I dictate almost everything I write. This newsletter starts as me talking into a transcription app, rambling, then cleaning it up later.
So when 2 voice apps started fighting over people like me, I paid attention.
Wispr Flow, the dictation app, offered to pay Granola customers to leave. Then on October 29, Granola, the meeting notes app, shipped dictation. Free. Unlimited words.
It’s the cleanest attack and counter-move I’ve seen in software this year. And most of it can be copied by a team with a fraction of the budget.
(Disclosure: I’m a brand ambassador for PLAUD, which also makes AI meeting notes. Pinch of salt.)
1. The attack: pay the switching cost
Wispr’s offer lives on a page called /granola-switch. Upload your Granola receipt, and Wispr covers whatever paid Granola time you have left with Wispr credit, plus up to 3 bonus months. Up to 12 months free, total.
The pitch: meeting notes and dictation in one subscription.
This came after Wispr added a meeting notetaker of its own a few months earlier, and after it raised $280 million at a $2 billion valuation in August. So it had the product to compete and the cash to buy customers.
3 details make this smarter than a discount code.
The receipt is the targeting. Only people already paying Granola qualify. Free users who’d churn anyway can’t claim it. A receipt proves the person pays for this category of tool, which is the hardest thing to prove about any lead.
It kills the sunk cost objection. “I just paid for the year” keeps a lot of people with a tool they’re lukewarm about. Wispr credits the remaining time, so leaving mid-contract costs nothing.
The cost has a ceiling. 12 months max. Wispr knows exactly what each switched customer costs, and can compare that to what it spends on ads.
How to copy it
- Ask for proof the prospect pays a competitor: a receipt, an invoice, a billing screenshot.
- Honour their remaining contract so switching mid-term is free.
- Cap the bonus. A bounded offer is a customer acquisition cost you can plan around.
- Name the page after the competitor. That’s what people type when they’re shopping for an exit.
2. The bridge: the import tool does the heavy lifting
The free months get the headlines. The more important line on Wispr’s page is lower down: you can import your exported Granola notes, summaries and transcripts.
I think that’s the real switching cost in most software. What keeps people stuck is their history.
Months of meeting notes sitting in Granola is a moat. Free credit gets someone curious. An importer gets them to actually leave, because they don’t have to abandon everything they’ve built up.
B2B works the same way, only heavier. Your customer’s data, workflows, integrations and trained-up staff all sit inside the incumbent. A discount doesn’t move any of that.
In an earlier issue I covered alternative pages, like Adaface’s pages aimed at competitors’ customers. The importer is what makes those pages convert. Without one, you’re asking people to start from zero.
How to copy it
- Build an importer for your top competitor’s export format before you run any switch promotion.
- Write a “switching from [competitor]” guide that covers the first 30 minutes, step by step.
- For bigger accounts, offer to do the migration for them. A person on a call beats a CSV template.
3. The counter: give away the attacker’s main product
On October 29, Granola shipped Voice Typing as a beta in its Mac app. It’s free on every Granola plan, with no word limit. Windows, iOS and Android are listed as coming soon.
For comparison, Wispr’s own free tier caps you at 2,000 words a week. Unlimited needs Pro, at around US$15 a month.
Granola hasn’t said this is a response to Wispr. The press framed it that way, and the timing does the rest.
Picture a chicken rice stall. A new stall opens next door and offers to pay your bill if you come over. So the original stall starts serving the new guy’s signature dish, free, with every plate.
Now the offer next door buys you something you already get.
Wispr’s whole pitch was “meeting notes and dictation, one subscription.” Every Granola user already has both, for the price they’re paying today. Granola spent nothing matching the 12 free months. The offer simply has less to offer.
And it cuts the other way too. Every Granola user now has a free substitute for a paid Wispr plan. Defence and attack in one release.
One caveat: it’s a Mac-only beta. If the dictation is noticeably worse than Wispr’s, heavy dictators (hi) will still switch. Good enough is the bar, and Granola has to clear it.
How to copy it
- Name the attacker’s wedge: the 1 thing they do well that they’re using to get into your accounts.
- Ship a good-enough version of it inside your product, included in the price people already pay.
- Skip the price war. Matching a bribe trains customers to wait for the next one.
4. This fight has happened before
The moves are old. Only the software is new.
| Fight | The attack | The counter | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| T-Mobile vs AT&T and Verizon (2014) | T-Mobile paid the early termination fees of customers who switched | AT&T replied within days with its own cash offer to T-Mobile customers | A long price war, with T-Mobile the fastest grower of the big US carriers for years |
| Snapchat vs Instagram (2016) | Snapchat’s Stories format pulled young users away | Instagram copied Stories and put it in front of its whole user base | Within a year, Instagram Stories had more daily users than all of Snapchat |
| Slack vs Microsoft Teams (2016 to 2017) | Slack grew inside companies team by team | Microsoft bundled Teams into Office 365 at no extra cost | Teams passed Slack on users; regulators later made Microsoft unbundle it in Europe |
| Wispr vs Granola (2026) | Wispr pays Granola’s paying customers to switch | Granola gives away dictation, free and unlimited | Too early to call |
The pattern: the challenger attacks with cash and a migration path. The incumbent defends by bundling the challenger’s wedge into what customers already pay for.
When the bundled version is good enough, the bundle usually wins. Most people take “already included” over “better, but another login and another invoice.”
5. The version for teams without $280 million
Most B2B teams can’t hand out 12 free months. You can still run both plays.
If you’re the challenger:
- Price-match until renewal. Skip the free months. Offer to charge the competitor’s current price until their contract would have ended. Same sunk cost logic, a fraction of the cost.
- Ship the importer first. A clean migration from your top competitor’s export does more than any discount. Then write the switching guide.
- Go quiet and targeted. Wispr ran a public page because it’s chasing millions of users. You might be chasing 200 accounts. Find who uses the competitor (review sites, job ads that name the tool, tech stack data) and have sales make the offer directly.
- Put the competitor’s name on a page. A “switching from [competitor]” page catches people at the exact moment they’re shopping for an exit.
If you’re the incumbent:
- Find your wedge before someone else does. Which adjacent feature could a competitor use to get a foot in your accounts? Your customers probably already pay for it somewhere else.
- Ship the basic version, included. It only needs to be good enough that paying for a second tool feels silly.
- Make leaving annoying in honest ways. History, integrations and team habits keep people around. Invest in the things that make your product more useful the longer someone uses it.
The 5-question diagnostic
Run these whether you’re planning a switch campaign or bracing for one.
- If a competitor paid out your customers’ remaining contracts tomorrow, how many would go? Name the accounts. If you can’t, you don’t know your churn risk.
- What actually holds your customers in? Your product, or the data they’d lose by leaving? Only one of those survives a good importer.
- What’s the 1 feature a competitor could use as a wedge into your accounts? Look at what your customers pay for in a second tool.
- Could you ship a good-enough version of it, included, within a quarter? If yes, why haven’t you?
- If you’re the challenger: can a new customer bring their history over in under 10 minutes? If not, fix that before you spend a dollar on the offer.
Somewhere in Wispr’s office, someone is counting how many Granola receipts got uploaded before October 29. And how many after.