In some ways, 2025 was the year AI-powered dictation apps really took off. Dictation apps have been available for years, but in the past they have proven slow and inaccurate – unless you speak with a certain accent and articulate clearly.
However, advances in large language models (LLM) and speech-to-text models have helped improve systems that can better decode speech while retaining context to format text. Developers built in features to automatically format text, remove filler words, and ignore errors to produce text that would require fewer edits.
However, with the growing popularity of all kinds of artificial intelligence, there are dozens of such applications available on the market. That's why we've collected the best and most useful dictation apps of this year.
Wispr Flow is a well-funded AI-powered dictation app that allows you to add custom words and instructions to your dictation. It has native apps for macOS, Windows and iOS, with an Android version in the works.
The app allows you to customize how the system transcribes your notes, allowing you to choose “formal”, “casual”, and “very casual” styles for different types of writing, such as personal messages, work, and email. And if you use it with vibration encoding tools like Cursor, you can enable automatic variable recognition or tagging of files in chat.
The app allows you to jot down up to 2,000 words per month for free on any desktop version and 1,000 words per month on iOS. Its subscription plans offer unlimited transcription and start at $15 per month.
Willow advertises itself as a big time saver for those who don't like writing. In addition to typical features such as automatic editing and formatting, the app has a feature that uses large language models to generate a full text snippet from just a few dictated words.
Willow is more privacy-focused by creating AI-powered notes, storing all transcripts locally on your device, and allowing you to opt out of model training. It also allows you to add custom vocabulary to your app to help it adapt to industry jargon or local dialect.
Willow allows you to dictate 2,000 words per month for free on the desktop app. Individual subscription plans start at $15 per month and provide unlimited dictation and allow the app to remember your writing style.
If you're concerned about privacy, Monolog allows you to download its model so you can run it on your device for transcription and avoid sending data to the cloud. Moreover, the application allows you to adjust your voice tone to the applications you use.
Monologue allows you to write 1,000 words per month for free, and a subscription costs $10 per month or $100 per year. And if you become one of the most popular users of the app, the company will also send you this trendy Monokey to use with the app.
Superwhisper is primarily a dictation app, but it can also transcribe audio or video files. The app gives you the freedom to select and download AI models, including your own models with different speeds and accuracy, as well as NVIDIA's Parakeet speech recognition models.
The app also allows you to write custom prompts to control your results. You can easily see both processed and raw transcripts that are integrated with the system keyboard.
The basic voice-to-text feature is free to use, and you have 15 minutes to test out Pro features like translation and transcription. The paid tier allows you to use your own AI API keys and connect cloud and on-premises models without any restrictions.
The monthly plan costs $8.49 per month, the annual plan costs $84.99 per month, or you can pay $249.99 for a lifetime subscription.
This app works offline and requires no subscription, allowing you to use local models for transcription. There is also GitHub repository for those who want to host and run the open source version themselves. VoiceTypr supports over 99 languages ​​and works on both Mac and Windows computers.
VoiceTypr can be tried for three days for free, after which you can purchase a lifetime license. The app costs $35 for one device, $56 for two devices, and $98 for four devices.
Aqua is another Y-Combinator-powered voice typing client for Windows and macOS that claims to be one of the fastest tools in its category in terms of latency.
In addition to supporting grammar and punctuation, Aqua also allows you to auto-complete text by speaking phrases – for example, you can say “my address” and type Aqua in your address.
The app also offers its own speech-to-text API for other apps.
With the free tier, you'll get 1,000 words per month. Paid plans start at $8 per month (billed annually) and unlock unlimited words and 800 custom dictionary values.
Handy is a free, open-source transcription tool that can run on Mac, Windows, and Linux computers. The app is quite basic and doesn't offer much customization, but if you want to start using your voice more often and don't want to pay, this is a good option.
The app has a basic settings menu that allows you to toggle push-to-talk and change the hotkey to activate transcription.
Typeless is another app in this category with a large number of free words. The company says it doesn't store any data or use it to train models. Typeless also suggests a better version of the sentence if you may have mixed up a line.
The app allows you to dictate up to 4,000 words per week (approximately 16,000 words per month) on the free tier. You can pay $12 per month (billed annually) to unlock unlimited words and access new features. Typeless is only available for Windows and MacOS.
