Compare talat and Plaud
Plaud makes small AI voice recorders: the Note, the Note Pro and the NotePin, which you carry into a meeting or clip on and forget. The recording goes to the Plaud app, Plaud’s cloud transcribes it and writes a summary, and a subscription sets how many minutes a month you get.
For a lot of Plaud owners the reason to pay was that it knew who was speaking. On 13 October 2026 Plaud rewrote its support pages to say that it now labels only your own voice. Everyone else appears as Speaker 1, Speaker 2, and so on, and a name you give them “applies only to that recording”. Owners report that the speaker profiles they had built up are gone.
talat is software, not a recorder. It runs on your Mac or PC, does all of its transcribing there, and remembers the people you meet. If you already own a Plaud, you can keep using it and bring the recordings to talat.
Feature comparison.
| talat | Plaud | |
|---|---|---|
| Recognising people across recordings | Name someone once and talat knows their voice in later meetings | Your own voice only; everyone else is named again in each recording |
| Where voice prints are kept | On your machine; never on our servers | Your own profile, synced through Plaud's cloud if you turn sync on |
| Where transcription happens | On your Mac or PC | Plaud's cloud, using OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, counted against your monthly minutes |
| Minute limits | None | 300 a month free, 1,200 on Pro; unused minutes don't roll over |
| Price | 10 hours free, then $9 a month, $89 a year, or $189 once | A recorder from $159 to $189, then free, Pro at $17.99 a month or $99.99 a year, or Unlimited at $29.99 a month or $239.99 a year |
| What records | Your computer's microphone and system audio; nothing to buy | A Plaud recorder; Plaud Desktop, for calls on a computer, only works if you own one |
| Platforms | macOS, Windows | iOS and Android app, web, and Plaud Desktop for macOS and Windows |
| Account required | No | Yes |
| Works without internet | Yes, from recording to summary | The recorder does; transcripts and summaries need Plaud's cloud |
| Languages | 33 | More than 112 |
| Importing recordings | Yes, including the MP3 and WAV files Plaud exports | Yes |
| Model for summaries | Built-in local model, Ollama, your own API key, or Claude Code or Codex | Plaud's cloud, with thousands of templates |
The Plaud column comes from Plaud’s own US pricing page and support articles as they read on 13 October 2026. Prices vary by region. We haven’t used a Plaud device ourselves. If you spot anything that’s wrong, outdated, or missing, please let us know.
Name someone once.
Plaud still separates the voices in a recording. What has gone is the memory. Its auto speaker labeling page now says: “Plaud does not automatically identify other speakers. They appear as Speaker 1, Speaker 2, and so on. You can name them manually, and those names apply only to that recording.” If you record eight calls a day with the same handful of colleagues, that is the same names typed in again on every one of them.
talat keeps a voice print for each person you name. The next time they speak, in a meeting or in a recording you import, talat recognises them. You choose how much it does with that: suggest the name for you to confirm with a click, add them for you, or neither. Correcting a line teaches it the voice, so it gets better the more you use it.
Plaud hasn’t said why it made the change. The voice prints talat keeps live on your own computer, and never on our servers, so there is nothing of yours for us to delete. Whether you should keep a voice print of a colleague is still your call to make; in some places the law expects you to ask them first.
Keep the recorder, change what listens.
Plaud lets you export your recordings as MP3 or WAV files from the app or from Plaud Web, one at a time or in bulk. talat imports both. Drop a file onto the talat window and it is transcribed on your machine, split by speaker, and summarised like any meeting recorded live.
Importing counts against no minute allowance, and nothing is uploaded. Name the people in your first few recordings and talat starts recognising them in the rest.
Where Plaud is the better tool.
A Plaud is a recorder you can put on the table in a room with no laptop, wear all day, or press against a phone to record a call. talat needs a Mac or PC in the room, and it can’t record a mobile phone call on its own. For interviews in the field, ward rounds or site visits, a dedicated recorder is the better tool, and Plaud makes good ones.
Plaud also has phone apps and a web app, transcribes over 112 languages to talat’s 33, and offers team workspaces. Its transcripts and summaries live in Plaud’s cloud, so they are on every device you sign in on. talat keeps everything on the machine that recorded it.
What you pay, and how often.
Plaud starts with the recorder: $159 for the Note or NotePin, $179 for the NotePin S, $189 for the Note Pro. After that, the Starter plan is free with 300 minutes a month. Pro is $17.99 a month or $99.99 a year for 1,200 minutes, and Unlimited is $29.99 a month or $239.99 a year. Minutes you don’t use are lost at the end of the month.
talat is $9 a month, $89 a year, or $189 once for a lifetime licence you own outright. There are no minutes to count, because talat does the work on your own machine.
talat is a full app, not just a recorder.
Privacy is the headline, but it isn’t the whole story. talat does the things you actually reach for day to day, all on your own machine.
Full audio playback
Play the original recording back in sync with the transcript, kept locally on your machine.
Dictation in any app
System-wide voice-to-text, straight into whatever you're typing in.
Import past recordings
Bring in existing audio and video files and transcribe them on-device.
In-meeting screenshots
Grab slides and shared screens while you record, saved with the meeting.
Search every meeting
Full-text search across your whole local history, no cloud index.
Yours to keep
A one-time purchase that works fully offline, with no account.
Which one's right for you?
Choose Plaud if...
- You record in places where there’s no laptop
- You want to record phone calls on your mobile
- You want your transcripts on your phone and the web
- You don’t mind naming the speakers in every recording
Choose talat if...
- You meet the same people often and want to name them only once
- You’d rather nobody else held your colleagues’ voice prints
- Your meetings are on your Mac or PC, in person or on calls
- You want no monthly minute limit
- You’d like the option of a one-time licence
- You already have Plaud recordings and want them transcribed privately
10 hours free, no account.
Download talat and use every feature with 10 hours of free recording time; no account or payment needed.