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In a way, 2025 was the year that AI dictation apps really took off. Dictation apps have been around for years, but in the past they have proven slow and inaccurate unless you speak with a particular accent and enunciate clearly.
But advances in large language models (LLM) and text-to-speech models have helped improve systems that can better decipher speech while retaining context to format text. And developers built in features to automatically format text, remove filler words, and ignore attempts to generate text that would require fewer edits.
But with the growing popularity of all things AI, there are dozens of such applications on the market. So we’ve put together our pick of the best and most useful dictation apps this year.
Wispr feed
Wispr feed is a well-funded AI dictation app that lets you add custom words and instructions for dictation. It offers native apps for macOS, Windows and iOS, and an Android version is in the works.
The app lets you customize how its system transcribes your notes by letting you choose from “formal,” “casual,” and “very casual” styles for different types of writing, such as personal, work, and email. And if you use it with mood coding tools like Cursor, you can enable a feature to automatically recognize variables or tag files in chat.
The app lets you 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
Willow presents itself as a considerable time saver for those who don’t like typing. Besides common features like automatic editing and formatting, the app has a feature that leverages large language models to generate a complete piece of text from just a few dictated words.
Willow also further addresses privacy in AI-assisted note-taking by storing all transcriptions locally on your device and also allows you to opt out of model training. It also lets you add custom vocabulary to the app to help it adapt to your industry language or local dialect.
Willow lets you dictate 2,000 words per month for free on its desktop app. Individual subscription plans start at $15 per month, giving you unlimited dictation and allowing the app to remember your writing style.
Monologue
If you’re focused on privacy, Monologue lets you download its template so you can run it on your device for transcriptions and avoid sending data to the cloud. Additionally, the app allows you to customize the tone of your voice depending on the apps you use it with.
Monologue lets you jot down 1,000 words per month for free, and its subscription costs $10 per month, or $100 per year. And if you end up becoming one of the app’s top users, the company will also send you this awesome Monokey to use with the app.
Superwhisper
Superwhisper is primarily a dictation application, but it can also transcribe audio or video files. The app gives you the freedom to choose and download AI models, including its own models with different speeds and accuracy, as well as Nvidia’s Parakeet speech recognition models.
The app also lets you write custom prompts to guide output. You can easily see processed and unprocessed transcriptions built into the system keyboard.
The basic voice-to-text functionality is free, and you have 15 minutes to test 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 limits.
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.
Voice type
THE Voice type The app takes an offline, subscription-free approach, allowing you to use local templates for transcription. There is also a GitHub repository for those who want to host and run the open source version themselves. VoiceTypr supports over 99 languages and works on Mac and Windows.
The app is available for a free trial for three days, after which it will allow you to purchase a lifetime license. The app costs $35 for one device, $56 for two, and $98 for four devices.
Aqua
Aqua is another Y Combinator-backed voice typing client for Windows and macOS that claims to be one of the fastest tools in the category in terms of latency.
In addition to handling grammar and punctuation, Aqua also lets you automatically fill in text by speaking sentences: you can say “my address” and ask Aqua to enter your address, for example.
The app also offers its own text-to-speech API for other apps.
The free tier gives you 1,000 words per month. Paid plans start from $8 per month (annual billing) and unlock unlimited words and 800 custom dictionary values.
Practical
Practical is a free, open source transcription tool that can run on Mac, Windows, and Linux. The app is pretty basic and doesn’t offer much customization, but if you’re trying to start using your voice more and don’t want to pay, it’s a good option.
The app has a basic settings menu that lets you enable Push-to-Talk mode and change the keyboard shortcut to enable transcription.
Untyped
Untyped is another app in this category with a high number of free words. The company says it doesn’t retain any data or use it to train models. Typeless also suggests a better version of the sentence if you may have fumbled a line.
The app lets you dictate up to 4,000 words per week (around 16,000 words per month) on its 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.
