Is Krisp Free? Not Any More — What It Does and What It Costs

By the FreeHush crew · This post used to describe Krisp's free plan, which no longer exists

We run a site about free audio tools, and for most of 2026 Krisp's free plan was one of the few freemium tiers we'd recommend without a wince. That plan is gone, so this post has been rewritten from the top.

Here's the whole picture as it stands now — what Krisp is, what the trial gives you, what paid costs, the one place it's still free, and how to install it without wandering into a sketchy mirror site.

What is Krisp?

Krisp (yes, the company behind krisp.ai — you'll also see it written Krisp AI; it's the same thing) is desktop software for Windows and Mac that does one job extremely well: AI noise suppression on live calls. It installs as a virtual microphone and speaker. You pick "Krisp Microphone" inside your calling app, and from that moment the barking dog, the keyboard, the street below — the other side doesn't hear any of it. It works the other way too: it can mute the noise coming from other people's messy rooms into your ears.

Because it sits at the system level, it works with effectively any app that uses a mic — Zoom, Teams, Meet, Webex, Discord, Slack huddles, softphones, recording apps, all of it. No per-app setup, no plugins.

The company (Krisp Technologies — the noise-cancellation models are their own, and if you've used Discord's built-in noise suppression, you've already heard Krisp: that toggle is powered by their tech) has drifted upmarket over the years into an "AI meeting assistant" — the paid app now also does transcription, meeting notes, and summaries. That's nice if you want it. But the reason regular people install Krisp is still the original one: your calls stop sounding like your life.

What Krisp is not: it's not a microphone. If you searched "krisp microphone" hoping for hardware — there isn't any. It's software that makes the mic you already own sound like it lives in a quieter home.

Is Krisp free?

No — not any more. Krisp no longer has a free plan, and we'd rather say so in the first line than bury it.

New users get a 7-day free trial with all premium features and no credit card. After that, noise cancellation needs a paid plan. Krisp's Terms of Use (updated March 4, 2026) say that unless you buy a subscription before the trial ends, all access to Krisp will immediately cease. You keep 90 days to export your content.

The fine print, itemized the way we always do it:

• Trial: $0 for 7 days, every premium feature, no card
• You give: an account sign-up on krisp.ai
• Core: $8 per user a month billed annually, or $16 month to month — unlimited noise cancellation
• Advanced: $15 per user a month billed annually, or $30 month to month
• Enterprise: custom pricing
• Trial ends without a plan? Krisp stops; your calls carry on with your regular mic audio

Who should take the trial? Anyone whose meeting app's own suppression keeps losing to the room — background voices, a café, a loud household — and who wants one filter across every app. Who shouldn't bother: someone with a quiet room and a couple of calls a week; Zoom's and Teams' built-in filters were made for you.

One honest nudge: the free plan that older guides describe no longer exists — Krisp's help-center page about it has been unpublished. If a review still says Krisp costs nothing to keep using, it's out of date.

What Krisp costs after the trial

Krisp Core runs $8 per user a month billed annually, or $16 month to month (checked October 8, 2026 on krisp.ai/pricing — Krisp shuffles plans more than most; treat the pricing page as the referee). Advanced is $15 billed annually or $30 monthly, and Enterprise is custom-priced.

Our thrifty-house math: $8 a month is fair if the free filters in your meeting apps lose to your room most days. If they lose twice a month, you don't have a Krisp problem, you have a scheduling problem — stay free and book the quiet room.

How to download Krisp (do it the boring way)

Search "krisp download" and you'll find a swamp of mirror sites, "cracked" builds, and installers that are definitely not from Krisp. Skip all of it. The only sane route:

1. Go to krisp.ai directly (that's the entire company website — .ai is the domain, not a product tier).
2. Create your account and start the trial (no card), then download the installer for Windows or Mac from your account — signing in happens on the official site; anywhere else asking for your Krisp login is a red flag.
3. Install, then in your calling app's audio settings, switch the microphone to Krisp Microphone.
4. Talk. The first time someone says "wow, it's quiet at your place" — it isn't. That's the software.

A modified installer for a tool whose whole job is listening to your microphone is about the worst place on the internet to get adventurous. The trial is already free and the paid plan starts at $8 a month; there's nothing worth pirating your way into.

Setting it up in your apps (two minutes, once)

The setup is the same trick everywhere, because Krisp doesn't integrate with apps — it impersonates a microphone, and apps just believe it.

Open your calling app's audio or voice settings. Where it asks which microphone to use, pick Krisp Microphone. If you also want incoming noise cleaned (other people's chaos, not just yours), set the speaker to Krisp Speaker too. That's the entire integration. Do it once per app and it sticks.

Three habits that save you grief:

• Do a ten-second test call before the one that matters. Most apps have a mic test or echo test built in; use it the first time so you're not debugging audio in front of a client.
• Watch for apps stealing the setting back. Some apps "helpfully" reset to the system default microphone after an update or when a new headset connects. If people suddenly hear your keyboard again, check the mic dropdown first — nine times out of ten, the app quietly switched off Krisp Microphone.
• Don't double-stack suppression by accident. If Krisp is on, turn the app's own built-in noise suppression down or off. Two AI filters fighting over the same voice can make you sound underwater. One filter, chosen on purpose, sounds better than two by accident.

