Plaud vs Pocket

Plaud vs Pocket at a glance

	Note Pro	NotePin S	Pocket
Price	$189	$179	$139 launch price, $199 list
Form	Card, 3 mm thick, 30 g, small screen	Pin, 17.4 g, clip, lanyard, wristband or magnet	Card, 5 mm thick, 52 g, MagSafe and adhesive mounts
Microphones	Four MEMS plus a vibration sensor, up to 16 ft	Two MEMS, up to 3 m	Two studio plus one contact microphone, up to about 15 m by Pocket’s figure
Phone calls	Yes, switches to call mode itself	Not listed by Plaud	Yes, through the contact microphone
Recording per charge	30 h, or 50 h in Endurance mode	20 h	Up to 4 days of active use, by Pocket’s figure
Storage	64 GB	64 GB	64 GB plus cloud
Languages	112	112	Over 120
Free plan	300 minutes a month	300 minutes a month	No minute cap at standard accuracy, summaries kept 30 days
Paid plan	Pro $99.96 a year for 1,200 minutes a month, Unlimited $239.88	Same as Note Pro	Pro $239.88 a year: best accuracy, summaries kept, speaker names detected
Voices recognized across recordings	Yes, Sync speaker labels	Yes, Sync speaker labels	Yes, Speaker Management
Apps	iPhone, Android, web, desktop	iPhone, Android, web, desktop	iPhone, Android, web

Prices are from each maker’s own store on 5 October 2026. Pocket labels its $139 as “launch pricing” against a $199 list price, so treat the lower number as current rather than permanent.

Two meters, not one

Every Plaud device comes with the free Starter plan: 300 transcription minutes a month, which is five hours. Minutes reset each month and do not roll over. Past 300, transcription waits until next month or until you pay. What you did transcribe stays: on the device, in the app, and in Plaud’s cloud if you turn Private Cloud Sync on.

Pocket’s free tier turns that around. Transcription at standard accuracy has no monthly cap, so a heavy month costs nothing extra. What the free tier limits is time: summaries are kept for 30 days, and keeping them for good is one of the things Pocket Pro sells, along with its most accurate transcription and automatic speaker names.

So the useful question is not which device is cheaper. It is whether your problem is volume or keeping.

• A few conversations a week, and you want them all later. Plaud’s free plan fits. Five hours is a long one-to-one each working day for a week, or a workshop and a handful of calls.
• Hours of recording, read and acted on within the month. Pocket’s free tier fits, and nothing else in the category comes close on running cost.
• Hours of recording, kept for good. Both need a paid plan, and this is where the arithmetic turns.

What the first year costs

Twenty hours a month is about one hour-long meeting every working day. At that pace a Note Pro needs Pro at $99.96 a year, and the first year comes to $289. Keeping Pocket summaries past a month at the same pace means Pocket Pro, and its first year comes to $379. The device that was $50 cheaper ends the year $90 dearer, because Pocket has one paid tier and Plaud’s middle one is cheap.

Past 20 hours a month the comparison flips back. Plaud’s 1,200 Pro minutes are exactly 20 hours, so a heavier month needs Unlimited, which costs the same $239.88 a year as Pocket Pro. The device price decides it again and Pocket is $50 less.

Pocket’s free tier also has a cheaper route if you are disciplined: export what you want to keep before the 30 days are up. That works for someone who files meeting notes the same week. It fails quietly for everyone else, because the summary you needed is always the one from seven weeks ago.

Where the device lives

The Note Pro and the Pocket are the same idea: a card that rides on the back of your phone or sits on a table. The Note Pro is thinner and lighter, and its screen shows that a recording is running without unlocking anything. The Pocket is thicker and heavier, but its own range figure is about 15 metres against Plaud’s 16 feet, which matters only if you record large rooms. In a meeting of six around a table, both hear everyone.

Both also record phone calls the same way, by picking up the call through the body of the phone. The Note Pro switches into call mode by itself when a call starts. An iPhone can record calls on its own since iOS 18.1, but it announces the recording to both people. A card on the back of the phone does not, which moves the consent question to you; whether recording is legal where you are is worth five minutes before the first call.

The NotePin S is the only one of the three you wear, and Pocket has nothing like it. A card in a bag is ten seconds away when someone stops you in a corridor; a pin on your collar is one press. If your conversations come with calendar invites, a card is fine. If they start without warning, the card or pin decision matters more than anything on the plan pages.

