hushquill.com / compare / wispr flow
Both turn your voice into clean, formatted text on desktop. The difference is where the work happens and what you pay for it. One runs in the cloud on a subscription. One runs on your own machine, once, for keeps.
Side by side
| HushQuill | Wispr Flow | |
|---|---|---|
| Where speech is processed | On your own machine | In the cloud |
| Works offline | Yes, fully | No, needs internet |
| Free dictation limit | Unlimited, every language | 2,000 words per week on desktop |
| Paid plan | $29 one time for the first 500 buyers, then $39. 3 devices, free updates | $15 per month, or $12 per month billed annually ($144 a year) |
| Cost over three years | $39 at most, once | $432 to $540 |
| Account required | No account, no sign-up | Yes |
| Platforms | Windows and Mac, one native app | Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android |
| Urdu and Hindi in native script | Yes, free and uncapped | 100+ languages, cloud processed |
| Meeting notetaker | No | Yes, on Mac |
| AI formatting per app | Yes, two a day free, unlimited on Pro | Yes, on all plans |
Wispr Flow pricing and limits taken from wisprflow.ai in August 2026. If they have changed since, their pricing page wins.
The real difference
Wispr Flow is genuinely polished. The reason to pick HushQuill over it is not polish, it is architecture. When transcription happens on somebody else's server, three things follow: you pay every month for their compute, you need a connection for the app to work at all, and every word you dictate crosses the wire. None of that is a flaw in Wispr Flow. It is what cloud software is.
HushQuill runs Whisper and Parakeet on your own CPU. Turn the WiFi off and dictation still works. There is nothing to meter, so free dictation has no word cap. There is no server bill to recover, so Pro is a single payment. And there is no audio leaving the machine, so the privacy story is not a policy, it is physics.
The maths over three years: a Wispr Flow subscription runs $432 to $540. HushQuill dictation is $0, and Pro, if you want the AI features, is at most $39, once.
Fair is fair
Wispr Flow has iPhone and Android apps. HushQuill is desktop only. If most of your dictation happens on a phone, that decides it.
Wispr Flow bundles a meeting notetaker on Mac. HushQuill does one job, dictation, and does not record meetings.
Cloud apps have no models to download. HushQuill downloads its speech models on first run, which takes a few minutes once.
Questions
Dictation in HushQuill is free, unlimited and works in every language, permanently. Wispr Flow's free plan caps desktop dictation at 2,000 words a week and Pro is $15 a month, or $12 a month billed annually. HushQuill Pro, which adds the AI features, is a single one-time payment with no subscription at any price.
Wispr Flow processes speech in the cloud, so it needs an internet connection. HushQuill runs its speech engines on your own machine: turn the WiFi off and dictation keeps working.
iPhone and Android apps, and a meeting notetaker. HushQuill is desktop only, Windows and Mac. If you mainly dictate on your phone, Wispr Flow covers that today and HushQuill does not.
In Wispr Flow your audio is sent to their servers for transcription. In HushQuill audio is transcribed on your own CPU and never leaves your machine. The only cloud options in HushQuill are opt-in, off by default, and use an API key you supply yourself.
Try it
No account, no trial clock, no word cap. Speech models download inside the app on first run.
Windows 10 and 11, macOS 11 and later. Free forever, no telemetry.