Five uploads a month: what that limit means for your work

The constraint came from real usage patterns

When we designed Scribr's Free tier, we weren't trying to squeeze users into a pro subscription. We were trying to answer a different question: what's the smallest useful version of Scribr that costs us nothing to run?

On-device transcription is private. It happens on your phone, via Whisper or Apple Speech. No servers. No cloud bill. But audio file uploads are different. That's data moving somewhere. Even compressed, even briefly, it costs money. Five uploads a month is the point where a Free user can try the app's core loop - record, transcribe, save a note - without us spending the same as we'd earn from a year of Pro subscriptions.

The consultant's question made sense, though. She records a lot. Her weekly calls, plus the occasional voice memo, plus recordings from colleagues she wants transcribed. That's easily more than five. For her, Free was a taste, not a solution. And that's intentional.

What five uploads actually covers

Let's be concrete. Five audio uploads per month means five files you can send to the cloud for transcription. That's your limit if you want to use Pro features like summaries and action-item extraction. Without paying, every upload uses Whisper or Apple Speech - your phone does the work.

For most people, that's plenty. A student recording a lecture. A freelancer capturing notes on a client call. Someone who wants to dictate thoughts at the end of the day and have them turned into text.

What's less obvious: five uploads doesn't mean five minutes of audio. You can upload a 90-minute recording in one go. Or ten five-minute voice notes. The count is the file, not the duration. So if you batch your voice memos - record everything in one session, upload once - five goes further than it sounds.

You also get the Quick Record widget and Siri shortcuts to start recording. Those are free, unlimited, and genuinely useful if you work in a car or between meetings. You don't need to unlock Pro just to capture audio.

When five stops being enough

The real question isn't whether five is a lot. It's whether five is enough for the way you actually work.

If you're a therapist, you might record every session. That's four, maybe five, a week. Free doesn't fit. If you're in sales, and you're recording calls with prospects, you'll burn through five in a fortnight. If you're a researcher conducting interviews, five won't make it past your first week of fieldwork.

But there's another layer. Free tier transcription is on-device only. That means you can't use cloud features. No AI summaries. No action items extracted automatically. No syncing your notes across devices via Scribr Cloud. If you need any of that, the Free tier isn't actually free - it's incomplete.

Pro starts at £14.99 a month. It gives you 500 AI calls per month, which is a different budget: summaries and action-item extraction use calls, not uploads. Cloud transcription for longer audio. Vault Mode if your notes contain sensitive information. For freelancers, consultants, or anyone whose work hinges on turning conversations into actionable notes, Pro usually makes sense within the first week.

Free is genuinely private. That matters more than uploads.

Here's what doesn't get enough attention: on-device transcription means your audio never leaves your phone. Not to us. Not to anyone. That's genuinely rare in apps that do transcription. Most services send audio to the cloud. We don't, on the Free tier.

That constraint is why we built it on Whisper and Apple Speech. Both run locally. Both are accurate enough for most use cases. Neither phone home. If you're recording sensitive conversations - therapy notes, legal advice, confidential client work - and you want to stay on-device, Free does that. Five uploads just means if you want cloud features, you're paying for them.

We also built biometric lock into every tier, because some conversations shouldn't be readable by anyone who picks up your phone. That's not a Free limitation. That's just how Scribr works.

The five-upload question is really a fit question

Most of the confusion about the Free limit comes down to this: people ask whether five is enough, when they should be asking whether Free is right for their workflow at all.

If you record one or two things a week, capture mostly via the widget or voice memos, and don't need summaries, Free works. The five uploads become almost academic. If you record daily, need to extract action items, or work with long conference calls, you'll want Pro. Not because five is stingy, but because Free isn't built for that load.

That's the consultant who emailed us. She records a lot. She needs summaries. She's probably a Team customer by now, if she isn't, because her work demands it. And that's the right call for her. But the person who captures one voice note a day and reviews it on their commute? Five uploads is almost fictional as a limit. They'll never hit it.