AI medical scribes cost anywhere from $39 to over $1,500 a month per clinician in 2026, and half of them won’t tell you their price without a sales call. That’s the whole problem with shopping this category. So here’s the real table, published numbers where they exist and honest estimates where they don’t, sorted so you can see the two camps: self-serve tools that post a price, and enterprise tools that make you ask. Patient Square sits in the first camp at $79, $119, or $199 a month, and the $119 Copilot plan bundles an AI EHR so you’re not also paying for a separate chart. You can book a demo and see a finished note against your own visit before you spend anything.
Let’s get the numbers on the table first, then break down what actually drives the cost.
Key takeaways
- Self-serve scribes publish prices: Freed $39–$119, Nabla $119, Tali ~CA$100–$150, Patient Square $79/$119/$199.
- Enterprise scribes are quote-only and far higher: Abridge est. ~$200–$800, Dragon Copilot (DAX) list ~$604–$1,512, DeepScribe est. ~$400–$500, Suki est. ~$299–$399.
- The cheapest sticker (Freed Starter, $39) caps at 40 notes; unlimited plans start around $79.
- Most scribes don’t include an EHR. Patient Square’s $119 Copilot bundles one, which changes the total-cost math.
- Compare cost per note in your own currency and volume, and add a separate EHR cost when the scribe doesn’t ship one.
The 2026 AI medical scribe price table
Here’s the field, cheapest published sticker first, then the quote-only enterprise tier. Read the caps and the currency, not just the number.
| Scribe | Published monthly price | Unlimited notes? | Bundled EHR | Pricing model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freed Starter | $39 | No (40 notes/mo) | No | Self-serve |
| Freed Core | $79 | Yes (monthly billing) | No | Self-serve |
| Patient Square Assist | $79 (annual) | Yes | No | Self-serve |
| Tali Pro | ~CA$100–$150 | Yes | No | Self-serve (CAD) |
| Freed Premier | $104 annual / $119 monthly | Yes | No (EHR push) | Self-serve |
| Nabla Pro | $119 | Yes | No | Self-serve |
| Patient Square Copilot | $119 (annual) | Yes | Yes | Self-serve |
| Patient Square Autopilot | $199 (annual) | Yes | Yes | Self-serve |
| Suki | ~$299–$399 (estimate) | Quote | No | Sales-led |
| DeepScribe | ~$400–$500 (estimate) | Quote | No | Sales-led |
| Abridge | ~$200–$800 (estimate) | Quote | No | Sales-led |
| Dragon Copilot (Nuance DAX) | ~$604–$1,512 (list) | Quote/Flex | No | Sales-led |
Self-serve and Patient Square figures are from each vendor’s pricing page (July 2026). Enterprise figures marked “estimate” are third-party; those vendors publish no per-provider price. Dragon Copilot figures are Microsoft marketplace list prices. Tali is in Canadian dollars; convert before comparing.
That’s the honest map. Now the part that decides your real cost.
Why half these prices are hidden
Notice the split in that table. Freed, Nabla, Tali, and Patient Square post a number. Abridge, DeepScribe, Suki, and Dragon Copilot make you request a quote. That’s not an accident, and it’s not really about the software; it’s about who they sell to.
The quote-only tools sell to health systems, where price tracks the number of providers, the depth of EHR integration, and how hard the customer negotiates. A hundred-provider system pays a very different per-seat rate than a ten-provider group, so a single public number wouldn’t mean much to them. Fair enough at that scale.
The scale involved is the tell. When Microsoft launched Dragon Copilot in March 2025, it said its DAX ambient technology had already handled more than 3 million patient conversations across 600 healthcare organizations in a single month. A vendor operating at that volume is negotiating enterprise contracts by the health system, not selling a $79 seat to a solo doctor, so a public sticker price genuinely wouldn’t fit the model. The number is real, and so is the reason it stays off the page. That’s the honest version of “contact sales.”
But it lands differently on an independent practice. If you’re a solo doctor, having to book a sales call to learn what a subscription costs is friction before you’ve seen a single note. And a vendor that hides the subscription price is usually telling you something about the renewal conversation later. A published price, $79, $119, whatever it is, means you can do the math today and you’ll do the same math at renewal. That transparency is worth more than a small sticker difference. If you want the enterprise-heavy end explained, our Abridge alternatives page walks through when that tier is overkill. For the specific quote-only tools in the table, DeepScribe pricing and Ambience Healthcare pricing each pull together what third-party sites estimate for those vendors.
