve months, one seat on Pro costs 12 x 10 = 120 dollars billed annually, or 12 x 12 = 144 dollars month to month. Students verified with a school address get 70 percent off Pro and Max, which puts Pro at $3 a month billed annually.

The limit that matters: the page does not say the 2,000 words renew. Reviews published by third parties describe the allowance as a one-time budget, and the vendor's own FAQ calls them "your first 2,000 words". A person who dictates daily burns through it in a week or two.

Features the price does not show

Two of the four put the transcription model on your machine, which is the row that decides for anyone with client audio or a plane seat. Apple Dictation and Monologue, the two names outside this table, answer it in prose below.

Apple Dictation

It is part of macOS, with no separate price page because there is nothing to buy. Apple's support page states that general text dictation is processed on your device and not sent to Siri servers, so it works without a network for most writing. It also runs on iPhone and iPad.

• Pro: zero cost forever, with processing on the device per Apple's own page.
• Pro: no install and no account, so the first test takes one minute in Keyboard settings.
• Con: Apple's page says dictation is not available in all languages or regions, and features vary by language.
• Con: there is no learning loop, so it never absorbs your client names or jargon.

For trying dictation at all, this is the right first stop, and if it is enough, the search ends here.

Superwhisper

Best for the person whose real question is whether they can stop paying, because the answer is yes, at full word volume. Superwhisper's own docs describe its no-cost plan as unlimited dictation using local Whisper models, up to two modes, custom vocabulary and text replacements. New users get 3,000 words of Pro access first, then fall back to Free with nothing deleted. Pro adds cloud models, AI processing, realtime transcription, speaker separation and Meetings on macOS, at $8.49 a month or $84.99 a year, and one license covers unlimited Macs and Windows PCs plus your phones.

• Pro: the no-cost tier never runs out of words, which is the whole point of this query.
• Pro: it works offline, because the models are local.
• Con: the lifetime key costs $249.99, about three years of the annual plan (3 x 84.99 = 254.97), so it only pays back past year three.
• Con: the App Store and Google Play builds cost more than the website key, per Superwhisper's own purchase page.

The free tier that survives a heavy dictation week, on the machine you already own.

VoiceInk

Best for a Mac person who wants to pay once and stop thinking about subscriptions. The price is $25 once for one Mac, $39 for two, $49 for three, with lifetime updates and a 14-day money-back guarantee. Its product page says transcription runs on local AI models, your voice data never leaves your Mac, and the code is open source. It requires Apple Silicon and macOS 14.4 or later, with 8GB of RAM recommended.

• Pro: paying $25 once is cheaper than three months of Aqua Pro month to month (3 x 12 = 36).
• Pro: the 14-day refund window gives a full test before the money is committed.
• Con: Mac only, and it will not install on anything older than macOS 14.4 on Apple Silicon.
• Con: there is no cloud model tier to fall back on if the local result disappoints.

The cheapest way to own a dictation app outright on a Mac.

Monologue

Best for dictating into AI tools rather than into emails: its product page leads with an MCP and API connection, so the transcript can go straight to your agents. Monologue is a dictation and notes app for Mac and iPhone. Its trial costs nothing and includes 1,000 dictation words, 10 recorded notes, offline transcription and 100+ languages. Pro is $15 a month billed monthly, or $144 a year, which the page itself calls a $12 monthly equivalent with 20 percent saved.

• Pro: offline transcription sits on the trial, so the no-cloud test costs nothing.
• Pro: bot-free meeting notes are included, on Mac and iPhone.
• Con: the trial stops at 1,000 dictation words, half of Aqua's 2,000.
• Con: no Windows build appears anywhere on the product page.

Worth a look if your dictation feeds an AI workflow more than a chat window.

Wispr Flow

Best for names and jargon that stop needing corrections, which is where the no-cost tools stay behind. The pricing page describes Free as speech to text in any app, in 100+ languages, with a dictionary and snippets, and it caps the words per week on that tier. Pro is $15 a user a month, $12 billed annually, and buys unlimited dictations, the shared team workspace and Notetaker history. Our record on the tool sheet: it has been the main text input here since 2024, after testing dozens of dictation tools, and the learning on corrections is why it stayed.

• Pro: it learns your names from the corrections you make, on the spot.
• Pro: the no-cost tier is permanent, so the weekly cap is a throttle, not an expiry.
• Con: the weekly word limit on Free is not published as a number on the pricing page.
• Con: it is the most expensive paid option here, at 12 x 12 = 144 dollars a year per seat billed annually.

Our own piece on dictation that finally works covers what changed and what it still does badly. For one of these against Wispr Flow specifically, see the Aqua Voice vs Wispr Flow comparison or MacWhisper vs Wispr Flow.

Run the same email through each free tier

Every option here has a no-cost way in, so the test costs an evening, not a card. Dictate the same email, the one with your product names, a client name and a URL in it, once into each free tier, in the room you actually work in, and count the corrections per tool. A week of your real dictation volume answers whether the free tiers hold up.

The trials make this easy. Superwhisper hands new users 3,000 words of Pro access. VoiceInk has its 14-day refund window. The one-month perk on the Wispr Flow fiche comes through the link on this page, negotiated with the vendor and verified on 22 September 2026, since no public page publishes it.

Offline and on-device: what each vendor's page says

If no-cloud is the condition, four of the six clear it from their own pages. Superwhisper's docs put the models on your machine. VoiceInk's FAQ says voice data never leaves your Mac. Apple says general dictation is processed on device. Monologue lists offline transcription on its trial. Aqua Voice's pricing page and Wispr Flow's pricing page do not list offline operation, so if you dictate on a plane or in a data-sensitive room, the on-device four are the shortlist, and the test is simple: turn off the Wi-Fi and dictate.

Accents, noise and technical vocabulary: no page publishes a number

None of the six vendors publishes an accuracy figure on the pages we read, on accents, on background noise or on jargon. What each sells instead is a mechanism: local Whisper models for Superwhisper and VoiceInk, on-device Apple models with language-dependent features, custom dictionaries at Superwhisper and VoiceInk, learning-from-corrections at Wispr Flow and a personal dictionary at Aqua Pro. The test above settles it for your voice: the same email, dictated once at your normal pace and once with the kitchen noise you actually sit in, and the correction count beats every marketing claim on this results page.

Stay on Aqua Voice if the team features are the point

Two situations argue for staying on the paid side of Aqua. A team that wants shared dictionaries, single sign-on, zero data retention and usage reports: Business at $19 a seat billed annually, minimum 2 seats, is the plan no free tier answers. And a student: 70 percent off puts Pro at $3 a month, cheaper than every alternative on this page.

Otherwise the switch is straightforward, on any platform. Offline and no-cost on macOS or Windows: Superwhisper. Pay once, Mac only: VoiceInk. Pay nothing at all, today, on any Mac running macOS: Apple Dictation, already in your Keyboard settings. And if names keep coming out wrong through a free tier, the paid exit is the one that learns from your corrections: Wispr Flow's page in our directory.

Wispr Flow is an affiliate of this site: the link on its fiche earns us a commission if you subscribe through it. Aqua Voice, Superwhisper, VoiceInk, Monologue and Apple pay us nothing.