Reviews · scored on rubric v1
Krisp review: 84/100, and every point accounted for
The columnist’s summary: Krisp removes noise in both directions, on the device, in front of whatever call app you already use. It tops our table and still keeps an asterisk — there is no free plan, and the trial ends after seven days whether your meetings do or not.
What Krisp is, in one column inch
Krisp is a virtual microphone and speaker that sits between your hardware and your call software. Pick “Krisp Microphone” inside Zoom, Teams, Meet or anything else, and its models strip keyboards, traffic and the neighbour’s renovation from your outgoing audio — and, unusually, from the incoming side too. Processing is on-device processing; call audio is not sent to Krisp's servers for noise removal. That architecture is why it scores a 10 on Fit: it does not care which meeting app your employer standardised on, and it works identically on Windows and macOS.
Reading the row: where the 84 comes from
Silence (9/10). In vendor documentation terms — which is what we score, and we say so plainly — Krisp’s claim set is the broadest in the live category: bidirectional removal, echo handling, and processing that stays on your machine. We dock the tenth point because no vendor’s own account of itself deserves a perfect score, and because aggressive suppression on any tool can thin a voice in a bare room. Verify that on your own hardware during the 7-day trial; that is what it is for.
Toll (8/10). No RTX card demanded, no GPU tax. It is one more resident process, and on an older laptop you will notice it exists — hence eight, not ten.
Wallet (6/10). There is no free plan any more: a 7-day trial with no card, and when it ends, access ends with it. After that the paid tier is $8/user/month billed annually — or $16/user/month billed monthly if you refuse the annual commitment, and the doubling is worth noticing before checkout. Fair value for a dedicated tool, but no longer anything for nothing: the end of the free plan took this column from 7 to 6 when we re-scored on October 8, 2026.
Candor (9/10). The limits are documented where you can find them, the privacy claim is specific enough to be falsifiable, and the pricing page does not hide the monthly rate. Rare enough to reward.
What it costs, verified
| Free plan | none — Krisp no longer offers one |
|---|---|
| Trial | 7 days free, every premium feature, no credit card; access stops when it ends unless you subscribe |
| Core | $8/user/month billed annually · $16/user/month billed monthly · 10 GB storage |
| Advanced | $15/user/month billed annually · $30/user/month billed monthly |
| Platforms | Windows and macOS desktop apps; mobile apps are for meeting transcription/notes, not live noise cancellation |
The ledger, in public
Every Standard Score is the same arithmetic: five dimensions, fixed weights, rounded half-up. The methodology page holds the rubric; this table holds this tool’s entry in it.
| Dimension | Score | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silence ×0.35 | 9/10 | 31.5 | two-way removal, processed on-device — no cloud round-trip |
| Toll ×0.20 | 8/10 | 16.0 | runs on ordinary CPU laptops; no discrete GPU required |
| Wallet ×0.20 | 6/10 | 12.0 | no free plan; a 7-day trial, then $8 a month billed annually |
| Fit ×0.15 | 10/10 | 15.0 | Windows and macOS; sits in front of any call app |
| Candor ×0.10 | 9/10 | 9.0 | limits documented plainly; the privacy story is checkable |
| Standard Score | 84/100 | weighted sum ×10, rounded half-up (rubric v1) |
Krisp earns its 84. It does not earn a halo — the free plan is gone, and the trial is over in a week.
- Silence earned 31.5 of 35.0
- Toll earned 16.0 of 20.0
- Wallet earned 12.0 of 20.0
- Fit earned 15.0 of 15.0
- Candor earned 9.0 of 10.0
- Forfeited 16.5 of 100
What the score refuses to hide
A recommendation is only worth printing with its costs attached:
- There is no free tier to fall back on. Krisp’s terms are blunt: unless you buy a plan before the 7-day trial ends, access stops (you keep 90 days to export your content).
- The mobile apps transcribe meetings; they do not do live noise cancellation. Krisp’s noise removal is a desktop product, whatever an app-store search implies.
- Monthly billing is double the annual rate — $16 against $8. The pricing page is honest about it, but your card statement will be too.
- It is one more always-on process. On ageing hardware the Toll is small but real.
What else the subscription buys, and what the 84 ignores
Krisp now sells itself as a meeting assistant as much as a noise filter, and most of what its plans add is not noise removal. Read on krisp.ai/pricing on October 25, 2026: Core bundles a bot-free AI note-taker (transcription, audio and video recording, AI notes and action items, in-person meeting notes), multilingual transcripts, AI chat, an hour a day of AI Accent Conversion, integrations including HubSpot, Slack, Notion, Zapier and Teams, and 10 GB of storage. Advanced adds Accent Conversion for up to four hours a day on the speaker side (unlimited on the listener side), Salesforce and ConnectWise integrations, stricter admin controls and 60 GB. The 7-day trial opens the premium features, with accent conversion limited.
None of that moves the score. The rubric measures noise removal, so the note-taker and the accent tools are reasons to choose Advanced over Core, not reasons to choose Krisp at all. If a quieter microphone is all you want, Core is the whole purchase.
Who should actually use it
Buy it if your calls happen in different apps on different days — the consultant’s life — or if you split time between a Mac and a Windows machine and want one behaviour on both. Skip it if you own an RTX card, work in one app, and can live inside NVIDIA Broadcast’s free noise removal instead: our arithmetic says you would be paying $96 a year mostly for portability you do not need.
Questions we actually get
- Is Krisp still free in 2026?
- No. Krisp no longer has a free plan. New users get a 7-day trial with every premium feature and no card; after it, noise cancellation needs Core at $8 per user a month billed annually ($16 month to month) or Advanced at $15 ($30), verified on krisp.ai/pricing October 8, 2026.
- Does Krisp need a particular GPU?
- No. That is its structural advantage over NVIDIA Broadcast: the models run on an ordinary CPU, on Windows and macOS both.
- Does Krisp listen to my calls?
- The noise removal runs on your device; call audio is not shipped to Krisp’s servers for processing. That claim is specific, published, and part of why Candor scores a nine.
- Does Krisp do transcription and meeting notes?
- Yes. Core includes a bot-free AI note-taker with transcription, audio and video recording, and AI notes and action items (krisp.ai/pricing, read October 25, 2026). This review scores only the noise removal.