TL;DR: Willow Voice is a subscription dictation app at $15/month, or $12/month billed annually, with a 2,000-word-per-week free tier. Infina is $8.25 a month, billed annually at $99, transcribes on your Mac by default, and adds what no subscription app has: a hands-free loop. Say "type" plus your prompt, "send it" (or just "enter") to press Enter, "open Cursor" to switch apps, all by voice from two feet away. A year of Willow runs $144 to $180. Infina's unlimited plan is $99 a year and runs on your own machine.
The willow voice vs infina choice is really a choice between two relationships with a tool. Willow, like every hotkey dictation app, keeps a hand on your keyboard: press the hotkey, speak, then reach back in to press Enter and switch windows, every single time.
Infina cuts that tether. Turn hands-free mode on, push your chair back, and run the whole prompt, send, switch-app cycle by voice while your hands hold a sandwich. No other dictation app completes that loop.
Willow Voice vs Infina at a glance
| Willow Voice | Infina | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Individual Pro $15/month, or $12/month billed annually; Team Pro from $10 per seat | $8.25/month, billed annually at $99 (at the time of writing); optional $5/mo cloud add-on (billed annually at $60) |
| Free tier / refund | Free plan with 2,000 words per week, no card required | Free plan of 2,000 free words, no card required; 7-day no-questions money-back guarantee |
| Where transcription runs | Cloud-first; site advertises an offline mode | On your Mac by default (NVIDIA Parakeet on the Apple Neural Engine); works offline |
| Trigger | Press a hotkey for every dictation | Push-to-talk (hold Option) or fully hands-free: just say "type" plus your words |
| Beyond typing | Types formatted text where your cursor is | Types, sends, opens and switches apps, voice control of the Mac |
| Platforms | Mac and iPhone; pricing page lists Windows and Android as coming soon | Mac and Windows today (Apple Silicon for the Mac's on-device models) |
| Languages | 100+ languages | English in the base product; more languages with the cloud add-on |
Source for the Willow column: willowvoice.com and its pricing page, checked July 4, 2026. Prices change; check their site for current terms.
What Willow Voice is
Willow Voice is an AI dictation app in the same family as Wispr Flow and Aqua Voice: a cloud engine behind a hotkey, sold by the month. It auto-punctuates, learns your vocabulary, handles 100+ languages, and carries SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA credentials.
If you searched "willow voice review", the fair summary is: a capable subscription dictation tool with a generous free tier. We run the same comparison against its closest rivals in Wispr Flow vs Infina and Aqua Voice vs Infina.
Where Willow is genuinely strong
Credit where due, because trust matters more than cheerleading.
The free tier is generous. 2,000 words per week with no card is a real trial, not a teaser.
100+ languages out of the box. Infina's base product is English only; other languages need our cloud add-on.
iPhone today, more platforms promised. Willow ships on Mac and iPhone, with Windows and Android listed as coming soon on their pricing page. Infina ships on Mac and Windows today, with no phone app.
Compliance paperwork. SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA matter if you dictate patient notes or work somewhere with a procurement checklist.
Willow Voice pricing vs Infina's annual plan
Now the math. Willow voice pricing is $15/month, or $12/month billed annually (checked July 4, 2026). That is $180 a year month-to-month, or $144 a year on the annual plan.
Infina is $99/year. That is $45 a year less than Willow's cheapest plan and $81 less than paying Willow monthly, and it is flat: unlimited words, unlimited voice commands, no per-seat or per-minute metering. Every update is included, backed by a 7-day no-questions refund. Details on our pricing page.
Willow's pitch for that money is polished output: formatting, punctuation, learned style. Here is the thing: you do not need a subscription app to get cloud-grade polish. Infina's optional $5/month cloud add-on brings big cloud ASR models and cleanup by large language models via our cloud AI providers, plus more languages, with its own 7-day trial.
So the real comparison is $144 to $180 a year on someone else's servers, versus $99 a year running on your own Mac, plus $5/month billed annually if you want cloud polish. And Infina's raw on-device output is exactly what AI tools want anyway: Claude does not care about your comma placement.
The hands-free loop Willow does not run
This is the section that decides it for AI power users. Willow is hotkey dictation: press, speak, done, hands back on the keyboard for Enter and Cmd-Tab.
Infina has push-to-talk too (hold Option). But double-tap Command and hands-free mode takes over. Say "type refactor the auth flow and add tests" and it types. Say "send it" and it presses Enter. Say "open Claude Code", then "open Notes", and you are moving between apps without touching anything.
That loop is the difference between dictation as a typing shortcut and voice as a way of operating your Mac. If you prompt Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor all day, you can keep several agents busy from across the room, speaking thousands of words of prompts while your hands stay off the keyboard. Hands-free is our newest feature and still labeled experimental in-app, but nothing in Willow attempts it.
Willow also stops at text. Infina performs real Mac actions by voice: opening apps, switching apps and tabs, sending prompts.
Cloud by default, or on-device by default
Willow's site advertises an offline mode, "powered entirely by your device", which is more than most subscription apps offer. But Willow is a cloud-first product sold by the month; offline is a fallback inside a rental.
Infina flips the default. Transcription runs entirely on your Mac, on the Apple Neural Engine, so your audio never leaves your device unless you opt into the cloud add-on. Privacy mode is on by default: no transcripts, no audio stored server-side. Offline is not a mode; it is Tuesday.
That default matters if your dictation includes source code, client details, or anything you would not paste into a stranger's server.
Who should pick which
Pick Willow Voice if:
- You need dictation on iPhone as well as Mac.
- You want 100+ languages without any add-on.
- Your team requires SOC 2 or HIPAA paperwork, or you want a free tier before spending anything.
