Best Live Captioning & Speech to Text Apps for iPhone (2026)

App	Free or paid	Best for	Price	Free captions	On-device / offline	Platforms
Hearing Buddy our app	Free + paid	Unlimited private everyday captions	Free; Buddy+ $59.99/yr (optional)	Unlimited standard captions, no meters or session caps	Standard captions on-device; works offline	iPhone (iOS 26+), Apple Watch, Mac
Ava	Free + paid	Cross-platform & remote group sessions	Community $14.99/mo or $119.99/yr	Sessions up to 40 minutes	Cloud, internet required	iPhone, Android, web
Apple Live Captions	Free	Phone calls & other apps' audio, zero install	Free, built into iOS	Unlimited (but no saved history)	On-device	iPhone 11+, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro
Rylo Live Transcribe	Free	Free captions plus call captioning in one app	Free	No ads or time limits (per Rylo)	Works offline (per Rylo)	iPhone, Android
Live Transcribe (Mighty Fine Apps)	Paid	Distance & noisy rooms, 145+ languages	$80 to $1,600/yr	3-day trial only	Offline mode for close range; Best mode in the cloud, metered	iPhone · iOS 15+
Otter	Free + paid	Meetings & searchable notes	Pro about $100/yr	300 min/mo, 30-min cap per conversation	Cloud only	iPhone, Android, web
NALscribe	Free	Completely free captioning	Free, no in-app purchases	Unlimited	Offline mode available	iPhone/iPad (iOS 14+), Mac
BeAware	Free	Free sound alerts + captions	Free, no in-app purchases	Unlimited	Completely offline (per its listing)	iPhone/iPad (iOS 14+); Android version available

App

Free or paid

Best for

Price

Free captions

On-device / offline

Platforms

Hearing Buddy our app

Free + paid

Unlimited private everyday captions

Free; Buddy+ $59.99/yr (optional)

Unlimited standard captions, no meters or session caps

Standard captions on-device; works offline

iPhone (iOS 26+), Apple Watch, Mac

Ava

Free + paid

Cross-platform & remote group sessions

Community $14.99/mo or $119.99/yr

Sessions up to 40 minutes

Cloud, internet required

iPhone, Android, web

Apple Live Captions

Free

Phone calls & other apps' audio, zero install

Free, built into iOS

Unlimited (but no saved history)

On-device

iPhone 11+, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro

Rylo Live Transcribe

Free

Free captions plus call captioning in one app

Free

No ads or time limits (per Rylo)

Works offline (per Rylo)

iPhone, Android

Live Transcribe (Mighty Fine Apps)

Paid

Distance & noisy rooms, 145+ languages

$80 to $1,600/yr

3-day trial only

Offline mode for close range; Best mode in the cloud, metered

iPhone · iOS 15+

Otter

Free + paid

Meetings & searchable notes

Pro about $100/yr

300 min/mo, 30-min cap per conversation

Cloud only

iPhone, Android, web

NALscribe

Free

Completely free captioning

Free, no in-app purchases

Unlimited

Offline mode available

iPhone/iPad (iOS 14+), Mac

BeAware

Free

Free sound alerts + captions

Free, no in-app purchases

Unlimited

Completely offline (per its listing)

iPhone/iPad (iOS 14+); Android version available

Hearing Buddy

Best for unlimited, private, everyday captions of the people around you

Free + paidPrice verified Oct 6, 2026

Full disclosure: this one is ours

Full disclosure first: Hearing Buddy is our app. We put it at the top because we believe in it, and we're telling you that plainly so you can weigh this entry accordingly. Every other app on this page is treated as fairly as we know how.

Here's the honest pitch. Standard live captions are unlimited and free, with no minute meters, no session caps, and no account to create. They're processed on your iPhone, so they keep working with no signal at all, and your transcript history is saved on your phone for free. Caption Together adds free group captioning between iPhones in the same room: the phones connect directly to each other, no internet or account needed, each person's words appear by name, and everyone can read the conversation translated into their own language.

The optional Buddy+ subscription ($59.99/year, with a 14-day free trial) adds the extras: Boost, which brings up quiet voices through your headphones; a tap on your Apple Watch when someone says your name or asks you a question; conversation summaries; captions on your Lock Screen, Apple Watch, and Mac; and live translation of your solo captions into 10 reading languages.

Hearing Buddy captioning a conversation in real time on iPhone — Hearing Buddy: unlimited captions, no meter running.

