TypeSeer and Cotypist, compared

We make TypeSeer, so read this with that in mind. What we have tried to do is write the page we would have wanted while deciding: the facts, including the ones that do not flatter us, and a straight answer about who should buy the other one.

What the two have in common

More than you would expect, and it matters, because it means this is not a choice between good AI and bad AI.

• Both run a language model on your own Mac. Neither sends your keystrokes to a server to be completed.
• Both need Apple Silicon. Neither runs on an Intel Mac, for the same reason: unified memory is what makes a local model fast enough to keep up with typing.
• Both build on the same generation of small open models rather than a private in-house one.
• Both work system-wide rather than as a plugin for one editor, and both show you a suggestion you accept a word at a time.
• Both are made by small independent developers rather than a company with an advertising department.

So if your worry is that the cheaper one must be running a worse model, put it down. That is not where these two diverge.

Where they diverge: the pricing model

Cotypist is a subscription with three tiers, and which features you get depends on which tier you are on. There is a free tier, then Plus, then Pro, and things like the full model catalogue and per-app instructions sit at the top of that ladder.

TypeSeer has one product. Monthly, annual and lifetime are the same application billed differently, and no feature is held back for a higher plan. There is no tier to work out and nothing to upgrade to.

The part people actually ask about

Cotypist does not sell a one-time purchase. Whichever tier you pick, you are renting the app, and the day you stop paying is the day it stops completing your sentences.

TypeSeer sells a lifetime licence. Pay once and it is yours, with nothing recurring to cancel and no renewal email in a year's time. If you would rather spread the cost, the monthly and annual plans are there and you can move to lifetime later.

On the recurring plans, TypeSeer's annual price is meaningfully below Cotypist's cheapest paid tier, before you even reach their Pro tier. We would rather you check that arithmetic yourself on the two pricing pages than take our word for it.

One TypeSeer licence covers two Macs on every plan, including lifetime.

Where Cotypist is the better choice

Genuinely, and not as a rhetorical device:

• Cotypist has a free tier and TypeSeer does not. It is capped at a hundred completed words a day, but it does not expire. If you write in short bursts and a hundred words a day would cover you, that is free forever against our nothing-after-fourteen-days. We think a paid app with no ads and no data collection is the more honest trade, but if your budget for this is zero, we are not the answer and they might be.
• Their trial is longer. Thirty days against our fourteen, and theirs opens the top tier. Two weeks is enough to know whether autocomplete suits how you write, but a month is more comfortable, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.

Where TypeSeer is the better choice

• You want to stop paying eventually. The lifetime licence is the whole argument, and the other app does not offer one.
• You do not want to think about tiers. Every TypeSeer plan is the complete app. You never discover that the feature you wanted is one tier up.
• You write in more than one language. TypeSeer carries dedicated dictionaries and word tables for fifteen languages, detects the language line by line, and will not flag a Polish word as an English typo.
• You want to see what it learned about you. Personalization is optional, learns only from sentences you finish, and Review Data lists every learned sentence so you can export it or delete one line without wiping the rest.

How to actually decide

Install both. They are free to try, they do not need an account or a card, and they will happily sit in the menu bar while you get on with your week. Autocomplete is unusually personal: a suggestion that delights one person interrupts another, and no comparison page can tell you which you are.

What we would suggest is judging them on your own writing rather than on a demo. Reply to a real email. Write the message you were going to write anyway. The question is not whether the suggestions are clever, it is whether they arrive often enough, and correctly enough, that you stop noticing them and just type faster.

Read next

How on-device AI autocomplete works explains what running the model locally costs and buys, including the parts that are genuinely harder. Which Mac apps autocomplete works in covers where a system-wide tool can and cannot reach. Our pricing page has the plans in full.