Personal
Most people$29
was $49
Yours forever, on 2 Macs. Updates for a year.
Comparison
Flit vs Whisper (do it yourself)
Free models, and a project to maintain
The short answer
The models are free; the product is not the model. Flit is the several hundred decisions between a transcript and usable dictation: streaming as you speak, a hotkey that works everywhere, insertion that survives Electron and Chrome apps, formatting that turns speech into writing, and someone else maintaining all of it when macOS changes. Building it yourself is a genuinely good project if the building is the point. If the outcome is the point, $49 is cheaper than a weekend.
Side by side
 Flit
| Whisper (do it yourself) | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $49 once | Free, plus your time |
| Where transcription happens | Your Mac | Your Mac |
| Setup | Install and go | Build, configure, script |
| Global hotkey in any app | Yes | You build it |
| Text appears as you speak | Yes | You build it |
| Inserts into the focused app | Yes, including Electron | You build it |
| Formatting and tone | Yes | You build it |
| Maintenance | Ours | Yours |
| Control over the stack | Our choices | Total |
Compared against Whisper (do it yourself)’s own published information. “Not stated” means they do not publish that detail. Prices change, so confirm before you buy.
Why people pick Flit
- Streaming transcription, so text appears while you speak rather than after a file is processed.
- Insertion that works in Electron and Chrome apps, which is where naive approaches break.
- A formatting pipeline that removes fillers, fixes times and punctuation, and matches app tone.
- Hands-free activation, snippets, dictionary learning, per-app rules, and a codebase index.
- Somebody else keeps it working when macOS changes.
In fairness
- It is free, and the models genuinely are excellent.
- Total control: pick any model, any parameters, any pipeline.
- Nothing to trust. You can read every line you assembled.
- It is an excellent way to learn how any of this works.
Listed because they are true. A setup you assembled yourself is as private as software gets, and nothing here disputes that. The split is whether you want to keep maintaining it every time a model or a dependency moves.
What actually decides it
The model is the easy part
Getting a transcript from Whisper takes an afternoon. Getting text to appear reliably at the cursor in every app takes considerably longer: Chromium apps hide their focused element until you poke them, clipboard restoration races the paste, and a dictation that vanishes because a paste did not land is worse than no dictation. Most of Flit is that layer, not the model.
When DIY is the right answer
If you enjoy this kind of project, or need a pipeline nobody sells, build it. The models are free and the tooling is good. Flit is for people who want the outcome rather than the project, and who would rather not be the person maintaining it in eighteen months.
The verdict
Choose Flit if
you want dictation that works today and keeps working.
Join the waitlist7 days free · $29 once, up to 2 Macs · macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon
Choose Whisper (do it yourself) if
you want total control, or the building is the point.
Questions
Does Flit use Whisper?
Among others. NVIDIA Parakeet on the Neural Engine is the default, Apple Speech Analyzer is available on macOS 26, and whisper.cpp covers the multilingual tail and language detection.
Why pay when the models are free?
You are not paying for the model. You are paying for streaming, reliable insertion, formatting, and the maintenance of all of it.
Can I use my own models with Flit?
Not today. Flit ships a curated set of engines you can download and switch between in Settings.
Pricing
One price. Yours forever.
You will buy Flit once and it is yours permanently, on up to 2 Macs, with 12 months of updates. No subscription, no account, no upsell.
Launch pricing
First 100 licenses
Once they are gone, Personal steps to $39, then $49. Lifetime goes to $99.
Lifetime
$79
was $99
Yours forever, on 2 Macs. Every update, forever.
Not on sale yet. These are the prices Flit will launch at. macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon. 7 days free first, no card, and a 30-day refund.
Both include
- Every feature. There is no Pro tier and nothing is held back.
- All 99 languages and every local model, downloadable free.
- Developer mode, snippets, the dictionary that learns, a style per app.
- No account. Flit never asks who you are.
Team
Per Mac$195
$39 per Mac, once, with a year of updates. One key for everyone.
$34 per Mac from 10.
Join the waitlist
More than 50? Let us talk.
How a team license works
- Licensed per Mac. Ten people with one Mac each is 10 Macs. A laptop and a desktop count as 2.
- One key with exactly that many activations. Free a seat yourself when a Mac is replaced.
- Nothing to provision and nothing to audit. No accounts, and nothing leaves any Mac.
12 months of updates, one renewal date for the whole key.
macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon
Questions? The pricing page answers the usual ones. If a future major version is ever a paid upgrade, you will hear it from us before you pay for anything.
Still deciding?
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