Apple Dictation is the dictation engine built into macOS. It is free, on by default, and good at turning speech into raw text. Clair Flow is a paid product built for a different job: turning speech into writing you can send without a second pass.
If your goal is occasional, casual dictation, Apple Dictation is a reasonable free starting point. If you write a lot of practical work prose — PR descriptions, tickets, Slack replies, emails — and want it cleaned up automatically, that is where Clair Flow is built to help.
The honest summary
- Apple Dictation is free and built into macOS. There is nothing to install and nothing to pay for. For light use, that is hard to beat.
- Clair Flow is a paid product ($10/month after a 14-day free trial) focused on cleanup quality, terminology accuracy, and fitting into real work writing.
Where Clair Flow is different
- Cloud cleanup for send-ready prose. Apple Dictation gives you a literal transcript of what you said, including filler words and run-on phrasing. Clair Flow runs the transcript through an LLM cleanup pass so what lands is structured, punctuated writing rather than a raw dump.
- A personal glossary for your vocabulary. Clair Flow learns your product names, acronyms, and technical terms so they come out right. Apple’s Keyboard Dictation has no built-in per-user glossary for domain vocabulary. (macOS Voice Control — a separate accessibility and command feature, not dictation — does let you add a custom vocabulary, but it is not part of the dictation experience compared here.)
- Native in-app insertion. Like Apple Dictation, Clair Flow inserts text directly into the app you are working in — no separate window, no copy-paste step. You keep working where you already were.
- Mac-first, built for work writing. Clair Flow is designed around the writing that surrounds real work, with a menu bar app, global hotkeys, and push-to-talk or hands-free dictation.
Capability comparison
| Capability | Apple Dictation | Clair Flow |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, built into macOS | $10/month after a 14-day free trial |
| Native in-app insertion | Yes | Yes |
| Transcript cleanup into send-ready prose | No (raw transcript) | Yes |
| Personal glossary for technical terms | Not in Keyboard Dictation (Voice Control has a separate custom vocabulary) | Yes |
| Mac-first design for work writing | Built into the OS | Yes |
| Account-backed device management | No | Yes |
When to pick which
- Pick Apple Dictation if you want a free option, dictate occasionally, and do not mind tidying the result yourself.
- Pick Clair Flow if you write a lot at work and want clean, send-ready text with your own terminology handled for you, inserted right into the app you are already using.
Ready to try it? Download Clair Flow for Mac and start a 14-day free trial.