The Best Dragon NaturallySpeaking Alternatives in 2026
The fact that sends most people to this page is checkable, so we checked it. On 8 September 2026 the old Dragon Professional product URL on nuance.com returned a 301 redirect to microsoft.com/health-solutions, and Microsoft's Dragon Copilot page publishes no price at all.
Below are eight replacements with their published prices and, more importantly, where each one sends your voice. Our pick is Whisper: it runs on your own machine on Mac, Windows and Linux, needs no voice training, and costs $29 a year, with no subscription and no auto-renewal.
What actually happened to Dragon
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking was renamed Dragon Professional.
- Microsoft completed its acquisition of Nuance in 2022, largely for healthcare voice.
- On 8 September 2026, the Dragon Professional page on nuance.com answered with a 301 redirect to microsoft.com/health-solutions.
- Microsoft's Dragon Copilot page offers migration from Dragon Medical One and publishes no price.
We are not claiming any specific product was formally end-of-lifed on a given date. We are reporting what the vendor's own URLs returned on the date shown, which is the part a buyer can verify in ten seconds.
The comparison
| Tool | Published price | Where audio is processed | Platforms | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whisper | $29/year, first seat | 100% on-device | Mac, Windows, Linux | Confidential work, low yearly cost, whole-team rollout |
| Dragon (Nuance / Microsoft) | Not published | Cloud (Dragon Copilot) | Windows; clinical products are cloud | Large Windows deployments bought through procurement |
| Wispr Flow | Free, $15/user/mo Pro, from $23/user/mo Growth | Cloud for dictation | Mac, Windows, iOS, Android | Cross-device dictation where a cloud round trip is acceptable |
| superwhisper | Not published | On-device, hardware-dependent | Mac, Windows, iOS | Apple Silicon Macs, where its local models run well |
| MacWhisper | Not published | On-device | Mac only | Mac-only teams transcribing recorded files |
| Speecher | 4.99 EUR / month | On-device | Windows, Mac, Linux | Offline dictation on a monthly subscription |
| Philips SpeechLive | $12.90–$17.90 /user/month | Cloud | Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android | Firms that want a dictate-and-typist workflow with hardware |
| Windows Voice Typing | Free | Local or Microsoft cloud, depending on settings | Windows 10, Windows 11 | Light use where nothing confidential is dictated |
| Apple Dictation | Free | On-device or Apple servers, depending on settings | macOS, iOS | Short, casual dictation on Apple hardware |
Green tick: audio is processed on your own device. Amber: it depends on a setting or on the region. Red: audio is sent to the vendor's servers.
What each vendor publishes
Whisper
- Published price:
- $29/year, first seat — +$15/year for each additional seat, no subscription, no auto-renewal
- Where audio is processed:
- 100% on-device
- BAA / data agreement:
- No BAA needed for the transcription step, because no audio or transcript is sent to us
Dragon (Nuance / Microsoft)
- Published price:
- Not published
- Where audio is processed:
- Cloud (Dragon Copilot)
- BAA / data agreement:
- Enterprise contracts; terms are not published
Wispr Flow
- Published price:
- Free, $15/user/mo Pro, from $23/user/mo Growth — Pro $12/user/mo and Growth from $18/user/mo billed annually. Growth with Notetaker $33/user/mo, $26/user/mo annually. Free plan: "2,000/week on desktop".
- Where audio is processed:
- Cloud for dictation
- BAA / data agreement:
- States "HIPAA-ready for dictation with a signed BAA" and "SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 compliant"
superwhisper
- Published price:
- Not published
- Where audio is processed:
- On-device, hardware-dependent
- BAA / data agreement:
- No BAA or DPA is published
MacWhisper
- Published price:
- Not published
- Where audio is processed:
- On-device
- BAA / data agreement:
- No BAA or DPA is published
Speecher
- Published price:
- 4.99 EUR / month — 7 days free after registration; billed monthly, cancellable at any time.
- Where audio is processed:
- On-device
- BAA / data agreement:
- No BAA or DPA is published
Philips SpeechLive
- Published price:
- $12.90–$17.90 /user/month — Basic $12.90, Pro $17.90 per user per month on annual billing. Speech recognition add-on $25.90/user/month. Speech Recognition Legal from $43.80/user/month; Legal AI Assistant from $54.00/user/month as a 2026 introductory rate, listed at $76.80 from 2027.