Price: Free. Standard captions are unlimited at no cost. Buddy+ (optional extras) is $59.99/year with a 14-day free trial.
Free captions: Unlimited standard captions with no meters or session caps. Caption Together group captions, transcript history, and background listening are free too.
The honest limitation: It requires iOS 26 or later and lives only on Apple devices (no Android or web). It captions microphone audio of in-person conversations, so it can't caption phone calls, FaceTime, or other apps. Caption Together is same-room only, there's no human-scribe tier for ADA-grade compliance, and it captions 8 languages (18 regional variants), fewer than the cloud engines below.

Get Hearing Buddy free

Ava

Best for group conversations across platforms, including remote participants

Free + paidPrice verified Oct 6, 2026

Ava (by Transcense, Inc.) has been building for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community for about a decade, and its signature feature is still the best of its kind: group sessions anyone can join from an iPhone, an Android phone, or a web browser, with speaker identification, including participants who aren't in the room. Its Pro and Enterprise plans add professional scribe captions on request for meetings and classes that need compliance-grade accuracy.

Price: Free plan available. Community is $14.99/month, or $119.99/year on the App Store (Ava's site lists $9.99/month billed yearly). Pro and Enterprise are quoted by sales.
Free captions: Yes, with limits: sessions of up to 40 minutes.
The honest limitation: The meter. Ava's Premium captions are sold by the hour on Community (3 hours a month, with top-ups sold in the app), sessions on Free and Community are capped at 40 minutes, and Ava's own pricing page says Free and Community are "not an ADA-compliant plan." Captions are generated in the cloud, so you need an internet connection.

Full comparison: Ava vs Hearing Buddy

Apple Live Captions

Best for zero-install captions, including phone calls and other apps' audio

FreePrice verified Oct 6, 2026

Live Captions isn't an app you download. It's built into iOS on iPhone 11 or later (Settings, then Accessibility, then Live Captions), and also into iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro. It's free, Apple processes the audio on your device, and it does two things no microphone app can: caption the audio playing in other apps, and caption phone and FaceTime calls. Tap the Live Captions window, then Microphone, to caption the people around you.

Price: Free, built into iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS. There is no paid tier.
Free captions: Unlimited captioning, no caps of any kind.
The honest limitation: Nothing is kept for you. Captions are a live overlay; you can copy them or clear them, but there's no saved history. Call captions are kept for at most an hour: the 1 Minute setting blocks copying and screenshots, and the 1 Hour setting plays a "This call is being transcribed" announcement to everyone on the call. It isn't available in all languages, countries, or regions, and Apple says accuracy may vary.

Full comparison: Apple Live Captions vs Hearing Buddy iPhone Live Captions not working? Fixes that help

Rylo Live Transcribe

Best free pick if you also want phone-call captions in the same app

FreePrice verified Oct 6, 2026

Rylo (formerly Nagish, by Nagish Inc.) is best known for free FCC-funded call captioning, and its app also includes a Live Transcribe feature for in-person conversations. Rylo says Live Transcribe is completely free, with no ads, no time limits, and no credit card; supports more than 50 languages with automatic language detection; works offline; and saves transcripts privately on your device. It runs on iPhone and Android.

Price: Free. The Rylo app lists no in-app purchases on the US App Store.
Free captions: Unlimited, per Rylo: no ads, time limits, or credit card.
The honest limitation: In-person captions are one feature inside a phone-call app, not the whole point of it. Rylo's Live Transcribe page doesn't describe group captions across phones or translation of captions. Call captioning is a separate service for eligible US users who complete FCC registration.

Full comparison: Rylo vs Hearing Buddy

Live Transcribe by Mighty Fine Apps

Best for accuracy at a distance and in noisy rooms

PaidPrice verified Oct 6, 2026

One thing to clear up first: this is not Google's Live Transcribe. Google's app is Android-only and has never come to iPhone; this iOS app of the same name is made by San Francisco-based Mighty Fine Apps LLC, and its own App Store listing states it is not affiliated with Google.

On its own merits, it's a strong app. Its cloud "Best" mode is genuinely excellent where microphone apps usually struggle (restaurants, group tables, speakers across the room), color-codes different speakers, and covers 145+ languages. It runs on iOS 15 or later, so it works on iPhones that many newer apps have left behind. Roughly 7,900 US ratings averaging 4.6 stars say the transcription quality is real.

