Choose Acousmos if keeping a private, searchable history of your voice and text matters enough to justify a subscription. Choose Spokenly if your priority is ongoing free offline dictation or working across several operating systems. For Mac users, the decisive difference is archive ownership versus a lower-cost local-processing path.
Acousmos is the stronger fit for a Mac user who wants dictation to leave a lasting, searchable record. Spokenly is the stronger fit for someone who mainly wants words entered into applications, with free offline processing and room to move beyond macOS. Both describe local processing, but their payment boundaries differ: Acousmos puts ongoing local-model access in Pro; Spokenly makes local dictation free indefinitely.
Acousmos charges for continued use; Spokenly charges for extras and hosted processing
Acousmos lists Plus at $12.99 per month or $99 per year, and Pro at $17.99 per month or $149 per year. Annual billing is displayed as approximately $8.25 and $12.42 per month respectively, but the annual amounts are the commitments. Paid plans cover up to two Macs. The $0 Pro trial lasts one month, covers one Mac and includes 20,000 managed-cloud words; the page says a subscription is needed when the month or word credit runs out. It requires no signup or card. Acousmos pricing, verified Oct 24, 2026.
Spokenly lists Free at $0 forever, Local+ at $29 once, and Pro at $8.33 per month billed $99.99 per year. A monthly billing option is shown, but its amount is not listed in the reviewed pricing text. Local+ excludes managed cloud models and hosted AI. Its page also advises Mac buyers seeking Local+ to use the website-distributed app because Mac App Store support was described as a future update. Pro states cancellation at any time and a 14-day refund. Spokenly pricing, verified Oct 24, 2026.
Spokenly separately offers multiple Pro seats with a permanent 30% discount, but no team total is listed. Our review found that this route sits behind a separate Team link rather than among the primary individual-plan cards. Acousmos's two-Mac allowance should not be treated as evidence of a comparable multi-person team license. Spokenly pricing, verified Oct 24, 2026 · Acousmos pricing, verified Oct 24, 2026.
Acousmos makes the archive part of the purchase
Our review found that Acousmos consistently connects Mac-wide dictation with a private archive of original voice and text. That changes the buying decision if you expect to revisit spoken material rather than discard it after insertion. Its site also says the local archive remains yours after cancellation. The subscription therefore pays for continued dictation while the retained record has a longer life. Acousmos · Pricing, verified Oct 24, 2026.
The constraint is ongoing access. Acousmos offers a one-month Pro trial rather than an indefinite free dictation plan. Plus includes managed-cloud dictation, while Pro adds your own provider keys and local models. A buyer who wants both the archive and offline dictation should budget for Pro, rather than assume the cheaper Plus plan covers that combination. Acousmos pricing, verified Oct 24, 2026.
Our review also found that Acousmos's most concrete usage proof came from its founder's own statistics panel. It did not find an attributable customer outcome alongside those figures. That makes the archive proposition clear, but leaves independent evidence of everyday results thin. Treat the trial as an opportunity to check your own vocabulary, applications and retrieval needs; the founder's figures do not establish your likely speed or time savings. Acousmos.
Spokenly separates free local dictation from paid convenience
Spokenly's reviewed positioning explicitly covers dictation across Mac, Windows, Linux and iPhone, with offline local models. For a Mac buyer, that breadth matters when another computer or phone is already part of the workflow. It is less decisive if all your work stays on one Mac. Our review did not establish an equivalent permanent, searchable voice archive, so archive-dependent buyers should resolve that question before choosing it. Spokenly.
