Best AI Meeting Notes Apps in 2026: Free and Paid Options Compared
If you search for the best AI meeting notes app, you get a wall of near-identical listicles. This one is narrower. I compared the tools on three things that actually decide whether you keep using one: what the free tier really lets you do, whether a bot joins your call, and what happens to your audio afterwards. Pricing and feature data below come from each vendor's own pricing page, which I read on October 23, 2026. Where I could not verify something, I say so rather than guess.
The 30-second answer
- Best free option: Fathom. Its free plan lists unlimited recordings and transcriptions, instant AI call summaries, and your choice of bot-free capture (beta, Mac) or bot capture. Fireflies is the runner-up if you need many languages.
- Best paid option for most teams: Fireflies. Its Pro tier is among the cheapest paid plans here on annual billing and adds video recording and downloads.
- Best for privacy-conscious users: Granola. It captures device audio without a bot in the call, and its pricing page states that audio is deleted after transcription on every plan.
Those are my picks from the published specs, not from a lab benchmark. I did not run accuracy tests, so I make no accuracy claims.
How I compared them
I used five criteria:
- Free-tier limits: minutes, history, storage, and what is locked.
- Bot or no bot: does a visible participant join the call, or does the app capture audio from your device?
- Language support: only what the vendor publishes.
- Integrations and workflow: Zoom, Meet, Teams, CRM, and AI search across past calls.
- Privacy and consent: notifications to other attendees, retention controls, and training opt-outs.
One honest limit: no vendor on these pricing pages names the speech-to-text or language model behind its notes. Treat any blog that confidently states "Tool X uses model Y" without a vendor citation with suspicion, including this one. Where a vendor publishes the detail, I report it. Otherwise I leave it blank.
Comparison table
Prices checked October 23, 2026, in USD per user per month. Vendors change pricing often, so confirm on the pricing page before buying. Ranges reflect monthly versus annual billing or multiple paid tiers.
| Tool | Paid price (as of Oct 2026) | Free tier | Transcription languages | Standout feature |
|---|
| Otter.ai | Roughly $8 to $17 for Pro, depending on billing (estimated from the vendor's student-discount page; the main page did not load plan prices for me) | Yes: 300 minutes per month, 30 minutes per conversation, 25 most recent conversations | English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese | Live transcription and auto-join to Zoom, Teams, and Meet on paid tiers |
| Fireflies | $10 (Pro, annual) to $19 (Business, annual); $18 and $29 billed monthly; Enterprise $39 annual | Yes: unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team | 100+ languages listed | Broad language coverage and an AI assistant across past meetings |
| Fathom | About $16 to $20 on Premium and Team; Business and Enterprise priced higher or by quote | Yes: unlimited recordings and transcriptions, instant summaries | Not stated on the pricing page | Generous free plan with a bot-free beta option |
| Granola | $14 (Business); $35 (Enterprise) | Yes: $0, but only 30 days of meeting history | "Multi-language support" listed; no count given | No bot in the call; notes built from your own typed notes plus device audio |
| Zoom AI Companion | Not verified live (the page did not give me a usable price) | Not verified; confirm current terms with Zoom | Not verified | Native to Zoom, so nothing extra joins your call |
| Notion AI Meeting Notes | Notion's page lists AI as free to try, then $10 per 1,000 monthly credits | Trial only | Not verified | Notes land directly in your workspace |
I verified Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, and Granola on their own pricing pages. The Zoom and Notion rows are incomplete because I could not extract reliable details, and I would rather leave cells marked than invent numbers. I did not check Microsoft Copilot in Teams at all, so I have not rated it.
Deep dives
Fathom: the best free plan I found
Fathom's free plan is the one I would try first. The vendor lists unlimited recordings, unlimited transcription, instant AI summaries, and clips and search across calls at $0. Paid plans add advanced summaries, AI action items, a conversational assistant, and a custom meeting bot. Team and Business plans add CRM sync and coaching metrics, and the page notes a minimum of two users on those tiers.
Verdict: great for solo professionals and freelancers. Catch: the bot-free option is labeled beta and Mac only, so most people will still have a visible bot join. The pricing page also does not state language coverage, so check that before relying on it for non-English calls.
