Potok transcribes Russian speech; this site has been translated into English for convenience.
After a year and a half of daily dictation, the keyboard is almost not needed for long texts: by voice you get about 900 characters per minute, noticeably faster than typing, and there is less strain on the hands. This is the main reason for switching to voice input, and Potok (potok.now) inserts dictated text into any field with one press of a hotkey.
Typing all working day is hard on the hands and slow compared with how fast a person speaks. Over time it turns into tired wrists, losing the thought while typing a long phrase, and a feeling that the keyboard is the narrowest point in working with text. Switching to dictation solves exactly this problem: text is born at the speed of speech, and the hands are needed only for editing.
One working day with dictation
The morning usually begins with correspondence: emails, messages in work chats, short replies. Hold the hotkey, say the phrase, release the key, and the text is already in the input field. Repeating this for every message is faster than typing word by word.
Then come longer pieces: a draft of a document, a meeting plan, a comment on a task. Here the difference from typing is especially noticeable: Potok states about 900 characters per minute by voice against about 200 when typing, and on a text of a couple of paragraphs this difference saves real minutes. A response time of about 0.4 seconds means that the text appears almost right after the key is released, so you do not have to wait and lose your thought.
Professional terms and names that ordinary dictation tends to distort can be put into a personal dictionary, and then the program stops confusing them with words that sound similar. This is especially noticeable in meetings where the talk is about specific names, products or abbreviations that are not in ordinary speech. More about how models handle Russian and terms is in the article about voice input for Russian speech.
By the end of the day, when writing by hand is already physically hard, dictation removes this fatigue: the voice does not get tired the way the hands do after several hours of typing.
What changed after the switch
The main change is less physical fatigue from writing and more free time to formulate a thought instead of fighting typing speed. But a new habit also appeared: dictated text almost always needs a quick edit, moving a word or fixing punctuation, because there are no ready voice commands for editing: what is already written is edited with the keyboard or mouse, as before.
The way of formulating thoughts itself has also changed: when dictating it is easier to speak in whole phrases than to type word by word and keep going back to correct on the go. On the plus side there are fewer distractions like autocorrect in the middle of a word; on the minus side, in a noisy place or with other people nearby it is awkward to dictate, and at such moments the keyboard turns out to be needed again.
| Task | Characters | Typing (200 chars/min) | Voice (900 chars/min) |
|---|---|---|---|
| chat reply | 300 | 2 min | 0.5 min |
| 1500 | 8 min | 1.7 min | |
| post or meeting minutes | 4000 | 20 min | 4.4 min |
| article | 10000 | 50 min | 11.1 min |
Who does not need such a switch
For those who write little and briefly, a couple of messages a day, the switch will not pay off: the difference in speed is noticeable only on long texts. For those whose work is code, spreadsheets or other non-text input, dictation will not help much either. Potok is a cloud service, recognition happens on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet, so those who write where there is no connection need either an offline tool or the usual keyboard.
Where to start
- Choose a program for your conditions: Potok and SpeakFlow give a free plan with a limit (for SpeakFlow it is 30 minutes of dictation per month), Molvi is completely free, and GigaType recognizes offline on a model trained for Russian. The difference of approaches is covered in the comparison with GigaType.
- Dictate for one day instead of typing, and compare how much text came out in the same time.
- Put into the personal dictionary the terms and names that recognition usually confuses.
- Get used to speaking in whole phrases rather than short scraps, so there is less to fix afterwards.
- Keep the keyboard for code, spreadsheets and places where dictating is awkward; a complete refusal of it is not necessary.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Programs like Potok insert text into the active field of any app: messengers, mail and the browser all work. The exception is protected fields like a password input and full-screen games, where insertion does not go through.
No. Potok (potok.now) is a desktop app for voice text input on Windows, macOS and Linux: hold the hotkey, dictate, and the text is inserted into the active field. It has nothing to do with investment services or financial platforms with a similar name.
You can sign up by email with a password or via Google. When you sign up by email, you receive a message with a confirmation link; after following it you can sign in. Your subscription and payments are visible in your account at potok.now/account.
There is a free 14-day trial with full access to Pro features, no card required. After the trial, either the free limit of 2500 words per week or a paid Pro subscription at 690 ₽/mo (cheaper when paid yearly, 499 ₽/mo).
No, there is no Potok for Android: the product works only on the computer, on Windows, macOS and Linux. For Android there is Google's built-in voice typing (Gboard) or the Samsung keyboard.
The potok.now website shows composite reviews that reflect typical user experience; in marketing materials they are not presented as reviews by specific named people.
Try it on your own texts
Download Potok for Windows, macOS or Linux: full access for the first 14 days, no card needed. After that, 2500 words per week for free or Pro for 690 ₽ per month. Potok is a cloud service: speech is recognized on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokThe Potok subscription also includes the Telegram bot @potok_now_bot: forward it a voice message or a long meeting recording and it returns the text. Without a subscription the bot gives 60 minutes per month for free.
Related software: terms compared
| Service | Platforms | Free | Price | Payment from Russia | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed | Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly | Russian bank cards, rubles | cloud, servers in Russia; internet required |
| SpeakFlow | Windows, Web | 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever | 690 ₽/mo (Personal (unlimited)) | rubles directly | cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed) |
| Diktuy | Windows, macOS | 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever | 239 ₽/mo (Profi (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)); 2870 ₽/yr (Profi (year, billed in full)); 479 ₽/mo (Max (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)) | rubles directly (not confirmed) | cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed) |
| Talkpad | macOS, Windows, Android | 2500 words/week on desktop, 1500 words/week on mobile, free forever; plus a 14-day Pro trial | $6/mo (Pro (billed yearly, $72/yr)); $8/mo (Pro (monthly billing)) | unknown (not confirmed) | cloud (the legal entity is registered in Australia; the website is hosted on Cloudflare; the exact location of the ASR servers is not disclosed in the privacy policy) (not confirmed) |
| Voisty | Windows, macOS | 5 minutes of transcription (to judge the quality) | $6.7/mo (Pro); $67/yr (Pro (year)); $99/one-time (Lifetime) | Visa/Mastercard/Amex cards, PayPal; whether Russian cards are accepted is not stated (not confirmed) | device (offline, local models such as Whisper Large V3 Turbo / NVIDIA Parakeet) |
| WhispeRu | Windows | 7-day free trial (no card) | 290 ₽/mo (monthly license); 1990 ₽/yr (yearly license); 4990 ₽/one-time (lifetime license) | rubles directly (payment via YooKassa) | device (offline) |
| GigaType | Windows, macOS | free with no limits: open source under the MIT license (Copyright (c) 2026 Disrupt Builders), all features are available without payment | — | not needed: there are no paid plans | device (offline, Sber's GigaAM neural network) |
| Molvi | Windows, macOS | free forever, no accounts and no payment | — | not needed: the product is free; voluntary donations are accepted via Telegram Tribute or by card on the website, amounts are not fixed | device (offline; best quality on an NVIDIA GPU, otherwise a fast model on the CPU) |
Primary sources: speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · blog.speakflow.ru