Sayburst vs Voicy: Mac dictation, paid once or monthly

If you dictate on a Mac and nowhere else, Sayburst is the better buy: it transcribes on your Mac out of the box, tidies the text without an internet connection, and costs $29 once instead of $8.49 a month. If you want one dictation account across a Mac, a Windows PC, a Linux box and your phone, Voicy covers all of them and Sayburst doesn't.

We make Sayburst, so weigh this page with that in mind. Everything here about Voicy comes from usevoicy.com/pricing and Voicy's offline dictation page, checked October 31, 2026. We haven't run Voicy ourselves for this page; we describe it from its own site.

#Side by side

#What each app is

Voicy is a dictation app that types into whatever app or site you're using, and it's built to be everywhere: desktop apps for Mac, Windows and Linux, phone apps for iPhone and Android, and a Chrome extension. Its standard dictation is online and covers more than 50 languages with automatic detection; the site says you can switch languages mid-sentence. The desktop apps add an offline mode that downloads a model once and then transcribes on your computer, with 25 languages. Voicy's privacy wording says it doesn't keep your transcripts or recordings in its database and doesn't train on them.

Sayburst is a Mac app that does one job. Hold fn, talk, let go, and cleaned-up text lands where your cursor is, in any app you can type in. The speech model runs on your Mac (Parakeet v3 by default, on the Neural Engine), so there's no online mode to switch away from. It's offline from the first dictation after the model download.

#Where your voice goes

This is the biggest practical difference, and it's about defaults.

With Voicy, offline is a mode you turn on, available in the desktop apps. Voicy's own page lists what still goes online with it on: Rewrite Mode, Custom Modes, file transcription and retrying old recordings. On a Mac, offline mode also needs macOS 15 or later.

With Sayburst, everything that turns your voice into text happens on the Mac: recognition, cleanup, and Sayburst Writer, the optional AI model that rewrites rambling speech into tidy prose. Audio is never uploaded. The only way anything leaves the Mac is if you choose to connect your own cloud writing provider (OpenAI, Anthropic and others), and even then only the transcribed text goes, never audio. Sayburst shows you exactly what will be sent before you switch it on. More on that split in offline dictation on Mac.

#What lands on the page

Say you're answering a customer in Gmail and you talk the way people talk:

"Hi Priya, um, so the refund went through on Monday, no wait, Tuesday, and you should, uh, see it in three to five business days. New paragraph. Thanks for, for your patience."

With Sayburst in Email mode and Sayburst Writer on, this is what's typed into the reply:

Hi Priya,

The refund went through on Tuesday, and you should see it in three to five business days.

Thanks for your patience.

The filler words, the doubled "for" and the Monday you took back are gone, and no internet was involved. You can set Email mode for your browser or Mail and Message mode for Slack, so each app gets the right tone without you choosing every time. If you write a lot of mail, the Gmail setup guide walks through it.

Voicy also adds punctuation and offers AI rewriting for emails and documents. The difference is that its rewriting runs online, so on a plane or a hotel network you get the raw transcript.

#What you pay

Voicy's plans, as listed on its pricing page:

• Free trial: 30 minutes of recording time, every feature, no card.
• Pro: $8.49 a month, unlimited recording on unlimited personal devices, desktop and mobile. The page advertises 20% off annual billing but doesn't show the annual price.
• Lifetime: $260 once.
• Team: $6.79 per user a month, minimum three users.
• Students and people with disabilities get 20% off.

Sayburst has a 7-day free trial with no card, then $29 once for one Mac or $49 for up to three Macs, including every 1.x update. There's no subscription and a 14-day refund window.

Voicy's lifetime price makes sense if you'll use it on several platforms for years. If your dictation happens on Macs, Sayburst costs a fraction of it.

#Where Voicy is the better fit

• You're not only on a Mac. Voicy runs on Windows, Linux, iPhone and Android, and has a Chrome extension. Sayburst is a Mac app and nothing else; there's no Windows, Linux, phone or browser-extension version.
• You need lots of languages online, mixed freely. Voicy lists 50+ languages online and says you can switch mid-sentence. Sayburst covers 25 languages with Parakeet and 99 with Whisper models, but you pick a model rather than mixing languages in one sentence.
• You're buying for a team. Voicy has a Team plan with central billing. Sayburst has no team or admin plan.
• You're on an Intel Mac. Sayburst needs Apple silicon (M1 or later) and macOS 14 Sonoma or later.

#Where Sayburst is the better fit

• Offline is your normal, not a mode. Transcription, cleanup and the AI writer all run on the Mac, with no connection after the model download.
• You'd rather not subscribe. $29 once is less than four months of Voicy Pro.
• You want it to spell your world correctly. Add names, products and jargon to the vocabulary, and set replacements like "my calendar link" to the actual URL. Fix a name by hand after dictating and Sayburst offers to learn it.
• You don't want to lose a sentence. If you click away mid-dictation or land in a field that won't accept text, Sayburst keeps what you said and offers it back. ⌃⌥⌘V pastes your last dictation anywhere.
• You use the keyboard and mouse you already have. Hold fn, right ⌥, right ⌘ or a mouse side button; tap fn once to go hands-free for longer passages; Esc cancels and types nothing.

For a wider field, see the best dictation apps for Mac, the Sayburst vs Wispr Flow comparison, or every head-to-head on our compare page.

Our take

On a Mac, Sayburst does what Voicy does by default, and does it locally: on-device transcription, cleanup and AI rewriting that keep working offline, for $29 once. Pick Voicy if you need the same app on Windows, Linux or your phone, want a team plan, or need 50+ languages mixed in one sentence.

Questions people ask

Is Sayburst or Voicy better on a Mac?

For dictating into Mac apps, Sayburst: it transcribes on your Mac by default, cleans up the text with an optional on-device writer, and costs $29 once. Voicy is the better pick if you also need Windows, Linux, a phone app or a Chrome extension under one plan.

Does Voicy work offline?

Its desktop apps have an offline mode that transcribes on your computer in 25 languages. On a Mac it needs macOS 15 or later, and Voicy says Rewrite Mode and Custom Modes still need a connection.

How much does Voicy cost compared with Sayburst?

Voicy Pro is $8.49 a month, Lifetime is $260 once, and Team is $6.79 per user a month with a three-user minimum. Sayburst is $29 once for one Mac or $49 for up to three Macs.

Where do Willow Voice and Wispr Flow fit next to Voicy?

Both are cloud dictation subscriptions that list Pro at $15 a month or $12 a month billed yearly. Voicy is cheaper month to month and has a lifetime option; Sayburst is cheaper still and keeps transcription on the Mac.