Freed vs Nabla (2026)
These two mark the sharpest compliance inversion in the lane. Freed, the self serve scribe, ships the clean defaults: a Business Associate Agreement on every tier including the $39 entry plan, automatic deletion of recordings, an opt out from model training, and fully published pricing. Nabla, the estate scribe, carries the two caveats this index flags most often: the free tier reportedly lacks a BAA, and session data trains its models by default. What Nabla buys with that friction is reach Freed cannot offer: named integrations across Epic, athenahealth, Oracle Health, NextGen, and Greenway against Freed's browser extension push, roughly 31 languages, and a base weighted toward hospital systems and emergency departments with NEJM attributed efficiency figures. If your failure mode is PHI terms you have to negotiate, or procurement itself, start with Freed. If your failure mode is native integration across a mixed hospital estate, start with Nabla, and put the training default and BAA tier in the contract.
- The compliance defaults are the inversion: a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement on every tier including the $39 entry plan, SOC 2 Type II, automatic deletion of recordings, and an opt out from model training, against Nabla's free tier BAA gap and training by default.
- You can see the whole cost before talking to anyone: $39 Starter, $79 Core unlimited, $119 Premier with EHR Push and coding, and a seven day trial with no credit card, where Nabla withdrew its previously published tiers during 2026.
- Zero deployment is the feature: sign up and generate notes the same day with no sales call or IT project; community health center Camarena Health deployed 55 clinicians across 24 sites without formal implementation.
- Native integration decides it: named bidirectional integrations across Epic, athenahealth, Oracle Health, NextGen, and Greenway, an A on this index's EHR axis, against Freed's Chrome extension push with no native API write back.
- Setting and language breadth: roughly 31 languages and templates across more than 35 specialties on a base weighted toward hospital systems and emergency departments, where Freed's fit is strongest in primary care with a documented specialty ceiling.
- Peer reviewed attribution: roughly 55 percent of users saving at least an hour a day and a 27 percent reduction in burnout, figures attributed to a published NEJM study, where Freed's clinical evidence is unassessed on this index.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. Freed and Nabla are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | Freed | Nabla |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Ambient Scribes | Ambient Scribes |
| Founded | 2022 | 2018 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California | Paris, France |
| Website | getfreed.ai | nabla.com |
Side by Side
Each record in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph states what the AI Health Index verified about the vendor, with the caveats attached. Generated from this pair’s live capability grades, so it moves when a grade moves.
The AI Health Index awards Freed its top capability grade on several axes, including AI Centrality, HIPAA and BAA Posture and Security Certifications and Trust Center. Set against Nabla, Freed grades higher on HIPAA and BAA Posture and Commercial Transparency. Grades reflect evidence the AI Health Index could verify at the last review, so a low grade records disclosure the vendor has not published rather than a capability it has been shown to lack.
Source: AI Health Index, July 2026
The AI Health Index awards Nabla its top capability grade on several axes, including AI Centrality, Clinical and Operational Evidence and AI Safety and PHI Stewardship. Set against Freed, Nabla grades higher on several axes, including Clinical and Operational Evidence, AI Safety and PHI Stewardship and EHR and Interoperability Depth. Grades reflect evidence the AI Health Index could verify at the last review, so a low grade records disclosure the vendor has not published rather than a capability it has been shown to lack.
Source: AI Health Index, July 2026
Questions buyers ask
Should we choose Freed or Nabla?
On the axes where the AI Health Index separates them, Freed grades higher on HIPAA and BAA Posture and Commercial Transparency, and Nabla grades higher on several axes, including Clinical and Operational Evidence, AI Safety and PHI Stewardship and EHR and Interoperability Depth. Nabla leads on the greater share of scored axes, but the split means the decision turns on which constraint is binding rather than on an overall winner.
Where do Freed and Nabla differ most?
The widest separation the AI Health Index records between Freed and Nabla is on HIPAA and BAA Posture, where Freed grades A and Nabla grades C. That axis sits in the Regulatory and Compliance group, so it should carry the most weight for a buyer whose binding constraint is where regulatory exposure sits and who carries it.
Where do Freed and Nabla grade the same?
The AI Health Index grades Freed and Nabla the same on several axes, including AI Centrality, Autonomy and Oversight Model and Model and Technology Transparency. Neither holds an advantage the index can evidence on those axes, so they should not carry weight in a selection between these two.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Ambient Scribes page.
Volume figures for both vendors are vendor published, including Freed's 32 million transcribed visits and Nabla's 85,000 plus clinicians. Freed's tradeoffs are stated plainly by vendor and third party review alike: EHR Push works through a Chrome extension into browser based EHRs with no native API write back, and specialty depth outside primary care is a known weakness.
Nabla's two caveats carry more weight than any price: the free tier reportedly lacks a Business Associate Agreement, and session data is used for model training by default; confirm both, and whether training can be disabled contractually, before deployment. Nabla's evidence grade is held at B because the design and cohort of the NEJM study it cites were not captured in retrieved materials.
Freed's pricing is fully published; Nabla previously published tiers, including a Pro plan reported near $119 per month, and has moved to contract sales with aggregator listings now conflicting on rates.