Fireflies: best value if you pay
Fireflies' free plan lists unlimited transcription but limited AI summaries and only 400 minutes of storage per team. The cheapest paid plan, Pro, lists unlimited summaries, video recording, and downloads. Business adds multi-language mode, conversation analytics, and user groups. HIPAA compliance, SSO, audit logs, and private storage sit on the Enterprise tier. The 100+ transcription languages listed on the page are the broadest coverage of anyone here.
Verdict: a solid default for small teams. Catch: the big discount applies to annual billing, and the plan ladder has AI credits and storage limits that are worth reading before you commit.
Otter.ai: familiar, but the free tier is tight
Otter's free plan lists 300 transcription minutes a month, a 30-minute cap per conversation, and only the 25 most recent conversations kept. Paid plans raise these limits substantially, up to unlimited meeting transcription and four-hour conversations on the top tiers, and add auto-join to Zoom, Teams, and Meet. The vendor lists transcription in six languages.
Verdict: strong live-transcription workflow, but a 30-minute cap rules out most real meetings on the free plan. Catch: plan prices did not render for me, so check the live page.
Granola: the no-bot approach
Granola takes a different route. Its pricing page lists bot-free, device-audio capture on every plan, so nobody sees an extra participant in the call. Free is limited to 30 days of meeting history. Business at $14 adds unlimited history. Enterprise at $35 adds workspace-wide admin policy, model-training opt-out for the whole team, and an organization-wide notification that Granola is in use.
Verdict: the cleanest experience for people who dislike bots in client calls. Catch: no bot does not mean no consent obligation (see below), and the per-user training opt-out is something you must do yourself on lower tiers.
Free vs paid: what the money actually buys
Across the four tools I verified, the pattern is consistent:
- Free plans cap history, length, or storage, not the basic transcript. Fathom and Fireflies give unlimited transcription. Otter caps minutes and meeting length. Granola caps history to 30 days.
- Paid plans mostly buy better summaries, search, and team features: advanced summaries, action items, CRM sync, analytics, and downloads.
- The real price jump is security. SSO, audit logs, custom retention, and workspace-wide controls cluster on the most expensive tiers at Fireflies, Fathom, and Granola.
If you are a solo user taking a few calls a week, I would not pay yet. Run the free plan for a month and see which limit you actually hit.
The recording-privacy reality
This is where most comparisons go quiet, so here is what I can state and what I cannot.
Who can join and who gets told
Bot-based tools (Fireflies, Otter, Fathom's default mode) show up as a named participant, which gives other attendees a visible cue. Bot-free tools such as Granola capture audio locally, so there is no visible cue unless you tell people. Granola's Enterprise tier lists an organization-wide notification that it is being used. I could not read the vendors' FAQ answers on how each one notifies attendees, so I will not claim more than that.
Where audio goes
Granola states on its pricing page that audio is deleted after transcription. For the others, the pricing pages I read do not spell out audio storage location. Fireflies lists private storage and custom data retention only on Enterprise, and Fathom lists custom data retention programs on Enterprise. Read the vendor's security page before putting sensitive calls through any of them.
Consent is your job
Recording laws vary by country and, in the US, by state. Some places require every participant's consent. No app can resolve that for you. My practical rule: say at the start of the call that you are using an AI notetaker, and get a yes on the record. This is general guidance, not legal advice.
Admin controls and training
Granola lists model-training opt-out per user on lower plans and workspace-wide on Enterprise. Notion's page says it does not use your data to train its models unless you opt in to a request. I did not verify training policies for the others.
Who this is NOT for
- Teams with strict regulatory duties (healthcare, legal, finance) should not choose from a blog post. Fireflies lists HIPAA compliance on Enterprise only, and any tool still needs a legal and security review.
- People who need verified accuracy numbers. I ran no accuracy tests, and vendors do not publish comparable ones. Test two tools on your own recordings.
- Anyone who hates bots but also needs a consent trail. A bot-free tool removes the visible cue, which makes it your responsibility to disclose.
- Heavy non-English users. Otter lists six languages. Fathom does not state its languages on the pricing page. Test your language first.
- Microsoft Teams-first organizations. I did not evaluate Copilot in Teams, so this guide cannot tell you whether it beats a third-party tool for you.
Final take
Start with Fathom's free plan, move to Fireflies if you need language breadth or video downloads, and pick Granola if bots in calls are a dealbreaker. Whatever you choose, tell people they are being recorded.
Keep reading
Spotted an outdated price or want a tool added? Email nandminc2020@gmail.com.
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