Question 1

What does hosted Riffado cost?

Accepted Answer

Hosted Pro costs $5/month founding. Prefer to pay yearly? Annual billing is available at $90/year. Stripe Checkout shows the final total and applicable tax before you pay. You start with a 14-day free trial, no card required, and the full Pro experience: 50 GB encrypted storage, 15 hours of cloud transcription per month, unlimited devices, background sync, email support. Off-site encrypted backups are coming soon. If you decide it's not for you, you walk away; if you want to keep it, you add a card. If you want Riffado free, self-host it: same code, your machine, AGPL-3.0, free forever.

Question 2

Do I need to pay for an AI provider to try this?

Accepted Answer

No. Riffado transcribes right in your browser by default using Whisper, with no API keys, extra accounts, or per-minute cost. If you want faster or higher-quality transcripts later, plug in OpenAI or Groq, or run a local model with Ollama. Hosted Pro also includes 15 hours per month of cloud transcription on our keys, so you don't have to bring your own. Browser-based Whisper stays free forever, hosted or self-hosted.

Question 3

Which voice recorders does Riffado work with?

Accepted Answer

Today, the Plaud Note family: Note, Note Pro, and NotePin. Support for more recorders is on the roadmap. If you own a Plaud, you can sign in with your existing account and your recordings start syncing in under a minute.

Question 4

Is Riffado really open source? What does that mean for me?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The full source is on GitHub under AGPL-3.0. In practice: you can read every line, run it on your own machine, fork it, and leave whenever you want. The AGPL only adds obligations if you offer Riffado as a service to other people. For personal or team use, it's just free, forever, with the code in the open.

Question 5

How long does setup take?

Accepted Answer

Hosted: about sixty seconds. Sign up, connect your Plaud account, and recordings start syncing. Self-host: one docker compose command against the published image. Postgres is included. No build step, no manual schema work.

Question 6

Which AI providers can I use?

Accepted Answer

Hosted Pro includes Mynah for 15 hours of cloud transcription every month. You can also connect OpenAI or Groq for cloud transcription. Use Ollama or LM Studio if you want a model running entirely on your own machine, so nothing leaves your laptop. Browser-based Whisper works if you don't want to configure anything at all. Pick per recording; change your mind any time. For summaries, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint works, including OpenAI, Anthropic via OpenRouter, Groq, Together, Azure, and others.

Question 7

Does this affect my recorder's warranty or break the official app?

Accepted Answer

No. Riffado signs into your Plaud account the same way the official web app does, through Plaud's existing API. Nothing about the hardware changes, and the official Plaud app keeps working alongside Riffado.

Question 8

What happens if Plaud changes their API?

Accepted Answer

Worst case, new syncs pause until we ship an update. Historically that means hours to days, because the project is open source and actively maintained. Your existing recordings are unaffected: once a recording has synced, it lives on storage you control and never depends on Plaud's servers again.

Question 9

Can I move between hosted and self-host later?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in one click. The full-backup export gives you a single archive with every recording, transcript, and summary. Restore it into a self-hosted instance, or back into the hosted version, with nothing lost. Easy to leave is the whole point, so you don't have to overthink which one to start with.

Question 10

Where does my data live on the hosted version?

Accepted Answer

Encrypted at rest on storage we operate. You can export everything, any time, no questions. If you need a specific jurisdiction or your own bucket, self-hosting points the same code at infrastructure you fully control.

Question 11

What about HIPAA, privileged legal work, or regulated financial data?

Accepted Answer

We don't self-attest HIPAA compliance, and you should be skeptical of any transcription product that does. The meaningful privacy claim belongs to your AI provider, not to us. For regulated work, the right setup is self-hosting Riffado and plugging in a provider that signs a BAA you've reviewed (OpenAI Enterprise, Azure Speech, Deepgram), or running a local Whisper model so nothing leaves your machine. We give you the knobs; you own the compliance story.

Every word from your recorder. Searchable, summarized, and yours.

15 hours of transcription. No separate AI bill.

A workstation around the recorder you already have.

Sign in once, sync forever.

Pick the AI. Get the transcript.

Search, listen, send it anywhere.

If your conversations stay in the room, your recordings should too.

Two ways to run it. Same source.

One command. Your server. Yours forever.

Questions before you sign up.

Stop renting your own voice.