Direct answer — Is Dictami worth it in 2026? Yes, if you own an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 14 or later and dictate in one of its 30 fast languages. Dictami transcribes on your Mac, needs no account, and sells a $29.99 lifetime licence after a 7-day trial. The trade-offs: it is Mac-only with no Intel support, it is made by a single developer, and its speed figures are the vendor’s own measurements, not independent tests.
This Dictami review looks at a new offline dictation app for the Mac. Dictami promises that you “hold a key, speak, let go”, and punctuated text appears in whatever app your cursor is in, in about half a second.
We checked every claim below against Dictami’s website, about page, privacy policy, terms of use and its Whisper page on 5 November 2026. We did not run our own speed or accuracy tests. Where Dictami does not publish something, we say so. At the end, we compare it with Weesper Neon Flow.
What is Dictami?
Dictami is a native macOS dictation app that types your speech into any text field. You hold a key (the right ⌘ by default), talk, and release; the text lands in your chat, email or code editor. You can also tap once to start and once to stop.
Its about page says one person writes, tests, supports and ships the app: Yuliy Metelskiy, an independent macOS developer, with “no company behind it, no investors”. The app is written in Swift and signed with an Apple Developer ID in his name. The page even gives the codesign command to check that signature on your own copy.
What Dictami does on day one, according to its homepage:
- Automatic punctuation: commas, periods and question marks without saying them
- Insertion at the cursor: no copy and paste between apps
- Custom key: any combination, held or tapped
- One model, many languages: no switching models when you change language
- History with playback: each dictation kept with its recording, on your Mac, and switchable off
- No account: no sign-up and no email to use the app
What it does not list: custom vocabulary, text snippets, AI rewriting or reformatting, file transcription, or meeting recording. Dictami is a focused dictation tool, not a writing assistant.
How much does Dictami cost?
Dictami sells two licences, priced in US dollars on its website in November 2026. Both unlock every language and every model.
| Option | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Trial | Free for 7 days | Full app inside the app, no card, no account |
| Monthly | $5.99 per month | All updates while subscribed; renews automatically |
| Lifetime | $29.99 paid once | All future updates, no renewal |
A few details from the terms of use matter before you buy:
- Two Macs: a licence covers up to two Macs that belong to you; moving it to a replacement machine goes through support.
- Monthly access: it works for 30 days from activation, and the app stops transcribing when it runs out. Past dictations are not touched.
- Refunds: within 14 days, for any reason.
- Payment: card payments go through Gumroad, crypto payments through NOWPayments.
- Updates: the terms promise no specific feature or release schedule, only “the app as it is today”.
At $29.99 one-time, Dictami sits at the cheap end of paid Mac dictation. Our voice dictation pricing comparison puts it next to other lifetime and monthly plans.
Does Dictami work offline?
Yes. Dictami says the recognition model “sits in memory on your Mac”, so there is no upload and no round trip, and the app behaves “the same on a plane” as at your desk. You download a language model once from Settings, which takes “a few minutes” on a normal connection.
Its privacy policy, updated on 28 July 2026, lists what still touches the network:
- Licence activation: one request with your key and a device identifier, to enforce the device limit and revoke refunded keys. The reply is a signed token stored in your Keychain, checked offline afterwards.
- Card licences: about once a week, the app asks Gumroad whether the licence is still active, sending only the key. The check is skipped when the Mac is offline.
- Updates: Sparkle checks
dictami.com/appcast.xmland sends your macOS and Dictami version numbers.
The policy also states that no analytics, telemetry or crash reporting is transmitted, and that dictations with History switched off are deleted right after transcription. That is a clear, specific privacy statement. As with any closed-source app, it is a policy you trust rather than code you can audit.
How fast is Dictami, and which languages does it support?
Dictami’s homepage reports 0.36 seconds for a spoken sentence, measured on a Mac mini M1 from releasing the key to the text appearing. Its own table goes from 0.27 seconds for a 3-second reply to 1.03 seconds for a 24-second paragraph. These are vendor figures without a published test file, so treat them as a claim, not a benchmark.
The speed comes from model choice. Dictami’s Whisper page says it ships three specialist models, each “several times quicker than Whisper”:
| Model | Languages covered |
|---|---|
| Russian specialist | Russian |
| European model | 25 European languages, including English |
| East Asian model | Japanese, Korean and Chinese |
Dictami’s homepage claims 30 languages at full speed, with punctuation and capitalisation. Any other language falls back to Whisper, which the vendor describes as “slower but working”. The app picks the best installed model for the language you choose. For background on the open models behind local dictation, see our comparison of Voxtral and Whisper open-source models.
