BuildBetter: A no-bot meeting recorder (BB Recorder) that captures and processes calls locally on Mac, with optional cloud upload for team collaboration. Way With Words: Way With Words is a transcription and captioning service that converts audio and video recordings, including meetings and interviews, into accurate text using human transcribers and automatic speech recognition. This comparison weighs them on pricing, features, and everyday workflow fit.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist BuildBetter when product teams aggregating customer-call insights into jira, linear, or notion matters most, and Way With Words when producing accessible captions and subtitles for recorded video content matters most. Try them side by side on real calls before deciding — needs vary by team.
A no-bot meeting recorder (BB Recorder) that captures and processes calls locally on Mac, with optional cloud upload for team collaboration.
Way With Words is a transcription and captioning service that converts audio and video recordings, including meetings and interviews, into accurate text using human transcribers and automatic speech recognition.
BuildBetter offers BB Recorder, a no-bot meeting recorder that captures meetings by recording system audio directly on the device rather than sending a bot into the call. On macOS it can run as a menu-bar (notch-style) recorder, a floating overlay, or a full-window app, and it includes smart auto-detection that begins recording when it detects a call. Recording, transcription, summarization, and even a live AI assistant for asking questions during a call can run locally using on-device models, so notes and transcripts can stay on the user's machine. Users can optionally upload recordings to BuildBetter's cloud for enhanced transcripts with speaker diarization, AI-powered summaries, and team collaboration. The broader BuildBetter platform is oriented toward product teams and customer-facing roles, helping aggregate insights across many calls and route them into tools such as Jira, Linear, and Notion. BB Recorder is available on macOS as well as iOS and Android. It is aimed at product, sales, customer success, and support teams that want privacy-conscious local capture with the option to escalate to cloud-based team features. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Way With Words is an audio-to-text services company, founded in 2002 and registered in the UK and South Africa, that turns recordings into text. Rather than joining calls as a bot, it works from files: users upload audio or video through a secure account portal (supporting formats such as MP3, WAV, MP4, MOV, and M4A, up to 8GB per file) and receive transcripts back as DOCX, with PDF and RTF available on request. Its core offering is human transcription, including verbatim, intelligent verbatim, and time-coded transcripts for multi-speaker interviews, focus groups, corporate meetings, hearings, and media. It also provides automatic (ASR) transcription in 50+ languages, video captioning and subtitles, machine-transcript polishing, and custom speech datasets for AI/ASR training. Turnaround is offered in tiers from express through to roughly eight days, with human quality checks emphasized for complex audio. It targets research and academia, legal and compliance, media production, education, corporate teams, public sector and NGOs, and AI developers needing dependable, confidential text from audio.
Best suited for
BuildBetter is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Way With Words is a free tier with paid upgrades (paid). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | BuildBetter | Way With Words |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | No-bot recording that captures system audio locally | Human transcription with verbatim, intelligent verbatim, and time-coded options |
| Standout feature | macOS recorder with menu-bar, floating overlay, and full-window modes | Automatic (ASR) speech-to-text transcription in 50+ languages |
| Team usage | Smart auto-detection that starts recording when a call is detected | Video captioning and subtitles for accessibility and broadcast |
| Integrations | Local transcription, summarization, and a live AI assistant | Secure account portal for audio/video upload (up to 8GB per file, batch uploads) |
| Languages & capture | Optional cloud upload for speaker diarization and team collaboration | Multiple turnaround tiers from express to several days |
| Best-fit workflow | Routes insights into tools like Jira, Linear, and Notion | Custom speech datasets for AI and ASR training programs |
BuildBetter
Choose BuildBetter if you need product teams aggregating customer-call insights into jira, linear, or notion — strengths include local processing keeps recordings and notes on the device by default.
Way With Words
Choose Way With Words if you need transcribing recorded corporate meetings, interviews, and focus groups into searchable text — strengths include human-reviewed transcripts suited to complex, multi-speaker audio like meetings and focus groups.
BuildBetter
Way With Words
It depends on your workflow. BuildBetter is strong for product teams aggregating customer-call insights into jira, linear, or notion, while Way With Words is strong for transcribing recorded corporate meetings, interviews, and focus groups into searchable text. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
BuildBetter is a free tier with paid upgrades and Way With Words is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
You can — some teams pair them when each covers a different part of the meeting workflow.
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