Best AI Meeting Notetakers: Otter vs Fireflies vs Fathom vs Granola

If you want unlimited free recordings and a bot that joins the call, start with Fathom. If you want the lowest confirmed paid seat, start with Fireflies Pro at $10/user/month billed annually. If you do not want a bot in the room, use Granola. Otter is the right pick when you already know it and you need live transcription with a clear minute cap.

Prices are US list prices last verified October 16, 2026. We did not measure transcription accuracy. The fit labels say what each company sells, not which transcript we preferred in a test.

The decision in one table

Question	Choose	Price to know
Can a bot join Zoom, Meet, or Teams?	Fathom, Otter, or Fireflies	Fathom Free is unlimited recordings
The bot makes clients uncomfortable	Granola	Free Basic; Business $14/user/month
Cheapest paid seat we could confirm	Fireflies Pro	$10/user/month annual, or $18 monthly
You want action items on a cheap individual plan	Fathom Premium or Otter Pro	Fathom Premium $16/month annual; Otter Pro $8.33/user/month annual
You also want email and chat search, not just meetings	Read AI	Pro $15/user/month annual
Sales team pushing notes into a CRM	Fathom Business, or Fireflies on a team plan	Fathom Business $25/user/month annual

Figure (capture diagram, not a product screenshot). Alt: Two capture methods. Bot joins the meeting: Otter, Fireflies, and Fathom. No bot, computer audio plus your own notes: Granola. A third box, cross-app search: Read AI.

All four, plus related tools, are in the meetings and transcription directory.

What each product actually is

Otter.ai sends an agent into Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams, or records in person from the app. You get a live transcript with speakers, a summary, action items, and Otter AI Chat. It also documents a Zapier integration and an MCP server, so other assistants can pull meeting context.

Fireflies.ai joins from the calendar (the notetaker address documented on their site is fred@fireflies.ai) and transcribes video meetings, dialer calls, uploads, and in-person audio. AskFred answers questions across meetings. Fireflies Talk, a dictation feature, is included on every plan.

Fathom joins Zoom, Meet, and Teams and sends a summary when the call ends. It is part of Superhuman. The reason people try it first is the free plan: unlimited recordings, transcripts, instant summaries, clips, and search.

Granola does not send a bot. It transcribes your computer’s audio while you type rough notes, then rewrites those notes with the transcript. It also prepares a brief before external meetings. Notes are private by default. Apps exist for iPhone, Android, and Apple Watch.

Pricing

Otter showed a 50% introductory discount on Pro and 20% on Business for three months when we checked. Those promos are not in the table. Use the list price, then accept a promo only if it is still on the checkout page.

Otter.ai

Plan	Monthly	Annual	Transcription
Basic	Free	Free	300 minutes/user/month, 30 minutes per conversation
Pro	$16.99/user/month	$8.33/user/month	1,200 minutes/user/month, 90 minutes per conversation
Business	$30/user/month	$19.99/user/month	Unlimited meetings, 4 hours per conversation
Enterprise	Custom	Custom	Unlimited

Pro workspaces are capped at 5 billed users. Business is capped at 25. A two-hour workshop does not fit on the free 30-minute conversation limit.

Fireflies.ai

Plan	Annual	Monthly
Free	$0	$0
Pro	$10/user/month	$18/user/month
Business	$19/user/month	$29/user/month
Enterprise	$39/user/month	—

The knowledge base page we used lists prices, not minute caps. Confirm recording limits on the pricing page before you roll Fireflies out to a team. Talk dictation is included on all plans.

Fathom

Plan	Annual	Monthly	Documented extras
Free	$0	$0	Unlimited recordings, transcripts, instant summaries, clips, search
Premium	$16/month	$20/month	Advanced summaries and AI action items
Team	$15/user/month	$19/user/month	2-user minimum, comments, folders, keyword alerts
Business	$25/user/month	$34/user/month	CRM field sync and Deal View

Team plans include a trial and a 90-day guarantee, per Fathom’s pricing page. Annual billing is the price Fathom leads with and saves 25% or more versus monthly.

Granola

Plan	Price	History and admin
Basic	$0	AI notes and chat, 30 days of history, Slack
Business	$14/user/month	Unlimited history, model choice, all integrations
Enterprise	From $35/user/month	SSO, admin controls, policy management

You pay per active member, and every member of a workspace is on the same plan. There is no point putting one person on Business and leaving the rest on Basic inside that workspace.

