The short version:
- Pipit's local dictation is free. I own the app; you get a licence to use it.
- What you dictate is yours. Pipit turns speech into text on your Mac, and I don't receive your recordings or transcripts.
- Speech recognition and AI make mistakes. Read what Pipit writes before you send it or rely on it.
- AI cleanup is optional. It runs through a provider you choose, under that provider's terms and prices.
- Support payments are voluntary and don't unlock anything.
- Pipit is provided as it is. Where the law allows, my liability is limited.
This summary is only a guide. The terms below are what apply.
1. Who I am and what these terms cover
Pipit is made by Pranav Kanchi (“I”, “me”), an independent developer. These terms are an agreement between you and me about:
- the Pipit app for macOS, including its updates, the speech models it downloads, and the optional Pipit account (together, “Pipit”);
- this website, www.pipitvoice.com, including the support page and sign-in.
If you don't agree to these terms, don't use Pipit or this website. You need to be old enough to agree to them where you live; if you aren't, a parent or guardian needs to agree to them for you.
Pipit Voice, the Mac App Store edition, is licensed to you under the App Store's terms and has its own privacy policy. For Pipit Voice, these terms apply only to your use of this website.
Questions about these terms: support@pipitvoice.com.
2. Your licence to use Pipit
Pipit is licensed, not sold. As long as you follow these terms, I give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to download, install and use Pipit on Macs you own or control, for your own use, including at work.
I own Pipit and this website, including the code, the design, the Pipit name and bird logo, and the site's text and images, except for the parts that belong to others (see section 3). These terms don't give you any rights in them beyond the licence above.
You may not:
- copy, modify, or make derivative works of Pipit, apart from installing it and keeping normal backups;
- sell, rent, lend, sublicense, or redistribute Pipit, or offer it to others as a service;
- reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble Pipit, or try to extract its source code, except where the law allows it despite this restriction;
- remove or change any copyright, licence, or other notices in Pipit;
- get around Pipit's security or technical limits;
- use Pipit to break the law or anyone else's rights;
- use the Pipit name or logo in a way that suggests I endorse or work with you.
Download Pipit only from this website or through its built-in updater. I can't vouch for copies from anywhere else.
3. Open-source components
Pipit isn't open source. It does include open-source software and models, such as NVIDIA's Parakeet speech model, which come with their own licences. Those licences govern those components, and nothing in these terms limits the rights they give you. If you'd like a component's licence notice, email me.
4. Your content
“Your content” means your recordings, transcripts, dictionary words, custom instructions, and anything else you create or provide when you use Pipit.
- You own your content. I don't claim ownership of it.
- It stays with you. Pipit turns speech into text on your Mac, and your recordings and transcripts aren't sent to me. If you sign in, the parts that sync (such as your dictionary and settings) are stored on Pipit's server. You allow me to store, copy and process those parts only to provide sync and to keep the service running. The Privacy Policy lists what syncs.
- AI providers handle what you send them. If you turn on AI features, your text goes to the provider you chose, which handles it under its own terms (see section 6).
- You're responsible for it. Make sure you have the right to record, transcribe and send your content, including other people's voices or words that Pipit picks up.
- Feedback. If you send me ideas, suggestions or bug reports, I can use them to improve Pipit without owing you anything. This covers your feedback, not your dictations or other content.
5. Price, support payments, and AI costs
Pipit's local dictation, the Pipit Engine, is free to use, with no subscription and no usage cap. These terms don't promise that every feature will stay free forever. If I ever add something paid, I'll say so first, and you won't be charged for anything you didn't agree to.
Support payments
- You can choose to support Pipit from the support page or from the app. A support payment is a voluntary contribution to Pipit's development. It doesn't buy a product or service, doesn't unlock or change any feature, and doesn't give you any extra rights or say in what I build. Pipit works the same whether you contribute or not.
- Stripe processes payments on its own checkout, under its own terms. I never receive your full card number.
- Support from the support page is one-time. If you set up monthly support when it was offered, it renews every month until you cancel. You can cancel at any time through the “Manage monthly support” link on the support page, when it's shown, or by emailing support@pipitvoice.com. Cancelling stops future payments.
- Because support is voluntary and doesn't buy anything, I don't promise refunds. If you were charged by mistake, email me and I'll look into it. This doesn't affect any refund rights the law gives you.
AI costs
- If you use AI features, you pay your provider directly, at its prices. Sign in with ChatGPT uses your ChatGPT plan and counts toward its limits.
- Token counts and costs shown in Pipit are estimates based on what the provider reports. Your provider's own figures are what you're billed.
- I'm not responsible for what your provider charges, including charges from retries, long recordings, or the models and settings you choose. Use your provider's spending limits if you want a cap.
6. AI features and other third-party services
AI cleanup, Enhance and Draft are off by default. If you turn them on, you choose where your text goes: OpenRouter with your own API key, your ChatGPT account through Sign in with ChatGPT, or a server you set up, such as a model running on your own Mac.
- Your use of a provider is between you and that provider. Its terms, usage policies, limits and privacy policy apply, and following them is up to you.
- Requests go from your Mac straight to the provider. I don't run these services and I'm not responsible for their availability, their output, how they handle your data, or what they charge.