Where Krisp is still free: inside Discord

One corner of the old freebie survives, and it isn't Krisp's own app:

Discord ships Krisp in its voice settings. Discord's own FAQ answers the price question directly: "Krisp is free when you use it with Discord." Turn it on from the Noise Suppression icon in a voice channel, or under User Settings → Voice & Video (checked October 8, 2026).

It runs nearly everywhere Discord does. Windows, Linux, Mac (Apple silicon, macOS 12 or later), Android and iOS, plus Chrome and Firefox on desktop, according to the same FAQ.

It only cleans your side. Discord's version filters what you send, not what your friends' microphones pick up — and it does nothing outside Discord.

It runs on your device. Discord says no voice or data is sent to Krisp's servers when you use it there; the model runs locally.

Where Krisp shines (and where you don't need it)

On Discord: as above — flip the toggle in Discord's voice settings and spend nothing. Install the actual Krisp app only when you want the same cleanup everywhere else too, and know that it's paid after the 7-day trial.

On meetings (Zoom/Meet/Teams/Webex): the built-in suppression in these apps has gotten decent for hums and fans. Krisp still earns its slot when the noise is hard — voices in the background, clattering dishes, a genuinely loud room — and when you want one setting that covers every app instead of four different menus. It also cleans inbound noise from other people, which none of the built-ins really solve for you.

For recording: Krisp cancels noise live, at capture time. If the noisy audio is already recorded, that's a different aisle of the store — our free online noise removal tools guide covers that for $0.

We don't publish fake benchmark percentages ("removes 99.7% of noise!") because nobody measuring at home can verify them and neither can you. What we'll say plainly: it's the tool this whole category gets measured against, and the 7-day trial is the cheapest way to find out if your particular noise is inside its skill set. Verify it in your own trial — that's the only benchmark that matters.

Krisp on your phone: read this before installing

The mobile apps (iOS and Android) are not the noise-cancelling Krisp. As of our last check, Krisp's live noise cancellation is desktop-only; the mobile apps do transcription and meeting notes. If you grabbed "Krisp for Android" expecting silent calls, that's why nothing got quieter. On a phone, the free options are the filters inside your meeting apps — and Discord's built-in Krisp, which does run on Android and iOS.

When it misbehaves: the three usual suspects

Krisp is low-drama software, but when something goes sideways it's almost always one of these:

"Krisp Microphone" doesn't appear in my app's list. The Krisp app isn't running, or the app you're calling from launched before Krisp did. Start Krisp first, restart the calling app, and check the dropdown again. On a Mac, also make sure Krisp has microphone permission in system privacy settings — no permission, no virtual mic.

People say I sound robotic or clipped. That's usually the double-filter problem from the setup section: Krisp plus the app's own suppression plus maybe a headset's onboard processing, all chewing the same signal. Strip it back to one layer. If it persists on a weak laptop during screen-share-heavy calls, that's processing load — close what you can, or let the app's lighter built-in handle the easy calls.

The trial ended mid-week. Nothing breaks — Krisp just stops and your raw mic carries the call. If you miss it within a day, that's your answer on whether Core is worth $8 a month; if you don't notice, keep your money.

If Krisp isn't your tool: the $0 bench

Part of the FreeHush job description is telling you when not to install something. Krisp isn't the answer to everything:

• NVIDIA RTX graphics card in your PC? NVIDIA Broadcast does live noise removal free with no meter at all — the catch is the hardware requirement, which you either already own or you don't.
• Only ever on Discord? The built-in toggle (Krisp under the hood, free inside Discord) is all you need. Zero installs, zero cost.
• Cleaning up recordings, not live calls? Wrong aisle entirely — noise cancellation works on live audio. For files that already exist, the free web tools do the job; our free online noise removal roundup walks the whole shelf.
• Just need your own voice louder and cleaner, not the room quieter? Check your app's mic sensitivity and auto-gain settings first. It's a surprising amount of "noise" that's actually just bad gain, and fixing it costs nothing.

Krisp's lane is: live calls, any app, no special hardware, hard noise. If that sentence describes your problem, the 7-day trial is the cheapest experiment you can run — just diary the decision before day seven.

Quick answers

What is noise suppression, in one line? Software that separates "voice" from "everything else" in your mic signal and deletes the everything else, live.

Is it Krisp, Crisp, or Krispr? Krisp, with a K, one word. Search engines forgive the typos; sketchy lookalike sites are counting on them.

Is there still a free plan? No. Krisp's pricing page lists a 7-day Free Trial, then Core, Advanced and Enterprise. The only free Krisp left is the one built into Discord.

Does Krisp work with my app? If the app can select a microphone, yes — that's the virtual-mic trick.

Where do I sign in? krisp.ai, nowhere else. There's no reason to type your Krisp password on any other domain.

Every price and limit on this page was re-read on krisp.ai/pricing, Krisp's Terms of Use and Discord's Krisp FAQ on October 8, 2026, and gets re-checked when this page updates. Spot something stale? Tell us — crew@freehush.com. We fix fast and note the correction.

FreeHush is reader-supported: some links on this page are affiliate links, marked and routed through our own redirects. We call a tool free only when it has a real free tier — which is why this post now calls Krisp a paid tool.