Same idea. One costs $0 and never sees your voice.
Plainsay is a free, MIT-licensed dictation app for Mac. Transcription runs on your Mac with Whisper or Parakeet — no account, no network call required to dictate. Wispr Flow is a cloud subscription that, by its own documentation, always sends your voice off your device. Every claim about Wispr below links to Wispr's own pages.
The short version
Local dictation is free forever. Plainsay Cloud is about $3/month. Wispr Flow is $15/month, or $12/month billed annually — $144/year, with no free-to-own option.
Wispr's free tier: 2,000 words/week desktop, 1,000/week iPhone, unlimited on Android.
Plainsay transcribes on the Mac. Wispr's own docs: “transcription always happens in the cloud.” Every word leaves your device.
Read exactly what Plainsay does with your audio. Wispr Flow is closed source — you get a privacy policy, not the code.
Side by side
| Plainsay | Wispr Flow | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free on-device, forever. Plainsay Cloud ≈ $3/mo. No word caps. | $15/mo, or $12/mo billed annually = $144/yr. No lifetime or one-time tier. Free tier: 2,000 words/week desktop, 1,000/week iPhone, unlimited on Android. |
| Transcription | On your Mac — Whisper or NVIDIA Parakeet through Core ML. No account, no network call needed to dictate. | “Transcription always happens in the cloud” (Wispr's own words). No offline mode by design. |
| Openness | MIT licensed, whole client public and auditable — read what leaves the Mac and when. | Closed source — you get a privacy policy to trust, not the code to read. |
| Account | None required to dictate locally. | Login required. |
| Engine | Your choice — Whisper (breadth of language) or Parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3 (fast, strong Polish + English). | Wispr's cloud pipeline. No choice. |
| Platform | macOS (Apple silicon). | macOS, Windows, iOS, Android. |
Wispr figures from wisprflow.ai/pricing and wisprflow.ai/privacy, 2026. Prices change — check the source links below.
Price
Wispr Flow is subscription-only: $15/month, or $12/month billed annually — $144 a year, every year, with no way to simply own it. Over three years that's more than $430.
Plainsay running locally on your Mac is free, forever, with no word limits and no account. If you'd rather not download a model or manage a key, Plainsay Cloud is about $3 a month — roughly a fifth of Wispr Pro — and the local option stays free and fully capable, not a crippled trial.
Your voice never has to leave the Mac
This is the difference that doesn't show up on a pricing page. Wispr Flow's own privacy documentation states that “transcription always happens in the cloud.” There is no offline mode — every word you dictate is uploaded, transcribed on someone else's servers, and returned.
Plainsay's transcription runs on your Mac through Core ML, on Whisper or NVIDIA Parakeet. Dictating needs no account and makes no network call you didn't ask for. Your voice — often the most sensitive thing you type — stays on the machine in your hands.
Open, so you don't have to take our word for it
A closed-source cloud app asks you to trust a privacy policy. An open one lets you read the code.
Plainsay's entire client is MIT licensed and public — the pipeline, the recorder, the settings, all of it. You (or anyone) can read exactly what happens to your audio, fork it, and self-host it indefinitely. Wispr Flow is closed source — its answer to “what happens to my voice” is a privacy policy you're asked to trust. With Plainsay, the answer is the source code.
github.com/conrader/plainsay — read every line
Where Wispr Flow is the better pick — honestly
- You need Windows, iOS, or Android — Plainsay is macOS-only today.
- You want a single cloud account that syncs across all your devices out of the box.
- You'd rather never see a model download or an API key, and $144/year is fine for that convenience.
If instead you want dictation that's free, that you can read the source of, and that keeps your voice on your Mac — that's Plainsay.
Try the free, open one.
Download for macOS Free · MIT licensed · macOS 15+, Apple siliconSources
Wispr Flow pricing — wisprflow.ai/pricing
Wispr Flow privacy (“transcription always happens in the cloud”) — wisprflow.ai/privacy
Plainsay source — github.com/conrader/plainsay
All Wispr figures were current as of 2026 and are quoted from Wispr's own pages. Wispr ships often — verify at the links above.