Free
$0
Mac App Store
- Apple Speech (offline)
- OpenAI (bring your own key)
- Cmd+V to paste
- AI cleanup, dictionary, translation
- All 10 UI languages
Pick the way you'll dictate
Free, one-time, or subscription. Switch any time. No lock-in.
One app, three ways to use it
Pay nothing, $19 once, or $9.99 a month. Switch tiers any time. No lock-in.
Pro
$19 once
Direct download
- Everything in Free
- Auto-paste — no Cmd+V
- Automatic updates
- 3 Macs per license
- 14-day free trial
No subscription. Pay OpenAI directly. 14-day money-back guarantee.
Cloud
$9.99 /month
Direct download
- Everything in Pro
- OpenAI included — no API key needed
- 30 hours/month fair use
- Cancel any time
- 14-day free trial
We handle OpenAI for you. Best value at 5+ hrs/week.
All paid plans: 14-day free trial, 14-day money-back via Paddle, 3 Macs per license. See full comparison →
What does "BYOK" mean?
Bring Your Own Key. You create an account at platform.openai.com, generate an API key, and paste it into ParlaParla. OpenAI bills you directly — typically just a few cents per hour of dictation. Your key is stored only on your Mac, never on our servers.
Don't want to manage that? Cloud handles everything for $9.99/month.
What does it actually cost?
Rough estimates of total monthly cost at typical dictation rates:
- 1 hour/day, BYOK: ~$3–4/month in OpenAI fees + $19 Pro license once = ~$3–4/month forever
- 1 hour/day, Cloud: $9.99/month flat — covers OpenAI fees + auto-update + zero setup
- Heavy user (3+ hours/day): BYOK becomes more expensive than Cloud's $9.99 flat — Cloud caps fair-use at 30h/mo
Prices in USD. Paddle handles VAT/sales tax in your local currency at checkout.
Side-by-side comparison
| Free | Pro | Cloud | |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 Mac App Store | $19 once Direct download | $9.99/mo Direct download | |
| Apple Speech (offline) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| OpenAI transcription | BYOK | BYOK | Included |
| AI cleanup (gpt-4o) | BYOK | BYOK | Included |
| Custom dictionary | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Translation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 10 UI languages | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Auto-paste at cursor | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cmd+V manual paste | ✓ | ✓ (fallback) | ✓ (fallback) |
| Automatic updates | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Macs per license | Apple ID | 3 | 3 |
| Free trial | — | 14 days | 14 days |
| Money-back | — | 14 days | 14 days |
| Fair-use cap | — | — | 30h / month |