Best one-time purchase dictation apps for Mac

Pros

• Its pricing page states no subscriptions and lifetime updates on every licence.
• Modes switch the transcription model, language, AI prompt and output per app, website or shortcut.
• Source code is public on GitHub under GPL v3, and Ollama can run text cleanup locally.
• A 14-day money-back guarantee, though its Terms require a valid reason and uninstalling from all devices.

Cons

• No permanent free plan: a 7-day trial, or you build the app yourself from the GitHub source.
• Minimum macOS differs by page: 14.4 on its website, 15.0 in the GitHub README.
• Cloud transcription and AI enhancement are optional, and send audio or text to the provider whose API key you add. Provider charges are separate.
• Apple silicon only, and its optional on-device Apple Speech model needs macOS 26.

Pros

• The free tier includes system-wide Whisper dictation, so you can try it before paying.
• Pro records meetings without a bot and adds speaker recognition. Its homepage also lists subtitle and many other export formats.
• Transcription is local by default, works offline, and supports 100 languages.
• A command-line tool, webhooks, and forwarding to Notion, Zapier, Obsidian or n8n.

Cons

• Dictation is secondary: spelling and grammar cleanup and per-app prompts are Pro and need your own AI key or a local model.
• The homepage offers refunds if you contact the vendor within 7 days of purchase, detailing your concerns.
• System-wide dictation exists only in the direct-download version, not the Mac App Store build.
• Its homepage shows EUR 64 and its Gumroad page EUR 65, and neither lists a USD price.

Pros

• On Apple silicon you can choose fully on-device transcription, which works offline with AI formatting turned off.
• A 30-day no-questions-asked refund guarantee on every plan.
• Cleanup covers punctuation, filler removal, numbers, dates, URLs, smart lists and spoken commands.
• A bot-free meeting-notes tier, Voibe Work, runs on Mac and costs $349 once.

Cons

• No permanent free plan, only a 7-day trial, and it needs macOS 14.4 or later.
• Optional AI text formatting sends finished text to a cloud model, and Intel Macs and Windows use cloud transcription only.
• Not open source: its source code is in private repositories.
• Its pricing changed while we researched it (an earlier version showed $59 a year), so recheck the pricing page before you buy.

Pros

• The Free plan keeps unlimited local Whisper dictation, so the lifetime licence is optional.
• Runs on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android, with coding-agent integrations on macOS.
• A 30-day refund window. Its refund page covers lifetime purchases, though it opens by describing a subscription basis.
• An Enterprise tier adds SAML SSO and SCIM, with a SOC 2 report available under NDA.

Cons

• $249.99 is the second-highest one-time price for a dictation licence on this list.
• The lifetime plan is in its billing docs, but its homepage pricing card does not show it, so confirm before you buy.
• Needs macOS 14 or later, and local models run well mainly on Apple silicon.
• AI modes, cloud models and file transcription need Pro; Free allows two modes without AI processing.

Pros

• On-device only per its terms, and speech recognition works fully offline.
• States that no AI models are trained with user data.
• A personal dictionary, text snippets and Smart Modes for email, code and chat.
• A subscription alternative at $8 a month or $80 a year if you would rather not pay once.

Cons

• Lifetime includes one year of updates, then an optional yearly fee.
• The homepage and the terms disagree on currency, device count and the update fee, so confirm before buying.
• No standing free plan, only a 7-day trial, and we found no money-back guarantee beyond the EU withdrawal right in its terms.

Pros

• Downloads for Mac, Windows and Linux, plus a Chrome extension.
• File upload transcription and Custom Modes alongside live dictation.
• Says Groq zero data retention is enabled and recordings are not used to train AI models.
• A Team plan at $6.79 per user per month, with a minimum of 3 users.

Cons

• The highest one-time dictation price on this list.
• Transcription is cloud-based: audio is sent to the Groq API, and its own comparison table marks offline mode as not available.
• The only free option is a 30-minute trial of recording time.
• 'Unlimited' has limits: above 40 hours of transcription a month may prompt contact or suspension, and its privacy policy says accounts used on more than 2 devices may be terminated.