Mac dictation without a subscription
Mac dictation has mostly moved to monthly billing, so the keyboard you talk into now comes with a renewal date. Kana is $9.99 once, for up to three Macs, and neither dictation nor file transcription ever renews.
What the one payment covers
Dictation into any app, file transcription out to plain text, SRT, VTT or Markdown, custom vocabulary for the names every speech model gets wrong, and translation of a finished dictation on the machine itself. All of it unlimited, because it runs on your Mac and costs us nothing to serve.
The one part that recurs, and why
AI rewriting sends the finished transcript to a model, and that call costs money every time you make it. So rewriting is $4.90 a month or $49 a year, and the subscription includes the app: two prices to pick between. Leave rewriting off and dictation carries on with the wifi switched off.
What the monthly apps charge
| App | What it costs |
|---|---|
| Kana | $9.99 once, up to three Macs |
| Wispr Flow | Free plan, Pro $12 a user a month on annual billing or $15 monthly, Enterprise quoted |
| Otter.ai | Free for 300 minutes a month, Pro $8.33 to $16.99, Business $19.99 to $30 |
| Aqua Voice | Free for 1,000 words, then Pro $8 a month on annual billing or $10 monthly. Max $24, Team $12 a user |
| Willow | Free plan, Pro $12 a month on annual billing or $15 monthly, Business $28 to $35, Enterprise quoted |
| Dictation Daddy | Solo $15 a month, Team $18 a month, both cheaper on annual billing. 7-day trial |
Prices as each maker publishes them. Every name links to a longer comparison, including what that product does better.
What you would be giving up
Those subscriptions buy things Kana has no answer to. Wispr Flow and Willow run on Windows and iOS as well as the Mac and cover over a hundred languages, against 22 here. Otter records a call, separates the speakers, and leaves a team a searchable archive. Aqua Voice is trained for code and technical vocabulary and ships a native Intel build, which Kana never will. If your work needs one of those, the monthly price is the right purchase.
Fourteen days, then your decision
The trial is the whole app for 14 days, with no card and no account, so there is nothing to cancel if you let it lapse. Dictation and file transcription make no network call at any point, which you can check by unplugging.