Guide
Dictation you buy once, not rent
The reason most dictation apps bill monthly is that they are paying for servers every time you speak. The ones that do not, mostly do not have to.
The short answer
Handy is free, Voz Whisper is $2.99, Scryb is $19, and VoiceInk, SpeakMac, VoxTap and MacWhisper are $29–$59. All are one-time purchases.
Superwhisper offers a $249 lifetime licence alongside its subscription, and Voibe offers $99. Wispr Flow is subscription only.
Why the subscription exists at all
A cloud dictation app runs a large model on rented GPUs, and every sentence you speak costs it money. That is a genuine recurring cost and a subscription is the honest way to cover it. It is not a trick.
But it is a cost that only exists because the audio is leaving your machine. A Whisper model running on Apple Silicon does the same job using a chip you have already bought, and the marginal cost of your ten-thousandth sentence is electricity. There is no server bill to pass on, so there is nothing for a monthly fee to cover. That is the whole argument for one-time pricing, and it is why we could price at $2.99 without it being a stunt.
The pay-once options
| App | Price | Payment model | Where audio is processed | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voz Whisper | $2.99 once | One-time | On device only | macOS 13+ |
| Handy | Free | Open source (MIT) | On device | macOS, Windows, Linux |
| Scryb | $19 once | One-time | On device | macOS |
| VoiceInk | $29 once | One-time / open source | On device | macOS |
| VoxTap | $29 once | One-time | On device | macOS |
| SpeakMac | $29 once | One-time | On device | macOS |
| MacWhisper | $29–$59 once | One-time | On device | macOS |
| Voibe | $4.90/mo · $99 lifetime | Subscription or lifetime | On device | macOS |
| Superwhisper | $84.99/yr · $249 lifetime | Subscription or lifetime | On device or cloud | macOS, Windows, iOS |
What to check before you buy any of them
- Does "lifetime" mean the app or the updates? Most one-time licences include updates for a period, then charge for major versions. Voz includes updates, and if that ever changes we will say so rather than quietly stopping.
- How many Macs? Some licences are per machine.
- Is there an account? A one-time purchase that still requires a login still has a server that can go away.
- Can you get a refund? Ours is yes, without being asked why.
Checked 18 August 2026. Sources: Each vendor's published pricing page.
Voz is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any other product named on this page. Product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners, and are used here only to identify what is being compared. Prices and features are as published by each vendor and checked on 18 August 2026; they change. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us — we would rather correct this page than defend it.