The charting problem is familiar. The choices are not.
A good AI scribe should feel almost invisible. You talk with the patient, finish the visit and open a draft that sounds enough like you to be useful. A bad fit does the opposite: it produces a long note, misses the clinical thread and leaves you editing at 9 p.m. The category may be called ambient documentation, but what physicians are really buying is a better chance of leaving work with the charts closed.
The difficult part is that “AI scribe” now describes very different products. Some are free or inexpensive apps that one clinician can start using this afternoon. Others are enterprise platforms built into Epic or another EHR, with orders, coding, analytics and governance layered around the note. The cheapest-looking option and the most capable-looking option can both be wrong for the same practice.
Ten names worth knowing
Think of this as a starting lineup, not a leaderboard. We included products a solo clinician can buy directly and platforms that usually enter through a health-system contract. Click any product name or price source to see the vendor's current information for yourself.
| Product | Cost / how you buy it | How it fits the chart | Why it stands out | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Dragon Copilot ↗ | Custom quotePer-user and Flex/pay-as-you-go licensing; purchased through Microsoft or a certified partner.Check the source ↗ | Works on web, desktop and mobile, with embedded EHR options such as Epic. It also includes familiar Dragon dictation. | A mature choice for organizations that want one platform for ambient notes, dictation and follow-up work. | You cannot see the real price without a quote, and setup will usually involve more people than a self-serve app. |
| Abridge ↗ | Custom quoteEnterprise sales process; no public per-clinician price.Check the source ↗ | Designed for health-system workflows, including capture in Epic Haiku and review in Hyperspace across outpatient, emergency and inpatient care. | Its Linked Evidence feature lets clinicians trace parts of the draft back to the conversation, a useful confidence check. | It is mainly an enterprise purchase. A small practice will need to ask whether it can buy at its size and what implementation really takes. |
| Nabla ↗ | Custom quoteFees are set in an order form; no current public U.S. per-user price.Check the source ↗ | Runs on web, mobile and a Chrome extension, with deeper EHR options through Nabla Connect and APIs. | Flexible templates, dictation, clinician-reviewed coding and support for many specialties and languages. | The workflow can range from a browser helper to an embedded integration. Make sure the quote describes the version you actually want. |
| Suki ↗ | Custom quoteSales-led pricing; no public per-clinician price.Check the source ↗ | Offers integrations with Epic, Oracle Health, athenahealth and MEDITECH, along with web and mobile access. | Goes beyond the note into dictation, orders, patient instructions, coding and clinical reasoning. | Its breadth can make comparisons slippery. Ask which features are live for your EHR rather than assuming the full demo is included. |
| Ambience Healthcare ↗ | Custom quoteEnterprise sales process; no public per-clinician price.Check the source ↗ | Connects with Epic, Oracle Health/Cerner and athenahealth across ambulatory, emergency and inpatient settings. | Built around the whole visit, with specialty-aware notes plus coding, CDI and compliance support. | This is a broad organizational platform. Smaller groups should ask whether they need—and want to pay for—the surrounding capabilities. |
| Heidi ↗ | $0–$110+Free: $0. Clinician: $110/user/month billed yearly. Practice and Enterprise: custom.Check the source ↗ | Works on web and mobile with copy/export options. Team features and fuller EHR integration begin on the custom-priced Practice plan. | A genuinely useful free starting point, flexible templates and room to grow into a broader clinical assistant. | The $0 plan is not the whole product. Teams that need shared setup or deeper integration will move into quote-based pricing. |
| Freed ↗ | $39–$119Starter $39/40 notes; Core $79/unlimited; Premier $119 monthly or $104 effective monthly when paid annually.Check the source ↗ | A self-serve web and mobile tool. Copy/paste works broadly; one-click push into supported browser EHRs is reserved for Premier. | Clear prices, a simple path for solo and small practices, customizable templates and unlimited notes on Core and above. | The features that reduce extra clicks—EHR push, prior-visit context, patient outputs and coding—sit on the highest tier. |
| Commure Scribe ↗ | $59–$89Pro is $89 monthly or $708/year ($59 effective monthly); Enterprise is custom. Seven-day trial.Check the source ↗ | Browser capture and copy/paste on Pro; direct EHR synchronization and configured integrations are Enterprise features. | A visible entry price, unlimited notes, custom templates, broad language support and code suggestions on Pro. | The $59 figure requires annual payment. Direct write-back, shared templates and guided onboarding move you to custom pricing. |
