Wispr Flow vs Superwhisper: an honest comparison

• Superwhisper is better if you want your voice to stay on your device, dictation that works offline, or a license you pay for once.
• Wispr Flow is better if you want polished text with no setup and a team plan, and you don't mind every word being transcribed in the cloud.
• Superwhisper Pro costs less over one, two and three years, and it's the only one of the two with a lifetime option.

We make Koi, another Mac dictation app, so read this with that in mind. Neither of these two is ours, and both do things Koi doesn't. Every fact about them comes from their own sites, docs and help centers, checked on October 7, 2026. Prices are USD list prices. If you searched for Whisper Flow, that's this one too: the app is spelled Wispr Flow.

Both type into any app, both list more than 100 languages, and both run on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android. The differences are in where the work happens and what you pay for.

Sources: Wispr Flow pricing, Wispr's help center, the Superwhisper home page and Superwhisper's plans page. Wispr's help center also says plainly that you can't upload audio files on any plan.

This is the biggest real difference between the two, so it's worth reading each company's own words.

Wispr Flow. Its Data Controls page says transcription always happens in the cloud, for speed and accuracy. Audio leaves your device over TLS 1.2 or later, is turned into text on Wispr's servers, and is deleted as soon as it's transcribed, unless you turn on Dictation cloud storage, which keeps transcripts, audio and history on their servers so they follow you between devices. A separate setting decides whether your audio, transcripts and edits can be used to improve Wispr's models. On Growth and Enterprise plans it's off and locked.

A few more details from the same pages: Wispr always uses the name of the app you're dictating into and the text already in that box to format the result. With Context awareness on, it also reads limited text from the app you're in. It may count usage, like how many words you've dictated, whatever your settings. It says it never sells your data, keeps zero data retention agreements with its AI providers for dictation, and holds SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications. You can sign a HIPAA BAA on any plan, which turns off Notetaker and Scratchpad. More on its privacy page.

Superwhisper. Its sensitive data guide splits every dictation into two stages: a voice model turns audio into text, and an optional language model tidies it. Each stage can be local or cloud. Pick a local voice model and a local language model (or no AI step at all) and no audio or text leaves your machine. That's how the Free plan works, since it only uses local Whisper models.

When you choose a cloud model, Superwhisper says it calls providers like Anthropic, OpenAI, Deepgram and Groq through APIs with zero data retention terms, and your data isn't used for training. Your history stays on your device. One detail worth knowing: vocabulary words are sent along with the audio as hints, so with a cloud voice model they reach that provider too. Enterprise admins can switch Superwhisper's hosted cloud models off for everyone.

One caveat on Superwhisper's side: its site says local models only run really well on Apple silicon, and that Intel Macs work best with cloud models. If your voice must stay local and your Mac is Intel, keep that in mind. Our list of offline dictation apps for Mac has more options that never need a connection.

Here's what one person pays for each paid plan, using only the list prices on each official site on October 7, 2026. Neither free tier is counted: if Free covers you, both cost $0.

The arithmetic, so you can check it:

• Wispr Flow monthly: $15 × 12 = $180 a year. × 2 = $360. × 3 = $540.
• Wispr Flow yearly: $144 a year (Wispr lists it as $12 a month). × 2 = $288. × 3 = $432.
• Superwhisper monthly: $8.49 × 12 = $101.88 a year. × 2 = $203.76. × 3 = $305.64.
• Superwhisper yearly: $84.99 a year. × 2 = $169.98. × 3 = $254.97.
• Superwhisper lifetime: $249.99 once, the same in year one as in year three.

What that means: Superwhisper's yearly plan costs $59.01 less than Wispr's in year one ($144 minus $84.99). The lifetime license costs less than three years of Superwhisper's yearly plan, by $4.98, and less than three years of its monthly plan, by $55.65. Wispr Flow has no one-time option, so its cost keeps growing for as long as you use it.

Two footnotes. Wispr Flow is priced per user, and it charges fixed prices in 24 currencies, so your local price may differ. Superwhisper says buying inside its iPhone or Android app costs more than buying on its website, because of store fees. Check the current numbers on wisprflow.ai/pricing and Superwhisper's plans before you buy.

• Nothing to set up. Cleanup is automatic: filler words go, punctuation goes in, and when you change your mind mid-sentence it writes what you meant. Superwhisper does this with its AI modes, which need Pro.
• It adapts to the app. You can set a different style for messages, work chats and email, and Command Mode edits text by voice.
• It learns your words. With Auto-add to Dictionary on, it watches the text box and adds a word when you fix its spelling. Snippets expand a spoken shortcut into an email, a link or an address.
• Teams. Pro includes a shared dictionary and snippets, a team workspace, central billing and usage dashboards, with no seat minimum. Higher plans add SAML SSO, and Enterprise adds SCIM, MDM and audit logs.
• Meetings in the same plan. Notetaker records on Mac and Windows without a bot joining, names speakers, answers questions across your meetings, and connects to Claude and ChatGPT through MCP.

If you're leaving Wispr Flow for reasons like price or the cloud, our Wispr Flow alternatives page goes wider than these two.

• Your voice can stay on your device. On Free it always does. On Pro you choose local or cloud for each mode.
• It works offline with local models. Wispr Flow needs a connection to transcribe.
• Free is unlimited with local Whisper models. Wispr Flow Free stops at 2,000 words a week on desktop.
• It's cheaper, and you can pay once. One Pro license covers all your devices, with no limit on Macs and Windows PCs, and there's a 30 day refund on every plan.
• It transcribes files. Drop in an audio or video file (Pro) and it runs through your active mode. Wispr Flow only takes live speech.
• More control. You pick the voice and language model for each mode, write your own AI instructions, bring your own API keys, and turn on Realtime with models that support it. Wispr's help center says its desktop app inserts the text after you stop.

Superwhisper also connects to coding agents like Claude Code and Codex, and its CLI can run as an MCP server. If you're weighing a move away from it, Superwhisper alternatives covers that.

• Pick Wispr Flow if you want great text with zero tuning, work across Mac and Windows with a team, or want a meeting notetaker in the same subscription, and you always have internet.
• Pick Superwhisper if privacy is the point, you dictate on planes or bad Wi-Fi, you'd rather pay once, you transcribe recordings, or you enjoy tuning modes and models.
• On an Intel Mac, both lean on the cloud: Wispr Flow always, and Superwhisper says its cloud models work best there.
• Not sure? Both have a free tier and run on the same platforms. Use each for a normal workday and keep the one you stop noticing.

If you only use a Mac, there's Koi. This is the part where we're talking about our own app, so we'll keep it short.

Koi's dictation works in any app: press Fn + ⌥ and talk. Speech is turned into text on your Mac with Whisper (Small is built in; Base and Large v3 Turbo are downloads), so it works offline, detects 57 languages by itself and ignores music, video and loud rooms. It's unlimited on every plan, Free included.

The rest is what neither app above does. Hold Fn + ⌘ to talk to an assistant that can see your screen when you let it, circle the button you need, rewrite selected text in any app and click around for you. Those calls use cloud AI models, so your voice (and, if you allow it, a picture of the screen) goes to the model provider during the call. Press Fn + ⌃ to record a call: it's transcribed on your Mac and no bot joins. Free includes 2 recorded calls a month.

What Koi lacks matters too. There's no Windows, iPhone or Android app. It doesn't transcribe audio or video files. It has no custom vocabulary. It knows 57 languages, not 100+. And it needs an account, which is just an email. Pro is $20 a month, and Lifetime is $99 once. See Koi's pricing for what each includes.