Read AI, if the meeting is not the whole job

Read AI Free includes 5 meeting transcripts a month and unlimited search. Pro is $15/user/month annual ($19.75 monthly) with unlimited transcripts. Enterprise is $22.50 annual. Use it when you want meetings plus files and messages in one search box. Use Fathom or Fireflies when the meeting itself is the product.

Wispr Flow is dictation first. Its Growth with Notetaker plan is $33/user/month or $26/user/month annual. It is a poor substitute for Fathom if all you want is call notes, and a reasonable one if you already pay Wispr to dictate.

Fit, based on published product design

	Otter	Fireflies	Fathom	Granola
Bot joins the call	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Generous free recordings	Limited (300 min)	Free plan exists; minute cap not confirmed here	Strong (unlimited)	Free, but 30-day history
Live transcript during the call	Strong	Documented	Summary is the headline feature	You type; it transcribes alongside
CRM-oriented team plan	Business workflows	Business and Enterprise	Business Deal View	Not the sales pitch
Lowest confirmed individual paid price	$8.33/user/month annual	$10/user/month annual	$16/month annual	$14/user/month
Phone and dialer calls	Import and in-person app	Dialers such as Aircall and RingCentral	Video meetings are the core	Computer audio, including non-video calls on the machine

How to choose for a team of 10

Cost is only comparable if you count seats you will actually invite.

• Fathom Team at $15/user/month annual is $150/month for 10 people, with a 2-user minimum on Team. Business at $25 is $250/month if you need CRM field sync.
• Fireflies Pro at $10 annual is $100/month for 10. Business at $19 is $190/month.
• Otter Business at $19.99 annual is about $200/month, and the plan allows up to 25 billed users. Free Otter will not survive a calendar of hour-long calls: 300 minutes is five hours.
• Granola Business at $14 is $140/month, with no bot and a shared plan for the whole workspace.

Run one live meeting in Fathom Free and one in Granola Basic before you buy seats. You are testing politics as much as features: some clients will not accept a bot, which makes Granola the only fit in this list regardless of price.

Those seats are a real subscription. If a notetaker would be your second or third AI bill, compare it with the $8–$20 assistant plans in which AI subscription is worth paying for before you multiply a per-user price by the whole team.

After the notes exist, the next leak is copying action items into other tools. That is an automation problem, covered in Zapier vs Make vs n8n. Otter’s directory page notes a Zapier integration specifically.

Privacy points to read before you turn it on

• Tell the other people in the meeting when a bot is recording. Several jurisdictions require consent. This article is not legal advice.
• Granola’s pitch is that notes are private by default and no bot appears. That still captures audio on the machine. Read its policy before you use it on calls you do not host.
• Enterprise tiers (Otter, Fireflies at $39/user annual, Granola from $35, Read AI Enterprise+) are where SSO and retention controls show up. Do not expect those controls on an individual Pro plan.

FAQ

Which AI notetaker is best for unlimited free notes?

Fathom Free is the plan that documents unlimited recordings, transcripts, and instant summaries. Otter Free is 300 minutes. Granola Free keeps 30 days of history. Fireflies has a free plan; confirm its recording cap on the current pricing page.

Otter vs Fireflies: which is cheaper?

On confirmed annual rates, Otter Pro is $8.33/user/month and Fireflies Pro is $10/user/month. Otter’s free tier is much tighter (300 minutes and 30 minutes per conversation). A team that needs unlimited meetings on Otter is on Business at $19.99 annual, which is roughly Fireflies Business at $19.

Does Granola work with Zoom?

Yes. Granola captures computer audio, so it works with Zoom, Meet, Teams, and other meeting apps without a bot joining as a participant.

What about tl;dv?

tl;dv is a real alternative with unlimited recordings on the free plan and a tight cap on AI notes (10 AI-note meetings on Free in our check). The pricing page we saw was shown in a local currency rather than a confirmed USD list price, so it is not in the price table. Open the vendor page and read the USD column before you compare it with Fathom.

Last verified

October 16, 2026.

Sources: Otter pricing, Fireflies pricing plans, Fathom pricing, Granola pricing, Read AI pricing.

Affiliate links, if any, live on directory pages such as Otter and Fireflies. A purchase through them may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.