| Sunoh.ai ↗ | $149 promotionalPublished limited-time price of $149/user/month; page shows $199 crossed out. No long-term commitment advertised.Check the source ↗ | Runs on iPhone, iPad, Android and the browser; the clinician reviews the draft before importing it into the EHR. | A straightforward offer that covers transcript, summary and SOAP note, with implementation, support and a BAA included. | The advertised price is promotional. Confirm how notes enter your exact EHR and what controls are available for a group. |
| Doximity Scribe ↗ | $0 for eligible usersFree for verified U.S. physicians, NPs, PAs, CRNAs and eligible students.Check the source ↗ | Available in Doximity's mobile, web and desktop apps. It produces a draft for review and copy/paste into the chart. | No subscription cost for eligible clinicians, plus custom templates, dictation and a natural fit with Doximity Dialer. | Eligibility is limited, and the public workflow relies mainly on copy/paste rather than deep EHR write-back. |
Start with the way you already work
For a solo clinician or a small group, Doximity Scribe, Heidi, Freed, Commure Scribe and Sunoh.ai offer the clearest route to a real trial without a long procurement process. The key question is whether copying a finished note into the chart feels easy enough. That extra handoff may be perfectly reasonable in one practice and maddening in another.
Larger groups and health systems are having a different conversation. Dragon Copilot, Abridge, Nabla, Suki and Ambience can sit closer to the EHR and extend into orders, coding, patient summaries and governance. That can remove clicks and create consistency across many clinicians, but it also means contracts, interfaces, training and implementation.
The cheapest plan can still cost you time
The published prices make the self-serve products easier to compare, but the sticker price is only one part of the bill. A free tool that saves ten minutes and then creates five minutes of cleanup is not free. Neither is a low monthly rate if the feature you actually need—such as EHR push or shared templates—only appears on a higher tier.
Custom pricing is frustrating, but it does not automatically mean “too expensive.” An enterprise quote may include integration, centralized configuration, analytics and support that replace other work. Ask every finalist for the annual cost for the exact number of active clinicians, the exact EHR workflow you tested and every implementation fee. Then compare that number with the time the product truly returns.
A great demo is not a normal clinic day
The published evidence is encouraging, but it is not uniform. Studies have found less documentation time and lower work exhaustion in some settings, while head-to-head and quality studies have also found meaningful differences between products, missed details and occasional serious errors. That is exactly why a smooth vendor demo cannot answer the question that matters: will this work on your hardest Tuesday?
Give the finalists the same mix of visits and the same templates. Include a quick follow-up, a complex new patient, a multi-problem visit, an interpreter or several speakers and telehealth if you use it. Keep the clinician in control: every draft still needs review before it becomes part of the record.
- Time the whole job, from the end of the visit to the signed note—including edits and moving the draft into the EHR.
- Use messy visits, not only clean ones. Watch for omissions, invented statements, wrong-speaker attribution and bloated notes.
- Run the test for at least two weeks and track same-day closure, after-hours charting, staff rework and whether clinicians keep using it.
- Check the BAA, data retention, model-training rules, access controls, audit logs, consent process and downtime plan.
- Get the price for the exact tier and workflow you piloted, including implementation and the time your own team will spend.
Make the shortlist, then let your clinic decide
A solo physician may care most about starting today, paying a visible price and using the tool with any EHR. A multi-site group may care more about shared templates, identity management and support. A health system may put embedded workflow, orders, revenue-cycle work and governance at the top of the list. None of those priorities is more sophisticated than the others; they are simply different buying problems.
The best scribe is not the one with the longest feature list. It is the one clinicians keep turning on, trust enough to review carefully and can use without creating cleanup for everyone else. Build a short list from the table, test it on real clinic days and let the lived workflow—not the sales presentation—make the final call.