As an Engineering Manager at Buffer, I write a lot — Slack messages, proposals, code, documentation, and feedback. And as AI tools became part of my workflow, I found myself writing even more.
I've always been slow at typing, and I think better by talking than by writing. It never felt like a big limitation before, but with AI tools, I started feeling it more and more. I'd keep prompts short even when I knew I should add more detail, because typing it all out felt tedious.
Then I tried ChatGPT's voice feature and something clicked. I could include all the context and nuance that I'd normally skip. I wanted that experience everywhere, not just in one app.
So over the last year, I tested four AI-powered speech-to-text tools in my daily workflow. They differ a lot in speed, accuracy, and features. Read on to learn more about how I used each tool, how much they cost, and how I integrate dictation into my workflow.
Superwhisper: Powerful but needs tinkering
Free plan: 15 minutes of dictation per month
Paid plan: $8.49 per month
For over a year, I used Superwhisper and was quite happy with it. It's a solid tool with a lot of customization – you can configure different AI models, custom prompts, and modes for different applications, so it applies different presets in Slack versus a coding IDE, for example.
The subscription was affordable at less than $10 per month, and for a while, it worked well enough. But I ran into two issues. The accuracy wasn't great for my accent (I'm not a native English speaker), and I often needed to make heavy edits after dictating, especially with technical terms. It was also fairly slow – I'd dictate something and then wait for it to process, which interrupted my flow.
I realized I didn't want a tool I needed to tinker with and customize heavily. I wanted something that just worked better out of the box. That's what prompted me to try other options.
VoiceInk: Low-commitment way to try dictation
$25 one-time payment
I tried VoiceInk next, based on a teammate's recommendation. It's a one-time purchase of $25, and it's open-source, which I love supporting.
The user experience is clever – it integrates directly into the macOS notch. It's also fully local, so all processing happens on your device, which is excellent from a privacy standpoint. It has some customization options and was noticeably faster than Superwhisper.
For my needs, the accuracy still wasn't quite there with my accent and speaking style, which is why I kept looking. But if you're new to dictation tools and want to experiment without a subscription commitment, this is a very solid choice. The price point makes it low-risk, and for occasional use or if you have different accuracy needs than I do, it could work really well. Many folks at Buffer use VoiceInk.
Wispr Flow: Fast, feature-rich and polished
Free plan: up to 2,000 words per week
Paid plan: $15 per month
Wispr Flow is the tool I'm currently using.
It's significantly more expensive than the previous options, but the accuracy is noticeably better. It catches technical terms reliably and automatically saves words I've corrected, so it gets better over time.
The biggest difference is speed. It processes your audio while you're still speaking, so the transcription appears almost immediately after you finish. This has been transformative for my workflow – I can stay in flow and context switch much less frequently.
It also handles multiple languages smoothly, which many other tools don't. I occasionally need to switch between English and Ukrainian (my native language), and Wispr Flow manages this without any issues.
At $15/month, it's the priciest option I tested, but the performance and reliability have been worth it for daily professional use.
Willow Voice: Great quality, but fewer features
Free plan: up to 2,000 words per week
Paid plan: $15 per month
Willow Voice is similarly priced to Wispr Flow and has many of the same benefits – it's quite fast and has pretty good accuracy. For my particular use cases, it was slightly slower and slightly less reliable than Wispr Flow, but not by a huge margin.
It feels like they're a bit earlier as a company, and some features I expected weren't there yet. I'm keeping an eye on it, but I settled on Wispr Flow since it was slightly better in most of the aspects that mattered to me.