The cheapest scribe isn’t always the cheapest scribe
The lowest sticker in the table is Freed Starter at $39. But it caps at 40 notes a month, so for a full-time clinic it’s a light-use plan, not a real scribe. The moment you need unlimited notes, the floor rises to about $79 (Freed Core, Patient Square Assist), and that’s the number most working practices should actually compare.
So “cheapest” depends entirely on your volume. Run the per-note math. Say you document 400 visits a month:
| Plan | Monthly price | Cost per note (400 visits) | Bundled EHR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freed Core | $79 | $0.20 | No |
| Patient Square Assist | $79 | $0.20 | No |
| Nabla Pro | $119 | $0.30 | No |
| Patient Square Copilot | $119 | $0.30 | Yes |
| DeepScribe (est.) | ~$450 | ~$1.13 | No |
| Dragon Copilot (list) | ~$604+ | ~$1.51+ | No |
Enterprise per-note figures use midpoint estimates or list prices; those vendors publish no per-provider price. Self-serve figures are published.
Every self-serve plan is cheap per note against an evening lost to charting, so at the low end price shouldn’t be your tiebreaker; note quality and workflow should be. The enterprise tools cost multiples more per note, which is fine if you’re buying their integration depth and a bad deal if you’re not. To see the whole self-serve field ranked, our best AI medical scribes roundup is the honest version, and you can book a demo to test note quality directly.
The cost most comparisons forget: the EHR
Here’s the line item that skews every scribe comparison, and almost nobody puts it in the table. Most scribes don’t ship a record system. Freed, Nabla, Tali, DeepScribe, Abridge, DAX, none of them sell you the chart. So if you’re shopping a scribe because your documentation is broken AND your EHR is clunky, the scribe price is only half your bill. You’ll pay it plus whatever your separate EHR costs.
That’s where the bundle changes the math. Patient Square’s Copilot plan is $119 a month, and that includes an AI Copilot EHR alongside the scribe. Practice Copilot brings the whole practice under one AI copilot: an ambient AI Medical Scribe that hands back a structured SOAP note, ICD-10 suggestions, and a prescription draft minutes after the visit, plus the bundled AI EHR, scheduling, and messaging as you move up the plan; at the Copilot tier the note lands in a chart that’s part of the same subscription. Against a $79 scribe plus a separate EHR, $119 for both is often the cheaper total, not the more expensive one.
Keep the scope honest when you compare: our eRx is a draft you review and sign, not pharmacy transmission, and ICD-10 is suggestions, not a certified coding engine. If you’re specifically buying coding or e-prescribing depth, weigh that against every vendor. But if your real need is a note plus a chart, book a demo and price the bundle against your current two-tool stack. If you’re deciding between adding a scribe or replacing the whole EHR, our free EHR AI scribe vs standalone breakdown helps.
How to compare AI scribe prices without getting fooled
Five steps that turn the messy table above into a real decision:
- Convert everything to your currency and billing period. Tali is in CAD; enterprise tools quote annually with setup fees. Get every number to “US dollars per clinician per month” before you compare.
- Divide by your real monthly visit count. Cost per note is the number that matters, and it depends on your volume, not the sticker.
- Add the EHR cost when the scribe doesn’t include one. A $79 scribe plus a $100 EHR is a $179 stack; compare that to a $119 bundle honestly.
- Confirm “unlimited” is unlimited. Check for per-note caps (Freed Starter’s 40, Nabla free’s 30) and setup fees, which enterprise tools often add on top of the subscription.
- Trial on real visits. The cheapest tool that writes a note you have to rewrite isn’t cheap. A 7-day trial on your own encounters settles quality faster than any price table.
The receipts behind our claims are on the security page, and the price ladder with no asterisks, $79, $119, $199, is on the pricing page. Book a short demo to see the note against your own visit type, then run the 7-day trial on a real clinic week. The scribe market hides its prices because the sales cycle is where enterprise vendors win. Shopping it well means doing the per-note math yourself, in your own currency, with the EHR cost included, and rewarding the vendors honest enough to post their number.