Waves runs a "Waves Tuesdays" promotion almost every week. Vocal Rider frequently drops to $29.99 or even $19.99 during holiday sales (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Summer Sale).
If you refuse to download anything, you already own the most powerful vocal rider: Clip Gain.
Every DAW has it (Pro Tools, Logic, Reaper, FL Studio, Ableton, Cubase).
The Workflow:
This takes 10 minutes. It is 100% free. And honestly, A-list engineers do this instead of using Vocal Rider because manual riding always sounds more musical.
If the price of Waves Vocal Rider is a barrier, there are excellent free alternatives (often called "Freeware") created by reputable independent developers that perform similar functions. These are safe, legal, and highly recommended:
MFreeFXBundle by MeldaProduction:
AGC (Automatic Gain Control) Plugins:
Airwindows is a legendary developer of ultra-lightweight, donation-ware plugins. Their GainRider plugin (check the Airwindows GitHub or official site) attempts to do exactly what Vocal Rider does: smooth out volume changes based on input level.
If you own Reaper, the included ReaComp can mimic gain riding. Download Vocal Rider Plugin Free
A user searching for this term will encounter three distinct categories of results:
While not free, Hornet Autogain Pro costs €6 (approx $6.50). It is a legitimate, affordable alternative to Vocal Rider that runs in any DAW (VST/AU/AAX). This is the closest legal alternative for under $10.