Everything you need to review EmberType
A free license, the facts, the honest comparisons, and clips you can cut into your own video. Take what's useful and say it your way.
Get a free license
Reviewing or recommending EmberType? You get a full license, free, with no strings and no obligation to say anything nice. Email us with a link to your channel, blog or newsletter and we'll send a key, usually within a day.
Request a licenseWant to try it right now? The 7-day trial needs no email or card: download EmberType.
The short version
If you only read one thing.
EmberType is voice-to-text for the Mac. Press a shortcut, talk, and polished text appears wherever your cursor is: Mail, Slack, Google Docs, VS Code, any text field.
What makes it different
- One payment, not a subscription. $39 once. The best-known alternative, Wispr Flow, is $12–15 a month.
- On-device by default. Speech recognition runs on the Mac's Apple Silicon. Audio isn't sent anywhere unless the user chooses an optional cloud model with their own API key.
- Works offline. With the local models, no internet connection is needed once a model is downloaded.
- Speak messy, get clean text. Optional AI cleanup removes ums and restarts and fixes punctuation.
Who it's for
Writers, developers, people with RSI or wrist pain, anyone whose thinking outpaces their typing, and anyone tired of paying monthly for dictation.
Who it's not for
Windows, iPhone or Intel Mac users. EmberType needs an Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later.
Fact sheet
Checked October 5, 2026. If something here changes, we update this page.
| Price | $39 one-time (plus sales tax where applicable) |
|---|---|
| Team packs | 5 seats for $79 · 10 seats for $129 |
| Activations | 3 Macs per license |
| Updates | Free updates included |
| Free trial | 7 days, no email or credit card |
| Requirements | Apple Silicon Mac, macOS 14 or later |
| Speech models | Local NVIDIA Parakeet and OpenAI Whisper models; optional cloud models with your own API key |
| Languages | 98+ with the Whisper models, with auto-detect |
| Modes | Push-to-talk (hold a key) or toggle on/off |
| Also does | Transcribes audio and video files; captures system audio (Zoom, YouTube, podcasts); spoken punctuation; custom dictionary |
| Accounts | None. No sign-up and no telemetry. |
| Made by | EmberVista. Open source under GPL v3 (GitHub). |
| Website | embertype.com |
Talking points
Use them as-is or rewrite them. Your audience knows your voice better than we do.
One-line description
EmberType is a Mac dictation app: hit a shortcut, talk, and clean text shows up in whatever app you're using. It runs on your Mac and costs $39 once instead of a monthly subscription.
Short paragraph (newsletter / description box)
I've been using EmberType for dictation on my Mac. You press a shortcut, talk the way you normally would, and it types polished text into any app: email, Slack, docs, even code comments. Speech recognition runs on the Mac itself, so it works offline and your audio isn't uploaded by default. And it's a one-time $39 instead of yet another subscription. There's a free 7-day trial, no card needed: [YOUR LINK]
Good things to show on camera
- Dictating a real email or Slack message start to finish. Speed is the "wow" moment.
- Rambling with ums and restarts, then showing the clean result.
- Turning Wi-Fi off and dictating anyway.
- Push-to-talk: hold a key, talk, let go.
- Dropping an audio or video file in and getting a transcript.
Please don't say
- "100% offline" or "never uses the cloud." It's on-device by default, but optional cloud models exist for people who add their own API key.
- That it works on Windows, iPhone or Intel Macs. It doesn't, yet.
- Specific accuracy percentages, unless you measured them yourself.
Honest comparisons
Your viewers will ask "why not Wispr Flow?" or "why not the free macOS dictation?" Here's a fair answer. Competitor pricing was checked on wisprflow.ai/pricing on October 5, 2026.
| EmberType | Wispr Flow | macOS Dictation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $39 once | Free tier (2,000 words/week); Pro $15/mo or $12/mo billed yearly | Free |
| Where speech is processed | On your Mac by default | Cloud | On-device for many languages on Apple Silicon |
| Works offline | Yes (local models) | No | Yes |
| AI cleanup of messy speech | Yes | Yes | No |
| Platforms | Mac only | Mac, Windows, iOS, Android | Mac |
The fair summary: Wispr Flow wins if you need it on your phone and Windows too. EmberType wins on price over time, privacy and offline use. macOS Dictation is fine for short notes but doesn't clean up messy speech. In-depth: EmberType vs Wispr Flow.
Clips & images
Free to use in your review, video or post. Please don't edit the logo itself.
B-roll clips
Six short 1080p clips to cut into your own video. Each shows a dictation from start to finish: the EmberType recording pill, then the text arriving. The app windows are illustrative mock-ups, but every word on screen is the real output EmberType produced from that clip's audio, with default settings. Clips 1–5 include the spoken audio; mute it if you're adding your own voiceover. Download all six (.zip, 24 MB)
Promo videos
Screenshots
Logo & icon
Your link & commission
- 40% of every sale you refer: $15.60 on a $39 license.
- Visitors are credited to you for 30 days after they click your link.
- Paid weekly by PayPal once you've earned $50. Each commission clears 30 days after the sale (our refund window is 14 days).
- Sign up and get your link at embertype.affonso.io. It takes about a minute.
Please tell your audience when a link is an affiliate link. A simple "I earn a commission if you buy through this link" is enough, and it's required in most countries.
Questions?
Email steve@embertype.com. A real person answers: Steve, who runs EmberType.