Aria · No subscription
Pricing, compared
Mac dictation with no subscription
Voice dictation on a Mac has quietly become a monthly bill. It does not have to be. Here is what every serious Mac dictation app actually costs in September 2026 — and why Aria charges €5, once.
What they cost, today
| App | Free tier | Paid | Subscription? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aria | 2,000 words / week | €5 once, three Macs, updates included | No |
| Apple Dictation | Built into macOS | — | No |
| MacWhisper | Free version | €64 once per licence, lifetime updates | No |
| VoiceInk | Free trial | $25 (1 Mac) · $39 (2 Macs) · $49 (3 Macs) | No |
| Superwhisper | Free tier | $8.49 / month; yearly and lifetime also offered | Yes (or lifetime) |
| Wispr Flow | 2,000 words / week | $15 / month, or $12 / month billed yearly | Yes |
Prices read directly from each vendor's own site in September 2026: wisprflow.ai, superwhisper.com, macwhisper.com, tryvoiceink.com. They change; check before buying.
Three years of dictation, in money
A subscription is not expensive on the day you sign up. It is expensive on the day you count.
- Aria: €5. Total. For three Macs.
- MacWhisper Pro: €64, once.
- VoiceInk: $25 to $49, once, depending on how many Macs.
- Superwhisper Pro monthly: about $306 over three years.
- Wispr Flow Pro yearly: about $432 over three years.
None of those apps are bad. Several of them are excellent. The question this page answers is narrower: if you refuse to rent a keyboard shortcut, what are your options — and how little can it cost?
€5, once, on three Macs
Start free: 2,000 words a week, no account, no card. Pro removes the limit for a single €5 payment, with every future update included.
macOS 11 or later · free tier does not expireWhy a subscription is the norm — and why Aria skips it
Most of these apps send your audio to a cloud model and pay per minute for it. A recurring fee is the honest way to cover a recurring cost. That logic is real, and it is the reason Wispr Flow and Superwhisper charge monthly.
Aria's default engine is different: NVIDIA Parakeet TDT V3, running on your Mac. Transcribing on hardware you already own costs the developer nothing per word, so there is nothing to bill monthly. Cloud engines stay available — OpenAI, Groq, Deepgram, Soniox, ElevenLabs, Mistral — but with your own API key, so the provider bills you directly at their price, with no margin added.
What "free" gets you
Aria Free is 2,000 words a week, reset every Monday, with both local and cloud engines available. That is roughly four to six emails a day — enough to know within a week whether the app belongs in your workflow. The counter is checked on a server so reinstalling does not hand you a fresh quota; nothing else about your dictation is sent anywhere.
Aria Pro is €5, one time, for unlimited words on up to three Macs, with all future updates included. There is no seat count, no renewal, and no upgrade fee for the next major version.
And what about Apple's built-in dictation?
It is free, it is already installed, and for short bursts it is fine — start there before paying anyone anything. Where people usually leave it: punctuation and formatting, proper nouns and jargon it will never learn, no transcription of existing audio files, no choice of engine, and no way to see or search what you dictated last week. If none of that bothers you, macOS already has you covered.
Questions
What exactly do I get for €5?
Unlimited words, a perpetual licence on three Macs, and every future update. No renewal and no separate charge for major versions.
Is there a catch in the free tier?
The limit is 2,000 words per week, checked against a server counter so the quota cannot be reset by reinstalling. Local dictation itself sends nothing: no audio, no transcript.
Do I have to pay a cloud provider on top?
Not with the local engine, and not with the bundled Groq mode. If you want another cloud engine, you use your own API key and the provider bills you directly.
What is the price if I have two Macs?
Still €5. The licence covers three Macs.
Stop renting a keyboard shortcut
Local dictation into any Mac app. Free to start, €5 once for good.