Both now recognize voices

Both now offer the same feature: label a voice once, and it is recognized in later recordings. In Plaud you name a speaker and turn on Sync speaker labels. In Pocket you name an untagged speaker and Speaker Management carries the name across your library, lets you merge the same person when they sound different on a call and in a room, and opens a view of every conversation that person spoke in.

That is genuinely useful, and it is worth being exact about what it is: an index of the recordings a voice appears in.

Three kinds of detail fall outside it. Anything said while the recorder was off, which includes most dinners and every hallway. Anything said about a person by somebody else, which no voice match can file under them. And anything you said to them, like the introduction you promised. Even when the detail is in there, the label points you at hours of audio rather than the three lines worth knowing.

The question you have in a lobby is what you know about Priya. A voice index answers where Priya talked. That gap is the same on both devices, and it is the layer Intriq is built around. You record on the iPhone you already carry, for up to two hours, and it keeps going with the screen locked; an Apple Watch can start it from your wrist. Intriq summarizes the whole conversation, links the people it spotted for you to confirm, and files what you keep under those people rather than under a date. When nothing was recorded, a few spoken sentences afterwards land in the same place, including what Marcus told you about her. Plenty of people run both: a recorder for the sessions where the exact words matter, and a per-person memory for everything else. The Intriq and Plaud comparison covers that split in more detail.

Which one to buy

• Meeting rooms and calls, a few hours a month, kept for good: the Plaud Note Pro on its free plan.
• Hours of recording on the smallest budget: the Pocket, if you act on summaries within the month or export them.
• Up to 20 hours a month, kept for good: the Note Pro with Pro, about $90 cheaper than Pocket Pro in year one.
• More than 20 hours a month, kept for good: the Pocket with Pro, $50 cheaper than a Note Pro on Unlimited.
• Conversations that start without warning: the Plaud NotePin S, the only one of the three you wear.
• Remembering the people rather than the recordings: the phone you already carry, with an app that files by person.

For the rest of the shelf, including the Soundcore Work and the SwitchBot MindClip, see the best AI voice recorders, and for devices that listen all day, the best AI wearables.

Key takeaway: Plaud and Pocket sell nearly the same card and meter opposite things. Plaud caps the minutes you record and keeps what you made; Pocket transcribes without a cap and, unless you pay, forgets the summary after a month. Both now recognize a voice across recordings, which tells you where someone spoke, not what you know about them.

FAQ

Is Pocket better than Plaud?

For heavy recording on a budget, yes: Pocket’s free tier transcribes without a monthly minute cap, which no Plaud plan below Unlimited does. For keeping everything, no: Plaud’s free plan keeps what you transcribe, while Pocket’s free tier keeps summaries for 30 days. The Plaud Note Pro is also thinner, lighter and has a screen.

Can I use Pocket without a subscription?

Yes. The free tier includes uncapped transcription at standard accuracy, a few Ask Pocket chats a day, and summaries kept for 30 days. Pocket Pro, at $19.99 a month or $239.88 a year, adds the most accurate transcription, keeps summaries for good, and detects speaker names automatically.

Do Plaud and Pocket record phone calls?

The Plaud Note, the Plaud Note Pro and the Pocket all do, by sitting on the back of the phone and picking up the call through a vibration sensor or contact microphone. The Note Pro switches into call mode automatically. Plaud does not list call recording for the NotePin S.

Which is smaller, the Plaud Note Pro or the Pocket?

They share a credit card footprint, but the Note Pro is 3 mm thick and 30 grams while the Pocket is about 5 mm and 52 grams. The Plaud NotePin S is smaller than either at 17.4 grams, and it is the only one designed to be worn.

Do Plaud and Pocket recognize who is speaking?

Both do, across recordings. Name a voice once and later recordings label it: Plaud calls this Sync speaker labels, Pocket calls it Speaker Management, and Pocket adds a view of every recording a named person spoke in. Neither captures what someone else said about that person, or anything from a conversation that was never recorded.

Should I get the Plaud NotePin S or the Pocket?

Pick by where the device lives. The NotePin S is a wearable pin with 20 hours per charge and costs $179 with 300 free minutes a month. The Pocket is a card for the back of your phone that records calls and costs $139 with uncapped free transcription. If your conversations are unplanned, wear the pin; if they are calls and meetings, carry the card.