Price: Starter $9.99/month or $80/year (10 Best hours a month), Plus $29.99/month or $325/year (20 hours), Premium $74.99/month or $810/year (50 hours), Unlimited $149.99/month or $1,600/year. Extra Best hours are $1.49 each.
Free captions: A 3-day free trial. Every plan includes unlimited "Offline" captions, meant for conversations within about 3 feet; we didn't find a free tier after the trial.
The honest limitation: The accurate Best mode is sold by the hour on every plan except Unlimited, and the cost is a recurring theme in the app's own reviews.

Full comparison: Live Transcribe app vs Hearing Buddy Looking for Google's Live Transcribe on iPhone? Read this first

Otter

Best for meetings: recorded, searchable, and shared

Free + paidPrice verified Oct 6, 2026

Otter (by Otter.ai, Inc.) is the biggest transcription brand on this list, with about 83,000 US App Store ratings, and it's superb at what it's built for: meetings. It joins your Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet calls, identifies who said what, and files everything into a searchable cloud library. Some deaf and hard-of-hearing users make it work for daily life, but it was built for note-taking at work, not accessibility.

Price: Pro is $8.33/month billed annually (about $100/year) or $16.99 month to month.
Free captions: 300 transcription minutes per month, with each conversation capped at 30 minutes.
The honest limitation: It's cloud-only, so captions falter when the connection does, and the free tier's 30-minute cap can end a family dinner mid-sentence. Worth knowing: a consolidated class action alleges Otter recorded meetings without all participants' consent. On August 13, 2026, the court dismissed some claims but let the federal wiretap, California privacy, and Illinois biometric claims proceed. These are allegations, not findings.

Full comparison: Otter vs Hearing Buddy

NALscribe

Best for completely free captioning, online or offline

FreePrice verified Oct 6, 2026

NALscribe comes from the National Acoustic Laboratories, the research division of Hearing Australia, and it shows. The app is entirely free, with no in-app purchases, no timeout, and unlimited minutes. It works online or offline, and NAL's FAQ lists 15 language options (including four English variants). Its privacy settings can auto-erase captions after 20 or 60 seconds for sensitive settings like a reception desk, or keep the whole conversation so you can save it. It runs on iPhone and iPad (iOS 14+) and Apple-silicon Macs.

Price: Free. No in-app purchases, no usage limits.
Free captions: Unlimited, online or offline.
The honest limitation: It's deliberately simple: no group mode, no alerts, no translation. It's Apple-only (NAL's FAQ says speech-recognition licensing fees keep it off Android), NAL notes online mode is slightly more accurate, and in online mode audio goes to Apple's speech recognition servers. Its US App Store rating is modest: 3.7 stars from about 15 ratings.

BeAware

Best for free sound alerts on your wrist, with captions included

FreePrice verified Oct 6, 2026

BeAware Deaf Assistant is a free community-built app (by developer Saamer Mansoor) that pairs live speech-to-text with customizable loud-sound alerts pushed to your iPhone and a paired Apple Watch. Its App Store listing describes it as free, no-ads, open-source, and completely offline. It holds about 4.5 stars from roughly 257 US ratings, and there's also an Android version on Google Play.

Price: Free. No in-app purchases on the US App Store.
Free captions: Unlimited.
The honest limitation: The iOS app appears stale: version 1.2 hasn't been updated since December 2023, nearly three years as of this writing. Best treated as a sound-alert companion rather than a primary captioning app.

Need captions for phone calls?

None of the microphone apps above can caption a phone call — apps simply can't access call audio on iPhone. Apple's built-in Live Captions can caption phone and FaceTime calls (retained for at most an hour). For dedicated, unlimited call captioning, look at the FCC-funded services: InnoCaption (Mezmo Corporation) and Rylo (formerly Nagish) caption calls free for eligible US users with hearing loss who complete the required federal registration.

How we picked (and how to read this list)

Every app here does real-time speech-to-text on an iPhone and is either built for — or widely used by — the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. For each one we verified the current price, the actual free-tier limits, and where the audio is processed, using the company's own pricing pages and help centers, App Store listings, and Apple's documentation, all checked on October 6, 2026.

One app is ours, and we've said so where it appears. We left out Google's Live Transcribe (Android-only — it doesn't run on iPhone), phone-call captioning services (a different job, covered in their own guide), and meeting-notes tools that market into accessibility searches without being built for them. For hearing tools beyond captions, see our best apps for hard of hearing on iPhone, and if Apple's built-in captions aren't showing up, our Live Captions troubleshooting guide.

