Potok transcribes Russian speech; this site has been translated into English for convenience.
Of the 35 services checked, 25 have a free plan that works with no time limit: 8 have no paid plan at all, and 17 have a permanent limit next to a paid plan. For 4 services only a trial period is free. Potok (potok.now) is not included in this count: it has 14 days of full access, and after that 2500 words per week for free.
“Free” means different things in different voice input services: in some it is a plan with no time limit but with a volume limit, in others a trial period after which the service stops working without payment. We went through 35 services from our database and sorted the descriptions of free plans into these classes. This is part of the collection of data on voice input.
| Free access | Services | Which |
|---|---|---|
| Completely free, no paid plan | 8 | GigaType, Molvi, RechFlow, Win+H (Windows voice input), Voice Access (Windows 11), Apple Dictation, Google voice input (Google Docs voice typing + Gboard), Yandex dictation (Alice / Yandex Keyboard) |
| Permanent free limit and a paid plan | 17 | SpeakFlow, Diktuy, Talkpad, Lispr, v2txt.ru, Typeless, A-GOLOS, Glas (LidFly), Wispr Flow, Willow Voice, Spokenly, SuperWhisper, MacWhisper, Otter.ai, SpeechPad (voice notepad), Speechify, Transkriptor |
| Permanent limit and a trial period at the start | 3 | Talkpad, Typeless, Glas (LidFly) |
| Trial period only | 4 | WhispeRu, Voibe, VoiceHotKey, Voisty |
| Other or unclear | 4 | VoiceInk (free only if built from source), Voco and Laitis (Voco had no free version, Laitis does), Aqua Voice (1000 words, period not stated), Lynote (recognition limit not disclosed) |
| Per the website, not verified | 1 | Airword |
| No data | 1 | Dragon NaturallySpeaking |
| Total | 35 | — |
How we counted where there is a trial period and where it is free forever
We went through 35 services from the potok.now database and sorted the description of the free plan into four classes: completely free with no paid plan at all, a permanent free limit next to a paid plan, only a trial period at the start, and other, which includes building from source, a record covering two products at once and cases where the period is not stated. If the description of a plan as a whole is in question, as with Airword, that is a separate class, “by the site's statement, not verified”, neither “yes” nor “no”. An empty field, as with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, is the class “no data”, not a conclusion that there is no free plan. For Transkriptor only a part was verified, transkriptor.ru. Potok (14 days of full access, then 2500 words per week for free) is not included in this count.
What these figures do not take into account
The figures show how a service's free plan is described in our database, not that we checked it by paying with our own card. In some services the free limit differs between desktop and mobile: for example, at Talkpad and Wispr Flow the terms for the two platforms are different, and the count included the description of the plan as a whole. “Other” is not one reason but four different ones: open source code (a comparison of Potok with the free GigaType is on a separate page), two products in one row, an unstated period, and something else.
Where Potok does not win by these figures
Potok is not compared directly in this sample: its free model is different, 14 days of full access and then 2500 words per week for good, and it is not one of the classes in the table. Potok is a cloud service: recognition runs on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet. For those who dictate all day this limit may be too small, and then you need a plan without a limit.
Frequently asked questions
25 of 35: 8 have no paid plan at all, and 17 have a permanent free limit next to a paid plan.
4 of 35. For 3 more services with a permanent free limit, a trial period comes as an extra bonus at the start.
690 ₽ per month with monthly payment or 499 ₽ per month when paying for a year at once (5999 ₽ per year). Pro includes no word limit, a personal dictionary of terms, voice snippets and priority support.
The range is wide: from completely free built-in tools (Win+H in Windows, macOS dictation) to paid subscriptions of specialized services, for example Diktuy from 239 ₽ per month with annual payment (2870 ₽ per year), WhispeRu 290 ₽ per month. Potok has a free plan of 2500 words per week and Pro for 690 ₽ per month (499 ₽ per month with annual payment).
2500 words per week is on average about 350 words per day on one device: it is enough for short correspondence. For someone who dictates all day (a lot of text, documents), the limit is small, and then it is worth looking at Pro with no word limit.
Completely unlimited are usually the built-in system tools (Win+H, macOS dictation), and they are free. In specialized services the free plan is almost always limited by words or time: in Potok it is 2500 words per week.
If you want to compare for yourself
Take one of your own tasks and dictate it in Potok. The first 14 days have no limits and need no card. Potok is a cloud service: speech is recognized on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokYou dictate in the app, and recordings and voice messages are transcribed by @potok_now_bot in Telegram. 60 minutes per month are free; the Potok subscription removes the limit in the bot and in the app.
Built-in dictation and Potok
| Tool | Where it works | Russian language | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows voice typing (Win+H) | Windows 10 and 11 | Windows 11 only | Microsoft cloud, does not work offline |
| macOS Dictation | macOS | yes | on the device or on Apple servers |
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | primary language | cloud, servers in Russia, does not work offline |