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Question · Dictation software

Are there free dictation apps on the App Store?

Yes. Of 426 apps tracked on the US App Store, 117 apps are free with nothing to buy and 275 apps are free to download but sell in-app purchases. Only 31 apps charge a price up front.

Updated October 30, 20264 min read56 cited facts, each traced to its source

Yes, free dictation apps exist, and almost every voice app is free to download. The catch is what happens after the download. Of 426 apps in our registry with a US listing, 117 apps are free with nothing to buy 1. Another 275 apps are free to download but sell in-app purchases 2, and 31 apps are paid downloads 3.

Free to download is the norm, free to use is not

Free with in-app purchases is the most common model by a wide margin: 275 apps against 117 apps that are free with nothing to buy. Among apps that are plainly dictation tools, 54 of 85 dictation apps are free with in-app purchases 4, 23 apps are free with nothing to buy 5 and 7 apps are paid 6.

How each kind of app charges

The pattern repeats across kinds. Apps with nothing to buy are a minority in every kind except one.

KindFree, nothing to buyFree with in-app purchasesPaid app
Dictation app23 554 47 6
Transcription19 773 815 9
Meeting notes27 1077 116 12
Voice notes10 1334 142 15
Voice keyboard10 1621 171 18
Voice assistant5 199 200 21
Medical and professional23 227 230 24

Counts are apps. Each row also includes apps that charge up front and sell in-app purchases, which are not shown as a column (three apps in total, covered below).

Medical and professional apps are the one kind that is mostly free

23 of 30 medical and professional apps are free with nothing to buy 22, among them PowerMic Mobile 25, Microsoft Dragon Copilot 26 and Tali AI 27. The listing does not say who pays for these. A free listing can sit in front of an account that a clinic or employer buys, so "free" here describes the App Store page, not the total cost of using the tool.

Named free dictation and voice apps

Some free apps are plain dictation tools. On iPhone and iPad, Overhear 28, NeverTyping 29 and Cloudless Voice 30 are free with nothing to buy, and so are the voice keyboards Yapper 31 and Murmure Dictée vocale 32. On the Mac App Store, ParlaParla is free and lists no purchases 33. For file transcription, Parley 34, Temi 35 and Happy Scribe 36 list nothing to buy.

AppWeekly planLifetime purchaseDownload priceIn-app purchases listed (purchases)Source
AI DictationNo weekly plan listedNo lifetime purchase listed0Calculated 37
BolkitNo weekly plan listedNo lifetime purchase listed0Calculated 38
ChitchatNo weekly plan listedNo lifetime purchase listed0Calculated 39
Cloudless VoiceNo weekly plan listedNo lifetime purchase listed0Calculated 30
CodictateNo weekly plan listedNo lifetime purchase listed0Calculated 40
DiktiroNo weekly plan listedNo lifetime purchase listed0Calculated 41
HushbirdNo weekly plan listedNo lifetime purchase listed0Calculated 42
HushTypeNo weekly plan listedNo lifetime purchase listed0Calculated 43

Showing 8 of 23 rows. See every row in the dataset.

What "free with in-app purchases" usually means

It means the download costs nothing and the useful features sit behind a purchase. The typical app lists a median of 3 in-app purchases 44, and many reach the ten that Apple shows at most. Plaud lists ten purchases 45 and so does Otter.ai 46, mostly monthly and yearly subscriptions, with minute packs in Plaud's case. Notta lists ten as well, with annual plans priced from $54.00 for education up to $114.99 47.

Some apps list repeated entries of the same plan at different prices, so ten purchases can mean three or four real plans. Read the list as "there are paid tiers", not as ten separate choices.

Paid apps are few, and the paid dictation tools named here sit on the Mac

31 apps charge up front 3, and none of them lists a purchase inside the app 48. The paid dictation apps in the rows we read are Mac App Store listings: Freeway at $24.99 49, Steno at $29.99 50 and iDict at $5.99 51. Only 3 apps combine a price with purchases 52: WhisPaste, whose five purchases are support tips 53, Quick Subtitles 54 and KinetMinutes 55.

What the numbers do and do not measure

The counts cover apps with a US App Store or Mac App Store listing, one row per app. Apple shows at most ten purchases, so a heavily monetized app can have plans missing from its list. A billing period read from a purchase name can be wrong when the name is unclear, and a free trial or introductory price is not shown. Prices are US prices only. The data says nothing about quality, accuracy, privacy, or whether the free tier is enough for daily use. Web services, APIs and our own app are not counted.

Weekly plans show up in the purchase names too: 50 of 426 apps sell a weekly plan 56. That reflects what each App Store page says, not what each maker's website offers, so a subscription you start on a website may still exist.

What this means for choosing a dictation tool

Expect a free download to be a trial. If you only dictate occasionally, a free app with nothing to buy is a fair start, and the built-in dictation on your phone or Mac costs nothing. Our overview of free dictation on iPhone and the question on a free dictation app for Mac cover those options, and free dictation in the browser needs no install. If you dictate daily, compare the yearly price of the paid tier, not the download price, and check the purchase list before you rely on an app.

The full comparison of prices is in the full dataset, with companion data on App Store prices and dictation app prices. For products compared side by side, see our market overview, the overview of dictation software and the guide to the best dictation software. Our own app, Yap, is not in these counts.

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