Is Blabb a full replacement for Dragon?

For dictation — turning speech into clean text in any app — yes. For hands-free computer control (opening menus, clicking buttons by voice), no: that is Dragon's specialty and Blabb doesn't attempt it. If you dictate text and type everything else, Blabb covers you at a fraction of the price.

How does the price actually compare?

Dragon Professional is roughly $699 as a one-time license. Blabb is USD $4.99/month or USD $49.99/year with a 14-day free trial, or USD $99 once for a lifetime licence — one-time against one-time, that is about a seventh of Dragon's price. Blabb Free also gives you 2,000 words a day, forever, no card.

Does either work in locked-down Citrix or RDP sessions?

This is Blabb's specialty: it runs on your local PC and types text key-by-key into the focused window, so it works even where clipboard redirection is blocked. Traditional desktop dictation tools generally need to be installed inside the remote session or rely on channels that lockdowns disable.

Does Blabb have medical and legal vocabulary like Dragon?

Yes, as separate plans. Blabb's Medical Vocabulary plan (48,133 terms) and Legal Vocabulary plan (13,004 terms) are USD $9.99/month or USD $99.99/year each — dearer than standard Blabb, not included with it. The vocabulary drives on-device spelling correction and the AI cleanup pass. Dragon's specialist editions are deeper, with decades of vocabulary work behind them, and are likewise sold separately.

Blabb vs Dragon
An honest comparison

Dragon earned its reputation over three decades — it's accurate, mature, and powerful. It's also around $699 up front, showing its age, and built for a world before on-device AI. Here's where each one actually wins. As of July 2026 — check current Dragon pricing and editions before deciding.

Dragon Professional

~$699 ONE-TIME

Blabb

ONE COFFEE / MONTH

Price

~$699 one-time license

✓Blabb Free: 2,000 words a day, no card. Unlimited: USD $4.99/mo, USD $49.99/yr, or $99 once — 14-day free trial

AI text cleanup

Auto-punctuation and formatting; LLM-style rewriting is not documented as a feature

✓On-device AI removes filler, punctuates fully, converts numbers — when you pick a cleanup style

Locked-down RDP, Citrix, VDI

Documented deployments install into or alongside the session

✓Runs on your PC, types straight in†

Voice control of the PC

✓Yes — menus, clicks, full hands-free command

✕No — Blabb is dictation only

Training required

Profile setup; improves as you train it

✓None — install and dictate; glossary learns from corrections

Writing styles

Verbatim dictation

✓Six styles, from keeping your original words to professional polish

Specialist vocabulary

Deep, mature Medical and Legal editions — sold as separate, pricier products

Medical (48,133 terms) and Legal (13,004 terms) vocabulary plans — on-device, USD $9.99/mo each, not included with standard Blabb

Spoken formatting

Voice commands for new lines, paragraphs, and punctuation

✓"New line", "bullet point", "question mark", "open quote", "at sign" — layout and marks by voice

Offline

Yes (desktop editions)

Dictation runs on-device; the subscription re-checks online at least every 30 days‡

Self-correction while talking

✓"Scratch that" / "Correct that" voice commands remove or fix the last utterance

✓Spoken retractions ("scratch that", "make that", "correction") and self-corrections drop the false start automatically

History

Not documented as a dictation-history feature

✓Encrypted local history — your original words beside the final text, copy or delete any entry

† NOT INTO ELEVATED/ADMIN WINDOWS — A WINDOWS LIMIT, NOT BLABB'S. ‡ AN ALREADY-VERIFIED SUBSCRIPTION KEEPS DICTATING FOR 30 DAYS WITHOUT REACHING THE LICENCE SERVER. FEATURE AND PRICING CLAIMS FOR DRAGON SOURCED FROM NUANCE'S OWN PUBLIC SITE, JULY 2026 — VERIFY CURRENT DETAILS BEFORE DECIDING.

01The honest read

When Dragon is right, and when Blabb is

Choose Dragon if…

You need full hands-free computer control — navigating menus, clicking, and operating Windows entirely by voice, often for accessibility reasons. That's Dragon's home turf and Blabb doesn't compete there. Its specialist medical and legal editions are also deeper than most, with decades of domain vocabulary behind them — though they're separate, pricier products.

Choose Blabb if…

You want fast, clean dictation: press a hotkey, talk naturally, get polished text at your cursor. No "comma" and "period" out loud — the on-device AI punctuates, drops the "ums", and converts "twenty three" to "23". Its instructions tell it to edit what you said rather than add to it, which is a design rule we tune for, not a guarantee — so the history pane keeps your original words beside the cleaned-up text. Work in medicine or law? The Medical (48,133 terms) and Legal (13,004 terms) vocabulary plans run on your PC for USD $9.99/month each. And if you work in a locked-down Citrix/RDP/VDI session, Blabb lands text where most tools don't reach.

The economics

Dragon's ~$699 license buys roughly 14 years of Blabb at the annual price. Blabb can charge a coffee a month because there's no cloud inference bill — both models run on your own hardware, ship inside the installer, and get swapped for better ones as they arrive. Try the free trial before spending a cent.

Dictation without the dictation tax.

Two weeks free, no training sessions, models included in the download.

Get Blabb free See everything Blabb does

FREE TIER 2,000 WORDS/DAY · 14-DAY UNLIMITED TRIAL IN-APP · CANCEL ANY TIME