Dragon Professional

Nuance's locally installed Windows speech recognition with full voice command and control, sold as a perpetual license.

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Dragon Professional v16 is Nuance's (now part of Microsoft) desktop speech recognition for Windows 10 and 11. It dictates live into documents, spreadsheets, email and forms, controls applications, menus and the mouse by voice, and adapts to a single speaker's voice with its Deep Learning engine. Users can add custom words, build auto-texts and step-by-step commands, transcribe recorded audio files and play back their dictation. It is sold as a one-time single-user license; the cloud-hosted subscription alternative is Dragon Professional Anywhere.

Pros

  • Runs locally on the PC; an internet connection is needed only for download and activation
  • Deep voice-command system with custom commands, macros, auto-texts and full hands-free control for accessibility
  • Transcribes audio files of a single speaker and can optionally add commas and periods automatically

Cons

  • Windows only; there is no current macOS version
  • Nuance no longer lists a public price; $699 is the typical reseller price
  • No AI cleanup or filler-word removal; punctuation is normally dictated aloud
Platforms
  • Windows
Speech processing
On-device
Works offline
Yes
Languages
—

Pricing

Pricing model
One-time purchase
Dragon Professional v16 (1 user, reseller price) $699 once

Features

  • Yes Works in any app
  • Yes Real-time transcription
  • Yes Auto punctuation
  • No AI cleanup
  • Yes Custom vocabulary
  • Yes Voice commands
  • Yes Push to talk
  • No Auto language detection
  • No Translation
  • Yes File transcription
  • No Meeting notes
  • No Multilingual interface
  • No History

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Last verified 2026-09-19