- Where audio is processed:
- Cloud
- BAA / data agreement:
- Page cites GDPR conformity; no data centre location is named on it
Windows Voice Typing
- Published price:
- Free
- Where audio is processed:
- Local or Microsoft cloud, depending on settings
- BAA / data agreement:
- Covered by Microsoft's own terms; no BAA
Apple Dictation
- Published price:
- Free
- Where audio is processed:
- On-device or Apple servers, depending on settings
- BAA / data agreement:
- Covered by Apple's own terms; no BAA
What it costs to move a team off Dragon
What a team actually pays
$29 for the first seat, $15 for each additional seat, per year. No subscription, no auto-renewal.
| Seats | Total per year |
|---|---|
| 1 seat | $29 |
| 5 seats | $89 |
| 10 seats | $164 |
| 25 seats | $389 |
| 50 seats | $764 |
Questions Dragon users ask
Is Dragon NaturallySpeaking discontinued?
The name is gone and the consumer line is gone. Dragon NaturallySpeaking was renamed Dragon Professional, Microsoft completed its acquisition of Nuance in 2022, and on 8 September 2026 the old Dragon Professional product URL on nuance.com returned a 301 redirect to microsoft.com/health-solutions. Microsoft now markets Dragon Copilot as a clinical assistant and offers migration from Dragon Medical One. That page publishes no price. So the practical position is: the product you remember is not sold to you the way it was, and you cannot cost its successor without contacting sales.
What is the closest replacement for Dragon on Windows?
It depends which half of Dragon you used. If you used it for dictation, meaning you spoke and it typed, Whisper is the closest replacement that stays on your machine, and it also runs on Mac and Linux. If you used Dragon's voice commands to drive the computer hands-free, no tool on this page fully replaces that, and we would rather say so than sell you a disappointment. Windows Voice Access covers some hands-free control and is free.
Why did Dragon get so expensive?
Because the buyer changed. Microsoft bought Nuance largely for healthcare voice, and the surviving products are sold into health systems through procurement rather than to an individual professional with a credit card. That is why the pricing disappeared from the web. If you are one person who wants accurate dictation, you are no longer the customer that line of products is built for.
Does anything still work offline like Dragon did?
Yes, and there are more options than there were. Whisper runs the model on your own machine on Mac, Windows and Linux. Speecher runs locally on the same three platforms for 4.99 EUR per month. superwhisper and MacWhisper run local models on Apple hardware, although superwhisper's own site notes that offline models only run really well on Apple Silicon Macs. Wispr Flow, Philips SpeechLive and Dragon Copilot all process in the cloud.
Do I have to retrain my voice profile?
No. Dragon's old workflow asked you to read training text so it could build a profile for your voice. Modern speech models do not work that way. Whisper transcribes without any enrolment step, which is a genuine improvement over the tool you are leaving, and it is one of the few places where the replacement is simply better rather than differently good.
What about my custom vocabulary and macros?
This is the honest weak point of every replacement, including ours. Dragon's custom vocabularies, auto-texts and macros were deep, and no tool on this page imports them. If your workflow depends on hundreds of firm-specific or specialty-specific commands, budget time to rebuild what you actually use, which is usually far less than what you have accumulated.
What we could not verify
These vendors publish no price we could read at the source. We print the gap rather than fill it with someone else's estimate.
- Dragon (Nuance / Microsoft) — The old Dragon Professional product URL on nuance.com returned a 301 redirect to microsoft.com/health-solutions on the read date. The Dragon Copilot page publishes no price and offers migration from Dragon Medical One.
- superwhisper — The pricing block is rendered by script and did not resolve to a readable price string on the read date. The site does state: "Intel Macs work best with Cloud models. Offline models only run really well on Apple Silicon macs."
- MacWhisper — The Gumroad listing renders its price by script and returned no readable price string on the read date.
Sources
Every figure above is copied from the vendor's own page on the date shown. Nothing is estimated, and nothing is taken from a review site.
- Whisper:https://get-whisper.com/#pricing(read 2026-09-08)
- Dragon (Nuance / Microsoft):https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/health-solutions/clinical-workflow/dragon-copilot(read 2026-09-08)
- Wispr Flow:https://wisprflow.ai/pricing(read 2026-09-15)
- superwhisper:https://superwhisper.com/(read 2026-09-08)
- MacWhisper:https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper(read 2026-09-08)
- Speecher:https://speecher.de/en/(read 2026-09-08)
- Philips SpeechLive:https://www.speechlive.com/us/pricing/(read 2026-09-08)
- Windows Voice Typing:https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-voice-typing-to-talk-instead-of-type-on-your-pc-fec94565-c4bd-329d-e59a-af033fa5689f(read 2026-09-08)
- Apple Dictation:https://support.apple.com/en-us/102524(read 2026-09-08)
No voice training. No subscription. No cloud.
$29 for the first seat, $15 for each additional seat, per year. No auto-renewal. Mac, Windows and Linux.