Speech to text apps for deaf & hard of hearing: questions

It depends on the conversation. For unlimited free everyday captions processed on your phone, we'd point you to Hearing Buddy (our app, bias disclosed). For groups that include Android phones or remote participants, Ava. For phone calls and other apps' audio, Apple's built-in Live Captions. For free captions in the same app as your call captioning, Rylo. For accuracy at a distance or in noisy rooms, Mighty Fine's Live Transcribe. For meetings, Otter. NALscribe and BeAware are fully free with no paid tiers at all.

Start with the free one already on your phone: Apple Live Captions (iPhone 11 or later, in Settings, then Accessibility). If you want your conversations saved, captions across several iPhones at a family table, or translation, try Hearing Buddy, which is free and unlimited for standard captions (our app). For phone calls, use Apple Live Captions or an FCC-funded call captioning service such as InnoCaption or Rylo.

Yes, several. Apple Live Captions is built into iPhone and free. Hearing Buddy's standard captions are free and unlimited with no account. Rylo says its Live Transcribe feature is free with no ads or time limits. NALscribe and BeAware are free with no in-app purchases. Ava and Otter have limited free plans, and Live Transcribe by Mighty Fine Apps is paid after a 3-day trial. All checked October 6, 2026.

No. Google's Live Transcribe is Android-only: it comes preinstalled on Pixel phones and Google has never released an iPhone version. The "Live Transcribe" app on the Apple App Store is an unrelated subscription app by Mighty Fine Apps LLC, and its own listing says it is not affiliated with Google. See our guide to Live Transcribe alternatives for iPhone for the full picture.

Apple Live Captions (built into iOS), Rylo Live Transcribe, NALscribe, and BeAware have no paid tier for captions. Hearing Buddy's standard captions are free and unlimited, with an optional $59.99/year Buddy+ subscription for extras like Apple Watch name alerts and summaries. Ava and Otter have capped free plans (40-minute sessions and 300 minutes a month, respectively), and Live Transcribe by Mighty Fine Apps has a 3-day trial, then a subscription.

First check the basics: Live Captions needs an iPhone 11 or later, it is turned on in Settings, then Accessibility, then Live Captions, and Apple says it is not available in every language, country, or region. To caption the people around you, tap the Live Captions window and choose Microphone. Our step-by-step troubleshooting guide, linked on this page, walks through the rest.

Hearing Buddy processes standard captions on your iPhone, so captions work with no signal at all. Apple Live Captions also processes audio on-device. Rylo says its Live Transcribe works offline, and NALscribe has an offline mode. Ava, Otter, and Mighty Fine's Best mode generate captions in the cloud, so they need an internet connection.

Mostly no. Microphone apps can't access call audio on iPhone, which is why Hearing Buddy, Ava, Otter, NALscribe, and BeAware caption the room around you, not the call. Apple Live Captions can caption phone and FaceTime calls, with captions kept for at most an hour. For dedicated call captioning, FCC-funded services like InnoCaption and Rylo caption calls free for eligible US users who complete the required registration.

Because it's our app, and we'd rather tell you that plainly than pretend to be a neutral reviewer. What we can promise: every price and limit for every other app on this page was checked against official sources on October 6, 2026, each entry leads with what that app is genuinely best at, and each includes an honest limitation, including ours (iOS 26+ only, no Android, no phone-call captioning, same-room-only group mode).

Two do it well, in different ways. Ava's group sessions work across iPhone, Android, and web browsers, including remote participants, making it the broadest group tool here. Hearing Buddy's Caption Together connects iPhones in the same room directly to each other, free and with no internet needed, with each person's words shown by name and translated into each reader's language. If your group is same-room and all-iPhone, Caption Together costs nothing; if it spans platforms or distance, Ava is the better fit.

Best live captioning & speech to text apps for iPhone (2026)

All eight, free vs paid, side by side

Hearing Buddy

Ava

Apple Live Captions

Rylo Live Transcribe

Live Transcribe by Mighty Fine Apps

Otter

NALscribe

BeAware

Need captions for phone calls?

How we picked (and how to read this list)

Speech to text apps for deaf & hard of hearing: questions

Go deeper on any of them

Best Apps for Hard of Hearing (iPhone)

iPhone Live Captions Not Working?

Live Transcribe for iPhone

Ava vs Hearing Buddy

Apple Live Captions vs Hearing Buddy

Live Transcribe App vs Hearing Buddy

Otter vs Hearing Buddy

Notta vs Hearing Buddy

Rylo (formerly Nagish) vs Hearing Buddy

InnoCaption vs Hearing Buddy

Phone-Call Captioning Apps Compared

Captions that are just there.