Potok transcribes Russian speech; this site has been translated into English for convenience.
Slow or halting speech with pauses is no obstacle for voice input if recording starts and ends not by a timer but on your command. In Potok (potok.now) the hotkey (Ctrl+Space by default) is held for the whole phrase and released when you have finished; the text comes back with a response of about 0.4 seconds.
Not everyone finds it comfortable to speak fast and without stops: some make pauses to find a word, some speak more slowly than the usual pace. For voice input this should not be a problem, as long as recording is not cut off by a timer but ends when the speaker decides. Let us see how eight voice input programs are built and what to look at if speech is unhurried or halting.
| 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) |
| Lispr | Windows, macOS | 60 minutes of dictation per week for free; the key features (push-to-talk, translation, dictionary, local history) always stay free, without an account | $7.99/mo (Pro, monthly); $79/yr (Pro, yearly (from $44.90 with regional discounts)) | unknown (not confirmed) | cloud (USA; recognition is done by Groq, Inc.) |
| v2txt.ru | Windows, macOS | Start plan: 2000 words/week | 0 ₽/n/a (all of Pro is free until the end of 2026 (the regular Pro/Premium price after 2026 is not published on the website)) | rubles directly (Visa, Mastercard, Mir cards and T-Bank are accepted) | cloud (Russia) in online mode; offline mode processes on the device |
| Typeless | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android | 8000 words per week (Free plan); new users get a 30-day Pro trial, then move to Free if they do not pay | $12/mo (Pro billed yearly (effectively $144/yr)); $30/mo (Pro billed monthly) | Visa/Mastercard cards; whether Russian cards are accepted is not stated | cloud (the server country is not officially disclosed; the privacy policy only says 'processed in real time on our cloud servers') (not confirmed) |
How we selected the programs
For slow and halting speech, what matters most is how the program decides that a phrase has ended: by holding a hotkey that you release yourself, or by a built-in timer and pauses that it guesses automatically. Open product data does not describe this in detail for everyone, so for each program we also looked at the platform, the place where speech is recognized (on the device or in the cloud) and a free plan that is enough to check your own way of speaking before paying. How this feels in practice is in the story of why one user stopped typing by hand.
What stands behind each row of the table
Of the eight programs, details about recording control are in open data for only two: for Potok and for Lispr it is pressing and holding a key, that is, the speaker decides when to start and finish a phrase.
- SpeakFlow is a Windows app or a web version in a browser, recognizes speech in the cloud; it gives 30 minutes of dictation per month for free.
- Diktuy is a program for Windows and macOS with cloud recognition; the free plan is limited to 30 minutes of dictation per month.
- Talkpad installs on macOS, Windows and Android, recognizes speech in the cloud; it gives 2500 words per week for free on the desktop and 1500 on mobile.
- Voisty is a program for Windows and macOS with recognition right on the device, offline; 5 minutes of transcription to evaluate quality are free.
- WhispeRu installs only on Windows, recognizes speech on the device offline; the trial period is 7 days without linking a card.
- GigaType is a program for Windows and macOS, recognizes speech on the device offline with the GigaAM neural network from Sber.
- Molvi is a program for Windows and macOS, recognizes speech on the device offline and stays free with no time limit and no account.
- Lispr is a program for Windows and macOS, recognizes speech in the cloud through the Groq service in the USA; recording goes by holding a key (push-to-talk), this feature stays free always, and beyond it 60 minutes of dictation per week are free.
Who fits what
- Those who want to decide themselves when to start and finish a phrase, with no risk that the program cuts the recording early: in Potok (potok.now) and in Lispr recording goes while the hotkey is held.
- Those who want, to begin with, to check how a program handles their own way of speaking without paying at once: Potok gives 14 days of full access without a card, and Molvi's free access is not limited in time at all.
- Those who do not want to depend on a connection to a server: programs with recognition on the device itself will fit, Voisty, WhispeRu, GigaType or Molvi; Potok is compared with GigaType in detail in a separate article.
- Those who dictate a lot and want personal terms and names recognized correctly the first time: Potok has a personal dictionary for this, and confirming a phrase after the key is released takes about 0.4 seconds.
- Those who are ready to dictate a little and once a month: the modest free limit of SpeakFlow or Diktuy is enough, 30 minutes per month for both.
Where Potok does not fit
Potok does not fit if you need to work without the internet: it is a cloud service, speech recognition runs on servers in Russia, and without a network connection the program does not work. Potok has no voice commands for editing already inserted text: if a word was recognized wrongly because of a pause or a stumble, you can correct it only by hand. The free limit of 2500 words per week may also not be enough for someone who dictates a lot and all day, not only in short phrases.
Frequently asked questions
No, if the program records while the hotkey is held: pauses inside a phrase do not cut the recording, and the decision of when to finish stays with the speaker, not with the program's timer.
In Potok and in Lispr recording goes on while the hotkey is held (push-to-talk): you decide yourself when to start and finish a phrase, instead of fitting into the time the program allots.
Any microphone the system sees as a recording device will do. In Potok you choose it in the app settings or in the tray icon menu; system access to the microphone is required.
Potok states about 900 characters per minute by voice versus about 200 when typing, roughly 4 times faster. This is the product's own estimate, not an independent measurement.
By a model estimate, the average dictation speed with Potok is about 900 characters per minute versus about 200 characters per minute with ordinary typing, so speech is noticeably faster than the keyboard.
Yes: Windows has built-in voice typing via Win+H (Russian only in Windows 11, Windows 10 has no Russian; it does not work without the internet), and the Mac has system dictation in the keyboard settings. Both are free.
Check it in one evening
Install Potok, dictate what you usually type and compare. 14 days of full access, no card needed. 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 |
Primary sources: speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · blog.speakflow.ru