Dictami publishes no word error rate or accuracy test. Its terms say plainly that “speech recognition makes mistakes” and that accuracy varies with the microphone, the room, the accent and the language.
Which Macs does Dictami support?
Dictami requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later on an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or newer). Intel Macs are not supported: the FAQ says the recognition engine ships as an Apple Silicon build, “so the app won’t start on them”. The Whisper page adds that the runtime targets the Neural Engine.
There is no Windows, Linux, iPhone or Android version. On first launch, macOS asks for microphone access and Accessibility access, which lets Dictami type into other apps. The website also advises using the Mac’s built-in microphone rather than wireless earbuds, whose compressed Bluetooth microphone profile lowers recognition quality.
Dictami vs Weesper Neon Flow: how do they compare?
Both apps transcribe on your device and insert text at the cursor. They differ in platform coverage, languages, extra writing tools and how a licence is checked.
| Weesper Neon Flow | Dictami | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | macOS 13+, Windows 10 (19041+) / 11 | macOS 14+ only |
| Mac processors | Apple Silicon, or Intel with AVX2 | Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) only |
| Dictation languages (vendor claims) | 55+ | 30 fast, others through Whisper |
| Vocabulary and snippets | Custom dictionary and snippets | Not listed on its website |
| Trial | 15 days, no credit card | 7 days, no card |
| After the trial | Free Lite: 60 seconds per dictation, 1,500 words per week | No free tier listed on its website |
| Paid plans | €5/mo, €45/yr, €99 lifetime | See the pricing table above |
| Devices per licence | Up to three computers | Up to two Macs |
| Licence checks | Verified online periodically, works offline up to 72 hours between checks | Activated once; card licences checked weekly, skipped offline |
Prices stay in each vendor’s own currency: euros for Weesper, US dollars for Dictami. We do not convert them, because a converted price is one neither company charges.
Where Dictami is stronger: the lifetime licence is cheap, the app needs no account at all, a licence activated once is then checked offline, according to its privacy policy, and its privacy policy is short and precise.
Where Weesper Neon Flow is stronger: it runs on Windows, on Intel Macs with AVX2 and on macOS 13 Ventura, it supports more dictation languages, it adds a custom dictionary and snippets, and its trial lasts 15 days. One honest caveat on our side: transcription never leaves your device, but the Weesper licence is verified online periodically and the app works offline for up to 72 hours between checks.
Want to compare them on your own writing? Start the free 15-day Weesper trial, no credit card required, and dictate the same email in both apps during Dictami’s 7-day trial.
How does Dictami compare with other one-time Mac dictation apps?
Dictami joins a busy group of paid, local Mac dictation apps with a one-time price. Our Speakmac review covers another minimalist app sold once per Mac, and our BetterDictation review looks at a Whisper-based Apple Silicon app with a lifetime tier.
Dictami’s distinctive points are its specialist models, which target speed rather than Whisper’s breadth, and its precise privacy policy. Whether a lifetime licence suits you depends on how long you expect to use the app and how much you trust a one-person project to keep shipping. Our analysis of subscription vs one-time purchase explains how to weigh that choice.
Who should choose Dictami?
Choose Dictami if you have an M1 or newer Mac on macOS 14 or later, dictate mostly in English or another of its 30 fast languages, and want a fast, account-free tool for a low one-time price. The 7-day trial and the 14-day refund keep the risk small.
Look elsewhere if you use Windows or an Intel Mac, need a custom dictionary or snippets, dictate in a language outside Dictami’s fast list, or prefer software backed by a team. In that case, download Weesper Neon Flow and try it for 15 days. Setup questions are answered in the Weesper Help Center.
Verdict
In our assessment, Dictami is a well-scoped newcomer: native, fast by design, private by policy and cheap to own. Its homepage and legal pages are unusually clear about what the app stores, what it sends and what the licence covers.
Its limits come from that tight scope: Apple Silicon and macOS 14 only, no writing tools beyond punctuation, speed figures measured by the vendor, and a single developer behind the whole product. For a Mac-only user who wants plain offline dictation at a low one-time price, it is worth the trial. For dictation across Mac and Windows with vocabulary tools, a broader product fits better.