Balto: Real-time AI guidance and agent-assist platform that coaches contact-center and sales agents live during calls. Sotto: Sotto is a native macOS voice-to-text dictation app that turns speech into text system-wide using local AI transcription models. Which one wins depends on your platform mix, budget, and how hands-off you want notes to be.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Balto when guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements matters most, and Sotto when privacy-first transcription of imported audio recordings on-device matters most. Try them side by side on real calls before deciding — needs vary by team.
Real-time AI guidance and agent-assist platform that coaches contact-center and sales agents live during calls.
Sotto is a native macOS voice-to-text dictation app that turns speech into text system-wide using local AI transcription models.
Balto is a contact-center AI platform centered on real-time guidance during live customer and sales calls. Rather than focusing on post-call review, Balto listens to conversations as they happen and surfaces dynamic prompts, objection-handling cues, compliance checklists, and knowledge-base answers to the agent in the moment. Its Agent Assist pulls relevant information so reps can respond to customer questions instantly, while real-time QA automatically scores interactions across all calls and flags compliance risk early, maintaining an audit trail for supervisors. Coaching automation tailors recommendations to each agent's performance, and real-time note generation produces call summaries without manual write-ups. Balto also offers voice AI agents to handle high-volume, repeatable calls and supports omnichannel context across voice and digital channels. It integrates with CRMs and telephony systems such as Salesforce and RingCentral. The platform is used across industries including healthcare, insurance, banking, collections, and home improvement, and is aimed at contact centers and sales teams that want in-the-moment guidance, compliance assurance, and automated quality management at scale. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Sotto is a native Swift dictation app for macOS 13 and later that converts speech to text in real time. It works as a system-wide push-to-talk layer: the user holds a hotkey, speaks, and Sotto inserts clean text into whatever app is in focus, from Slack and Notion to Xcode and email fields. Audio is transcribed by local engines, including OpenAI Whisper models (Tiny through Large V3 Turbo and Distil Large V3) and NVIDIA Parakeet v2/v3, so by default recordings never leave the Mac; users can optionally connect cloud providers such as OpenAI or Groq with their own API keys for added accuracy. Beyond live dictation, it can import and re-transcribe audio files, supports 90+ languages, keeps a searchable history of recordings with timestamps, and offers a custom vocabulary dictionary. One-click AI processing can rewrite, summarize, translate, or reformat dictated text. It is aimed at developers, writers, and privacy-conscious professionals who want fast, local voice input rather than a cloud meeting-bot service.
Best suited for
Balto is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Sotto is a free tier with paid upgrades (paid). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Balto | Sotto |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Real-time, in-call guidance with dynamic prompts and objection cues | System-wide push-to-talk dictation that inserts text into any app |
| Standout feature | Agent Assist that surfaces knowledge-base answers live | Local on-device transcription via Whisper and NVIDIA Parakeet models |
| Team usage | Automated quality assurance scoring across 100% of calls | Audio file import and re-transcription with searchable, timestamped history |
| Integrations | Real-time compliance monitoring with audit trails | Support for 90+ languages with per-language hotkeys |
| Languages & capture | Automated call summaries and coaching recommendations | One-click AI processing to summarize, translate, or rewrite dictated text |
| Best-fit workflow | Integrations with CRMs and phone systems such as Salesforce and RingCentral | Optional cloud transcription via user-supplied OpenAI or Groq API keys |
Balto
Choose Balto if you need guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements — strengths include guides agents during the call rather than only analyzing afterward.
Sotto
Choose Sotto if you need hands-free dictation of emails, messages, and documents across mac apps — strengths include local processing keeps audio on-device for strong privacy.
Balto
Sotto
It depends on your workflow. Balto is strong for guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements, while Sotto is strong for hands-free dictation of emails, messages, and documents across mac apps. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Balto is a free tier with paid upgrades and Sotto is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Sure. Running both makes sense when their strengths don't overlap and the budget allows.
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