A free Aqua Voice alternative for Mac

Published 10 October 2026

Aqua Voice is fast cloud dictation built on its own speech model, Avalon, and it formats your text to suit the app you're typing in. Saypad uses the same key, fn, but recognition happens on your Mac and there's nothing to pay. We read Aqua's pricing page, FAQ and product notes on 10 October 2026.

At a glance

	Saypad	Aqua Voice
Price	Free	Free plan; Pro $8/month billed yearly or $10 monthly; Max $24 or $30
Free plan	Everything, no limits	1,000 free words, then a paid plan
Where speech is processed	On your Mac	In the cloud, on Aqua's Avalon model
Works offline	Yes, right after install	Cloud dictation needs internet; offline varies, ask support
Account	Not needed	Yes, you sign in after installing
AI rewriting	No, it types what you said	Yes: formats text for each app, Edit Mode rewrites a selection
Hotkey	Hold fn or right ⌘, double-tap for hands-free	Hold fn, double-press for hands-free
History	Every dictation with its audio	Transcripts and audio kept on your computer
Platforms	Mac with Apple Silicon, macOS 15 or later	Mac (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows, iPhone, Android

Aqua Voice details from aquavoice.com (pricing, FAQ and its llms.txt product summary), checked 10 October 2026.

Where Aqua Voice is better

It edits as well as transcribes. Aqua formats what you say for the app you're in, and Edit Mode lets you select text anywhere, hold the key and say the change. Aqua says Edit Mode is on every desktop plan.
Speed is a selling point. Aqua says text appears about 450 ms after you stop talking in its Instant Mode. Saypad takes about 1.2 seconds for a 7.6-second sentence on our M4 Pro.
It lists 49 dictation languages, with an Auto setting that detects which one you're speaking.
One subscription covers Intel Macs, Windows, iPhone and Android.
An optional Deep Context setting reads what's on screen to get names right. It's off until you turn it on.

Where Saypad is different

Your voice doesn't go anywhere. Whisper runs on your Mac, there's no account to create, and the internet is only used for the bigger model download, update checks and anonymous usage counts. You can turn those counts off.

There's no allowance to run through. Dictate a sentence or an hour a day, and the price stays at zero.
It's ready offline from the first launch, because a Whisper model ships inside the 187 MB installer. The more accurate 874 MB model follows in the background.
Both apps keep a local history with audio. Saypad also lets you re-run an old dictation with its other engine.
After each paste Saypad reads the field back and warns you if the text didn't arrive.

Switching from Aqua

Quit Aqua or move its hotkey off fn before you start Saypad. Then add the names you dictate most to Vocabulary. Aqua shapes text to fit each app, while Saypad gives you your sentence with punctuation, so it's worth speaking in the form you want to send.

Dictate on your Mac without a word count.Free · macOS 15 or later · Apple Silicon · 187 MB

Download Saypad

Questions

How many free words does Aqua Voice give you?

Aqua's free plan includes 1,000 free words with no credit card. Its FAQ points you to the paid plans once you've used that allowance. Pro is $8 a month billed yearly or $10 month to month. Saypad doesn't count words.

Does Aqua Voice work offline?

Aqua's FAQ says cloud dictation needs an internet connection, and that offline availability varies by platform, app version and mode, so it suggests asking support. Saypad recognizes speech on your Mac and works without a connection.

Both apps use fn. Can I keep both?

Yes, as long as only one of them listens to fn. Aqua lets you bind more than one key, and Saypad can use right ⌘ instead (you'll find it in Settings).

Are you neutral?

No, we make Saypad. Aqua's details come only from aquavoice.com, and the next section lists what Aqua does better.