MacWhisper vs Superwhisper: transcription app or dictation app?

Pick MacWhisper if your voice work is mostly recordings: interviews, lectures, podcasts, meetings, subtitles. Pick Superwhisper if it's mostly dictation: talking text into Slack, Mail and your editor all day, on a Mac and maybe on Windows or your phone too. Both can do a bit of the other's job, but each is clearly built around one of them.

Everything below comes from each vendor's site and docs, checked October 31, 2026: macwhisper.com, MacWhisper's dictation docs and superwhisper.com. We make Sayburst, a third Mac app in this space, and it gets its own section after the comparison.

#At a glance

#What MacWhisper is

MacWhisper is a transcription workbench from Good Snooze in the Netherlands. You drag in an mp3, wav, m4a, ogg, opus, mov or mp4 file, and it transcribes on your Mac with Whisper, Parakeet or another model, in around 100 languages. The free version exports plain text and .srt or .vtt subtitles.

Pro is where it turns into a production tool: YouTube and media links, translation, exports to .md, .pdf, .html and .docx, automatic speaker recognition, per-speaker files for podcasts, batch transcription, watched folders that pick up new files on their own, automatic meeting recording for Zoom, Teams, Webex, Discord and others (no bot joins the call), uploads to Notion, Obsidian, Zapier or a webhook, and a command-line tool. AI features connect to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Groq and others with your own API keys, or to local models through Ollama and LM Studio.

MacWhisper dictation

Yes, MacWhisper dictates. You set a keyboard shortcut in Settings › Dictation and speak into any text field. Two catches from its own docs: dictation isn't in the Mac App Store version (Apple's sandbox rules prevent it), so buy from macwhisper.com if you want it; and the AI dictation features, like turning a ramble into a support email or app-specific prompts, need a Pro license plus your own AI provider key.

Is MacWhisper free, and what does it cost?

The free version is genuinely useful: record from your mic, transcribe files, export subtitles and plain text, and basic system-wide dictation. MacWhisper Pro is €64 once with lifetime updates. There's no subscription.

#What Superwhisper is

Superwhisper starts from dictation. Press ⌥Space, talk, and polished text is pasted into whatever app you're in. The free plan includes unlimited local Whisper models, voice-to-text in any app, 100+ languages, custom prompts and the meeting assistant on Mac. It works offline, though its FAQ says offline models only run really well on Apple silicon; Intel Macs do better with cloud models.

Pro adds your own AI API keys, unlimited cloud and local AI models, translation from any language into English, and audio and video file transcription. Modes are the core idea: built-in ones for Message, Email, Formal, Casual, Legal and Chat, custom modes with your own rules, and a Super Mode that adapts to what's on screen. You can try Pro for 3,000 words free, and every plan has a 30-day refund.

Prices: $8.49 a month, $84.99 a year, or $249.99 lifetime. Students get 40% off. More detail in our Superwhisper pricing breakdown.

#Price over three years

Both have a free tier that covers a lot. If you'd pay, MacWhisper is the cheaper one-time purchase by a wide margin. Superwhisper's subscription buys you dictation on Windows, iPhone and Android as well.

#Which should you pick?

• Interviews, lectures, podcasts, subtitles: MacWhisper. Speaker labels, batch jobs, watched folders and subtitle export are exactly that job. See dictation vs transcription if you're unsure which one you need.
• Daily dictation across devices: Superwhisper. Modes, vocabulary and apps on four platforms.
• Meetings: both record them. MacWhisper's Pro recording is built around the transcript; Superwhisper's assistant writes automatic notes.
• Paying once: MacWhisper Pro at €64, or Superwhisper's $249.99 lifetime if you want its dictation.

#A third option: Sayburst

If what you really want is the hold-a-key-and-talk part, on a Mac, local and paid once, that's what Sayburst is for. Hold fn, speak, let go, and cleaned-up text is inserted where your cursor is. Recognition runs on your Mac with Parakeet v3 by default (English and 24 European languages) or Whisper Large v3 Turbo for 99 languages, and your audio is never uploaded.

A Slack reply, said quickly between meetings:

"Yeah so, um, the export bug is fixed on staging, I'll, I'll push it to prod after lunch, actually make that after the four o'clock standup."

What Sayburst types into Slack, with the Message mode:

Yeah so the export bug is fixed on staging, I'll push it to prod after the four o'clock standup

No forced period, no "um", no doubled "I'll", and the correction wins. Modes switch per app, so Mail gets an Email layout while Slack stays casual. Vocabulary keeps product names spelled your way, and if you click away mid-dictation the text is kept; ⌃⌥⌘V pastes it anywhere.

Sayburst is $29 once for one Mac or $49 for three, with a 7-day free trial and no card. It isn't a transcription workbench: you can drop an audio file on the History window to transcribe it locally, but there are no speaker labels or subtitle exports, so keep MacWhisper for that. And it's Mac-only (Apple silicon, macOS 14 or later), so Superwhisper is the pick if you need Windows or a phone. Head to heads: Sayburst vs MacWhisper and Sayburst vs Superwhisper, or browse all of them on our compare page.

Our take

MacWhisper is the better tool for turning recordings into text, and €64 once is a fair price for what Pro does. Superwhisper is the better dictation app if you need it on more than one platform. For local, paid-once dictation on a Mac alone, Sayburst does the everyday job for $29.

Questions people ask

What is MacWhisper?

MacWhisper is a Mac app from Good Snooze that transcribes audio, video, meetings and system audio on your Mac using Whisper, Parakeet and other models. It also exports subtitles, recognizes speakers and has system-wide dictation.

Is MacWhisper free?

There's a free version that records from your microphone, transcribes common audio and video files and exports subtitles and text. MacWhisper Pro is a one-time €64 license with lifetime updates and adds speaker recognition, batch jobs, meeting recording and AI features.

Does MacWhisper do dictation?

Yes. It has system-wide dictation into any text field, set up under Settings › Dictation. Its docs say dictation is only in the version sold on macwhisper.com, not the Mac App Store version, and the AI prompt features need Pro and your own API key.

Is Superwhisper cheaper than MacWhisper?

Not over time. MacWhisper Pro is €64 once. Superwhisper Pro is $8.49 a month, $84.99 a year or $249.99 lifetime. Superwhisper's free tier, with unlimited local Whisper dictation, costs nothing.

Which is better for dictation, MacWhisper or Superwhisper?

Superwhisper. Dictation is the center of the app, with modes, custom vocabulary and versions for Windows, iPhone and Android. MacWhisper is the stronger choice when most of your work is transcribing files and meetings.