Pick Infina if:
- You want to pay $99 a year instead of $144 to $180 a year, with unlimited words and commands.
- You want on-device transcription by default, with audio that never leaves your Mac.
- Your dictation feeds AI tools, and you want to dictate, send, and switch apps entirely by voice.
- You want cloud polish available for $5/month billed annually only when you ask for it.
If a monthly bill is your deal-breaker, our roundup of dictation apps without a subscription covers the apps that charge a single upfront price instead.
FAQ
How much does Willow Voice cost? Willow's Individual Pro plan is $15/month, or $12/month billed annually, with a Team Pro plan from $10 per seat and custom Enterprise pricing (willowvoice.com, checked July 4, 2026). Infina is $8.25 a month, billed annually at $99 (at the time of writing), with an optional $5/month cloud add-on.
Does Willow Voice have a free plan? Yes. Willow's free plan includes 2,000 words per week with no credit card required (checked July 4, 2026). Infina's Free plan is 2,000 free words with no card required, and the unlimited plan is $8.25 a month, billed annually at $99, with a 7-day no-questions money-back guarantee.
What is the best Willow Voice alternative that runs on-device? Infina is the strongest Willow Voice alternative for Mac users who want their audio to stay on their own machine: an unlimited plan ($8.25 a month, billed annually at $99), on-device transcription that works offline, and OS-level voice control. It is also the only dictation app with a fully hands-free dictate, send, and switch-apps loop.
Is Willow Voice cloud-based or on-device? Willow is cloud-first, though its site advertises an offline mode powered by your device. Infina is the reverse: transcription runs on your Mac by default via NVIDIA's Parakeet model on the Apple Neural Engine, and the cloud is only involved if you buy the optional add-on.
Can Willow Voice work hands-free like Infina? No. Willow requires pressing a hotkey for every dictation, and pressing Enter or switching apps stays manual. With Infina's hands-free mode, you just say "type" plus your words, say "send it" to submit, and say "open Notes" or "open Cursor" to switch apps by voice.
The bottom line
Willow Voice is a solid subscription dictation app with a generous free tier, and if your hard requirements are an iPhone app or 100+ languages on day one, it will serve you fine.
But it charges $144 to $180 a year for a hotkey, and every word runs through its servers. Infina charges $8.25 a month, billed annually at $99, for the whole loop: on-device transcription that never phones home by default, voice control of the Mac, and a hands-free mode that types, sends, and switches apps while you stay two feet from the keyboard.
If your voice mostly writes prompts, buy Infina. If we are wrong about that, the refund takes one email.
The wider field, and who each tool is actually for
A head to head only answers half the question. Here is the rest of the field on one screen, with the reader each one genuinely fits.
The tools this page covers (Wispr Flow) are at the top. The rest of the field follows, because the right answer is sometimes none of the above.
| Tool | Price | Keyboard needed | Pick it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infina | $8.25 a month, billed annually at $99, unlimited words and unlimited commands | No. Speak "type", speak the prompt, say "send it" or "enter". | you want to prompt AI tools without touching the keyboard. Say "type" and the words go in, "send it" and the prompt goes, "open Cursor" and you are in the next agent. It is the only one of these that finishes the whole loop by voice in the tools developers prompt in all day. |
| Wispr Flow | $15 a month, or $144 a year billed annually | Yes. A key to start dictating, Enter to send. | you need dictation on an iPhone or an Android phone as well as a laptop, or you write in one of 100+ languages. Those are the two things Infina does not ship. |
| Superwhisper | $8.49 a month, $84.99 a year, or $249.99 once | Yes. A key to start dictating, Enter to send. | you want to pick and swap the speech model yourself, and dictation into a text box is the whole job. It stops where the text box ends: there is no spoken send, and no spoken app switch. |
| MacWhisper | 65 euros, paid once | Yes. A key to start dictating, Enter to send. | the job is transcribing recorded audio files rather than talking to your computer while you work. |
| VoiceInk | $25 to $49, paid once | Yes. A key to start dictating, Enter to send. | you want plain local dictation at the smallest possible price and you never need your voice to control the machine. |
| Talon | free | No, once you have learned its command language. | you want to drive the entire computer by voice, cursor and clicks included, and you are willing to learn a command language to get there. Talon is the serious hands-free tool on this list. Infina goes after the same freedom with three ordinary English words instead of a syntax to learn. |
| Apple Dictation | free, built in | Yes. A key to start dictating, Enter to send. | you dictate a sentence here and there and do not want to install anything. |
The part that is actually different: zero keypresses
The mainstream dictation apps (Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, MacWhisper, VoiceInk, Apple Dictation) are all push-to-talk: you hold or press a key to start talking, and you press Enter to send. That is two physical acts on every single prompt. A hundred prompts in a day is two hundred keypresses that exist only to start and stop the tool. Infina removes both of them. Nothing is held, nothing is pressed, and the same loop runs on three spoken words.
There are three triggers and there is no fourth. "type" types, "send it" sends, "open" opens and switches apps. The send trigger answers to either wording, "send it" or a plain "enter", whichever you find yourself saying. That is the entire vocabulary: no command language, no grammar, no custom scripts to write, nothing to memorize beyond those three words.
When Infina is not the answer. If you need dictation on an iPhone, an iPad, an Android phone or Linux, Infina is a Mac and Windows desktop app and there is no phone version. Wispr Flow covers phones.
Everywhere else, the difference is the loop. Every other tool in that table types words into a box and stops, leaving your hands to press Enter and pick the next window. Infina finishes it: say "type" and your sentence, say "send it" (or just "enter"), say "open Cursor", and keep going without a key.