Why dictation apps charge every month
Almost every modern dictation app sends your audio to an AI speech service. That service charges by the second of audio. The app pays that bill, adds its margin, and smooths the whole thing into a flat monthly fee.
A flat fee is simple, and it also means a light user pays the same as someone who dictates all day. If you say ten words on a quiet Tuesday, you still pay for the month. Stop using the app for a few weeks and the fee keeps running until you remember to cancel.
How Reeve splits the bill
Reeve separates the two things you are paying for:
- The app: $19, once. Updates are included. There is no renewal date and no account to create.
- The speech service: billed to you by the provider. You connect your own key from a supported AI provider (OpenAI or ElevenLabs today). The provider bills you for the seconds you actually dictate. Reeve adds nothing on top and never sees that bill.
Talk a lot and you pay a little more. Go on holiday and you pay nothing.
The cost, worked out
A 15-second dictation costs about $0.0014 with the provider. That is roughly half a cent per minute of talking. Here is what that looks like across different habits, counting about 21 working days a month:
| How you use it | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| 10 short dictations a day | ≈ $0.30 | ≈ $3.60 |
| 50 short dictations a day | ≈ $1.50 | ≈ $18 |
| 50 a day plus a five-minute brain dump every morning | ≈ $2.10 | ≈ $25 |
Now put that next to a typical dictation subscription at $15 a month, for someone dictating 50 times a day:
| Subscription at $15/month | Reeve, $19 + usage | |
|---|---|---|
| After 12 months | $180 | ≈ $37 |
| After 24 months | $360 | ≈ $55 |
| After 36 months | $540 | ≈ $73 |
The gap grows every month, because only one of the two columns has a fixed fee in it.
“Bring your own key”, in plain words
Think of it like the electricity meter in your flat. The landlord sold you the lamp once. The power company bills you for what the lamp uses, and the meter is in your name.
An API key is that meter. It is a long line of letters and numbers that the AI provider gives you, and it tells the provider which account to bill. You do not need to write code to get one. The steps are the same as signing up for most web services:
- Create an account with a supported provider.
- Add a payment card and, if you like, a monthly spending limit. A limit of a few dollars is plenty for most people.
- Open the provider's API keys page and create a new key.
- Copy it and paste it into Reeve once.
Reeve stores the key in the macOS Keychain, the same place your Mac keeps saved passwords. The support page walks through this step by step.
What you give up
To be fair about it, this model asks a little more of you than a subscription does. You set up one extra account with a provider, and your usage cost moves a little from month to month. Reeve also needs an internet connection, because the transcription happens at the provider. If you want nothing to leave your Mac, the dictation built into macOS processes speech on the device for many languages; we compare the two on the voice to text on Mac page.
Switching from a paid dictation app
If you are paying for another dictation app today, we give part of the $19 back. Paid for 1 to 5 months: $5 back. Paid for 6 months or more: $10 back. Buy Reeve, then reply to your Stripe receipt with a screenshot or invoice that shows your old plan and how long you had it. The refund arrives minus the card fee. Details are on the refunds page.