- Providers can change their prices, models, limits or access, or stop working with Pipit. I can't promise that any integration, including Sign in with ChatGPT, will keep working.
- Pipit isn't affiliated with or endorsed by OpenAI, OpenRouter, NVIDIA, Apple, or other companies named on this site. Their names belong to their owners.
This website links to other sites, such as Pipit's documentation, Stripe and provider pages. I'm not responsible for their content or how they work.
7. Permissions, accounts, and your responsibilities
Permissions
Pipit asks for Microphone access to record, Accessibility access to listen for your shortcut, paste your text and read the window you're dictating into, and, optionally, Screen Recording for screen reading. The Privacy Policy explains each one. You decide what to allow and can change it in System Settings at any time. Some features don't work without them.
What Pipit does for you
Pipit acts on your Mac on your behalf. It pastes text into the app in front and can read text in that window to get names right. Its voice commands and quick actions can open apps, links and Shortcuts with your words, and ending a dictation with “press enter” presses Return after pasting, which in many apps sends the message. You're responsible for what Pipit does at your direction, including text pasted or sent to the wrong place, for example because the focus changed.
Using Pipit where it's allowed
Make sure your use is allowed: by your employer or school, by the apps and services you dictate into, and by the laws that apply to you, including laws on recording people, confidentiality and data protection. Don't record other people without their consent where consent is required.
Accounts
- A Pipit account is optional. If you create one, give accurate information and keep your sign-in secure. You're responsible for what happens under your account; tell me if you think someone else has used it.
- I may suspend or delete an account that breaks these terms or is used to misuse the service, or if I stop offering accounts or sync.
- To delete your account and its data, email support@pipitvoice.com.
The website
Don't attack, overload, probe or interfere with this website or Pipit's servers, scrape them in bulk, or misuse the sign-in and support forms.
8. Mistakes in transcription and AI output
Speech recognition and AI make mistakes. Pipit can mishear words, get names wrong (including names it picks up from your screen), drop or add words, format text wrongly, mistake speech for a command, or change your meaning. AI can produce text you didn't say.
- Pipit pastes into the app you're using without asking first. Read what it writes before you send, submit, publish or rely on it. If you use “press enter” or a voice command, the text can go out before you've read it, so use them only where that's acceptable.
- Don't rely on Pipit alone where a mistake could cause harm, such as medical, legal, financial or safety-critical work, or emergencies.
- You're responsible for what you send, post or submit, even when Pipit wrote it.
9. Updates, availability, and ending use
- Pipit's built-in updater checks for updates and installs them automatically. Updates can add, change or remove features, and some features, like model downloads, AI integrations and sync, may need a recent version to keep working.
- Some features are experimental and may be offered to some people before others. They can be less reliable and may change or disappear.
- I may change, suspend or stop offering Pipit, the account service, this website or any feature at any time, including stopping development. I'll try to give notice of big changes, but I can't always.
- I'm not obliged to provide support, fixes or updates, though I do try to answer email.
- You can stop using Pipit at any time by deleting it; the Privacy Policy explains how to remove its data. If you have an account, email me to delete it.
- I may end your licence or your account if you break these terms, or if I have to for legal reasons. Your licence also ends automatically if you break section 2. When it ends, stop using Pipit and delete it.
- Sections 2 (ownership and restrictions), 4, 5, and 8 to 14 continue to apply after your use ends.
10. No warranty
Pipit and this website are provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent the law allows, I make no warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement and accuracy, and I don't promise that Pipit will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free, or that it will work with every app, Mac or version of macOS.
Some places don't allow these exclusions. If you're a consumer, you may have legal rights that these terms can't take away, and nothing here limits them.
11. Limits on liability
To the fullest extent the law allows:
- I'm not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data, goodwill or business, arising from Pipit, this website or these terms, even if I was told they were possible.
- I'm not liable for losses caused by mistakes in transcription or AI output, text pasted where you didn't intend, actions you set up Pipit to take, third-party services (including AI providers and Stripe), or the loss of data stored on your Mac. Keep backups of anything important.
- My total liability for all claims relating to Pipit, this website or these terms is limited to the greater of the support payments you made to me in the 12 months before the claim, or US$50.
Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that the law doesn't allow to be excluded or limited, such as liability for fraud, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or under consumer protection laws that can't be waived.
12. If someone makes a claim because of your use
If someone brings a claim against me because of your content, your breach of these terms, or your unlawful use of Pipit, you agree to cover my reasonable losses and costs from that claim, to the extent the law allows.
13. Privacy
The Privacy Policy explains what Pipit and this website collect, including usage statistics and crash reports, and what stays on your Mac.
14. Changes and general terms
- I may update these terms. I'll post the new version here with a new effective date, and mention significant changes on this site or in Pipit's release notes. If you keep using Pipit or this website after a change takes effect, the updated terms apply to that use. If you don't agree, stop using them.
- These terms are the whole agreement between you and me about Pipit and this website.
- If any part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies, and that part is enforced as far as the law allows.
- If I don't enforce part of these terms right away, I haven't given up the right to.
- I may transfer these terms to someone else, for example if Pipit becomes part of a company. You may not transfer them without my written agreement.
Contact
Questions about these terms, a payment, or your account: support@pipitvoice.com.