Krisp and Fader are not really competitors — they solve different problems. Krisp is an AI noise-canceller that strips background noise and echo out of your calls, sold as a subscription. Fader is a keyboard-driven per-app volume mixer and audio router, sold once for $19.99. If you want your voice to sound clean on a call, that's Krisp. If you want to set Spotify, Zoom, and your browser to different volumes and reach each one with a keystroke, that's Fader. Plenty of people run both.
These two names end up in the same search because both are "Mac audio apps" and both show up around calls. But they sit on opposite sides of the signal chain. Krisp works on the content of the audio — cleaning up noise so the person on the other end hears you clearly. Fader works on the levels and routing — how loud each app is in your own ears, and which speaker or headset each one plays through. Knowing which problem you actually have makes the choice obvious.
What Krisp does
Krisp is a real-time noise-cancellation and meeting-assistant app for macOS and Windows. It sits between your microphone and your conferencing app, using machine learning to remove background noise — keyboard clatter, a dog, a café, a fan — from your outgoing voice, and it can strip noise and echo from the incoming side too. Newer versions layer on meeting features: transcription, AI notes, and accent tools. It's genuinely good at the one thing it's known for: making a messy room sound like a quiet one on a call.
Krisp is a subscription. There's a free tier capped at 60 minutes of noise cancellation per day, and paid plans start at roughly $8 per month billed annually (around $16 month-to-month), with a higher tier near $15 per month annually for the fuller meeting-assistant set. Prices and limits shift over time, so check Krisp's own pricing page before you buy. What matters for this comparison: it is recurring, and it is about how your call sounds, not about volume.
What Fader does
Fader is a per-app volume mixer and output router for macOS 14.4 and later. It gives every running app its own volume level — the mixer Apple never shipped — and lets you send each app to its own output device: music to AirPods, calls to a headset, alerts to the desk speakers, no hardware required. Its defining trait is that it's keyboard-first. Hit a toggle hotkey and the keyboard becomes a mixer: a column of letter keys rides one app's level, the next column the next app, so you change the mix without leaving what you're doing.
Fader is a one-time $19.99 purchase on the Mac App Store, with a 3-day free trial and no account. It does not touch your microphone, clean up noise, or transcribe anything. It controls playback volume and routing. If your problem is "Zoom is drowning out my music" or "I want to mute my browser without hunting for the tab," that's Fader's lane, not Krisp's.
Side by side
| Krisp | Fader | |
|---|---|---|
| Core job | Remove noise/echo from calls | Per-app volume + output routing |
| Works on | Your microphone + incoming call audio | Each app's playback level and device |
| Per-app volume | No | Yes |
| Route apps to different outputs | No | Yes |
| Keyboard control of levels | No | Yes (letter-key faders) |
| Noise cancellation / AI notes | Yes | No |
| Price | Subscription; free tier 60 min/day, paid from ~$8/mo annually | $19.99 one-time, 3-day trial |
| Platforms | macOS + Windows | macOS 14.4+ |
Read the table top to bottom and the split is clean: there's no row where they do the same job better or worse. They don't overlap. That's why "which is better" is the wrong question — the right one is "which problem are you trying to fix right now."
Which one you actually need
Pick Krisp if the complaint is about how you sound to other people, or how noisy their side is: background hum on your calls, a loud room, echo, a need for automatic meeting transcripts. No volume mixer fixes that; noise removal is a genuinely different technology.
Pick Fader if the complaint is about balance and loudness in your own ears: one app too loud, needing music quieter than a call, wanting to mute an app instantly, or sending different apps to different speakers and headphones. If you're used to juggling levels all day, see per-app volume for people who are on calls all day on Mac for the workflow Fader is built around.
And if both complaints are true — your calls are noisy and your mix is a mess — run both. Krisp cleans the voice; Fader sets the levels and routing. They don't fight each other, and together they cover the two halves of a good call setup.
A note on cost over time
One practical difference worth naming honestly: Krisp's value is ongoing, so a subscription fits what it does — the models and meeting features keep improving, and you pay for that. Fader's value is a control surface you set up once, so it's sold once. Over a year, Krisp's entry plan runs roughly $96 if you stay on it; Fader is $19.99 forever. That's not a knock on Krisp — it's the difference between a service and a tool. Just don't buy a subscription expecting it to do a tool's job, or vice versa.
Bottom line
Krisp vs Fader isn't a real contest, because they never do the same thing. Krisp removes noise from your calls and bills monthly; Fader controls per-app volume and output routing from your keyboard for a one-time $19.99. If you need clean calls, get Krisp. If you need to ride app levels and route audio fast, get Fader. If you need both, the two live together happily. For the volume-and-routing half of that setup — the part macOS leaves out — Fader is exactly what it's built for. If you came here from a SoundSource search, the broader landscape is in Background Music vs Fader.
Control every app's volume from your keyboard
Fader turns letter keys into per-app faders and routes each app to its own output. $19.99 one-time, 3-day free trial, no account. macOS 14.4+.