Wispr Flow vs SuperWhisper vs Ottex AI

Pricing is often the first consideration when choosing a dictation app. All three take different approaches: Wispr Flow uses a traditional SaaS subscription, SuperWhisper offers both subscription and lifetime options, and Ottex AI pioneered the BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) model.

With BYOK, you connect your own OpenRouter or API key and pay only for actual usage. For typical users dictating 30-60 minutes per day, this works out to roughly $1-3 per month—a fraction of traditional subscription costs.

Wispr Flow's $15/month subscription includes unlimited dictation but gates advanced privacy features (SOC 2, HIPAA) behind enterprise pricing that can exceed $10,000/month. SuperWhisper's $249 lifetime option seems expensive upfront but pays for itself in about 17 months versus Wispr Flow's subscription.

Transcription quality depends on the underlying AI model and how well it handles your accent, vocabulary, and speaking style. Wispr Flow uses proprietary cloud models, SuperWhisper uses OpenAI's Whisper models locally, and Ottex AI lets you choose from multiple providers including Google's Gemini, OpenAI's Whisper, and Anthropic's Claude.

In our testing, cloud-based transcription (Wispr Flow, Ottex AI with Gemini) consistently outperformed local Whisper models for accuracy, especially with technical terminology and non-native accents. However, local processing has zero latency concerns and works without internet.

SuperWhisper offers multiple model sizes (Nano, Fast, Pro, Ultra) with a tradeoff between speed and accuracy. The larger models approach cloud quality but require significant processing time on older hardware.

Voice commands let you control your dictation naturally without touching the keyboard. The most important is correction commands—the ability to say "scratch that" or "actually" to fix mistakes mid-flow.

Wispr Flow pioneered natural voice corrections and does them well. You can say "scratch that" to delete the last phrase, "actually" followed by a correction, or "delete last sentence." This keeps you in flow without breaking to edit.

SuperWhisper, surprisingly, has no voice correction capability. If you make a mistake, you must stop recording, manually edit, and restart. For long-form dictation, this is a significant productivity hit that many users cite as a dealbreaker.

Ottex AI matches Wispr Flow's correction commands and adds unique inline AI commands. Say "Ottex start translate this to Spanish Ottex end" and the translation happens mid-dictation. No post-processing, no separate step—the AI transforms your speech as you speak.

Beyond basic transcription, AI features can transform your dictated text—fixing grammar, changing tone, translating, or formatting. The key difference is when this happens: post-processing (after you finish) or inline (during dictation).

Wispr Flow offers "Command Mode" where you dictate, then apply AI transformations afterward. It's a two-step process: dictate first, then trigger the AI to clean up or transform.

SuperWhisper has custom modes with AI prompts that process your dictation. You can create modes for different use cases, but the AI runs after transcription completes—not during.

Ottex AI is unique in offering inline AI commands. Say "Ottex start find a Churchill quote about perseverance Ottex end" and the quote appears inline with your dictation. This "vibe typing" approach—thinking out loud and getting formatted output—is something no other tool offers.

Additionally, Ottex AI has dedicated AI shortcuts: select any text, trigger a shortcut, and apply transformations like Fix Grammar, Translate, Improve Writing, or Make Concise. These work system-wide on any selected text, not just dictated content.

Privacy in voice-to-text apps comes down to one question: where does your audio go? Local processing keeps everything on your device. Cloud processing sends your voice to servers for transcription.

SuperWhisper is the privacy champion—100% offline processing means your voice never leaves your device. This is ideal for sensitive content, legal work, or anyone who simply doesn't want their voice in the cloud.

Wispr Flow is cloud-only and raises significant privacy concerns. Beyond audio processing, Wispr Flow's "Context Awareness" feature captures screenshots of your active window to improve suggestions. For developers working with proprietary code or anyone handling sensitive information, this is a dealbreaker.

Ottex AI takes a middle approach: your audio goes directly to your chosen API provider (OpenRouter, Google, etc.) with zero storage on Ottex servers. You control which provider handles your data, and nothing is retained after processing. It's not fully offline, but it's transparent and gives you control.

Performance matters for a tool you use constantly. Slow startup, high memory usage, or fans spinning up can all disrupt your workflow.

Wispr Flow is built with Electron (web technologies wrapped as a desktop app) and it shows. Users report around 800MB RAM usage even when idle, 8% CPU consumption in the background, and 8-10 second startup times. On Windows, users report the app freezing and sometimes taking down other apps like VS Code with it.

SuperWhisper is native Swift on Mac, resulting in much lower resource usage (~100MB). However, using larger AI models locally can spike CPU usage significantly during transcription. The tradeoff is between model size (accuracy) and processing speed.

Ottex AI is also native Swift, targeting around 50MB memory footprint. Since transcription happens in the cloud, your CPU stays cool. Startup is near-instant. The only performance consideration is network latency to your chosen API provider.