Is Willow Voice free?

Willow Voice is free to use, and the free plan is a working plan, not a short trial. The Basic plan costs nothing, needs no credit card, and includes unlimited dictation with a weaker speech model ¹. You pay only if you want the stronger model and the extras. Prices below were read on Willow's own pages on October 27, 2026, and they can change.

The free plan has no word cap, but it has other limits

Until mid-2026 free accounts had a weekly word cap. Willow's help center chart still lists 2,000 words per week for the free plan ². On July 7, 2026, Willow introduced its Frontier Pro and Frontier Mini models and announced that it was making dictation free ³. The live pricing page now shows the free plan as unlimited. If a review tells you free Willow stops after 2,000 words, check its date.

The free plan still has three limits:

• A smaller model. Free dictation uses Frontier Mini, the smaller and faster model. Pro uses Frontier Pro.
• Shorter dictations. One free dictation can run up to 5 minutes, against 8 minutes on paid plans ⁴.
• Limited Scribe. Scribe, Willow's write-from-intent feature, is capped at 20 uses a week on free accounts and is unlimited on Pro ⁵.

Pro costs $15 a month, the same as Wispr Flow

Over a year, Pro costs $144 billed annually, or $180 billed monthly ⁸. Across the dictation apps we track, the median price is $10 a month on monthly billing ⁹, so Pro sits above the middle of the market. It matches Wispr Flow Pro at $15 a month ¹⁰. Business and Enterprise plans exist for teams; the guide to Willow Voice lists them and notes that Willow's help center and pricing page name its team plan differently, so ask before you buy seats.

Discounts exist, and you can cancel any time

Students, educators, non-profit staff and volunteers, and active-duty military and veterans can get 30 percent off Pro by emailing Willow with proof of eligibility ¹¹. Wispr Flow's student and educator discount is larger, at 50 percent ¹². We did not find a separate Pro free trial on Willow's pages, and with an unlimited free plan you do not need one.

You can cancel at any time and keep the plan to the end of the period you paid for ¹³.

It depends on how much you dictate and which model you need

• A few messages a day: stay on Basic. The free plan has no word cap.
• Long dictation sessions, emails over 5 minutes, heavy use of Scribe: Pro removes those limits.
• Students and non-profit staff: ask for the 30 percent code before paying.
• No cloud at all: no Willow plan is a fully local app. Dictation is processed in the cloud, and offline mode is a Pro feature described for Mac and iPhone only ¹⁴. See Is Willow Voice safe? for where your audio goes.

What to do

1. Install Willow and use the free plan for a week on your real email and notes.
2. If the 5-minute limit or the smaller model gets in your way, try annual Pro at $144 a year rather than monthly at $180.
3. Compare with other free options before paying. Wispr Flow's free plan is capped at 2,000 words a week on desktop ¹⁵; see Is Wispr Flow free? and Willow Voice vs Wispr Flow.
4. Remember the built-in options. Windows voice typing is free (press Windows key + H) ¹⁶, and Apple's dictation processes general text on the device ¹⁷. Yap, which we make, is an on-device app for Mac and Windows; see pricing.

For free options across the market, read our guide to free dictation software, and for the full picture of Willow, the Willow Voice guide within our overview of dictation software. The glossary entry for cloud dictation explains why a free plan still needs servers.