Otter vs Fireflies vs Fathom (2026): Best AI Note Taker for Small-Business Meetings

Key takeaways

Verdict: Otter vs Fireflies vs Fathom for small teams

All three of these AI note takers will join your Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams call, transcribe it and write a summary. The differences that matter to a small business are the free-plan limits and the price of a paid seat. We read all three pricing pages on 23 October 2026. All prices are in US dollars, before tax.

• Most generous free plan on paper: Fathom. It’s “Free forever” with unlimited recordings and transcription. The catch is that the AI extras (advanced summaries, Ask Fathom and AI action items) only cover your first 5 calls each month.
• Cheapest paid seat on yearly billing that we could confirm: Fireflies Pro at $10 a seat a month. Its free plan says “unlimited transcription”, but for new accounts that only holds while Auto-join is switched on.
• Tightest free plan: Otter Basic. You get 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation, and only your 25 most recent conversations are kept. Otter has iOS and Android apps, which helps if you record in person.
• We don’t name a winner on accuracy. We have not recorded a test meeting yet.

In short: for solo users who want free, start with Fathom. For a team that wants the cheapest confirmed paid seat and a long language list, look at Fireflies. For a phone-first recorder for in-person meetings, try Otter’s app.

Research-based comparison. We have not tested these tools hands-on yet. Everything below comes from each maker’s published pricing and help pages, checked 23 October 2026. Cost note: all three have free plans; the paid seats start at $10 to $20 a month depending on the tool and how you pay.

At a glance: free plans and first paid seat (USD)

Tool	Free plan	Free-plan catch	First paid seat	Languages (maker's claim)
Otter	Basic: 300 min a month, 30 min per conversation	Only your 25 most recent conversations; 3 lifetime file imports	Pro $16.99/mo monthly; yearly shown as $8.33/mo (unconfirmed)	English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese
Fireflies	"Unlimited transcription*", 400 min storage per team, 20 AI credits	New accounts: unlimited only with Auto-join on; off = 3 transcriptions	Pro $18/seat monthly, or $10/seat billed yearly	"100+ languages"
Fathom	"Free forever": unlimited recordings and transcription	AI extras (summaries, Ask Fathom, action items) for the first 5 calls a month	Premium $20/mo monthly, or $16/mo billed yearly	Fathom's own pages disagree (20, 36 or 38)

From each maker's published pricing page. We have not recorded test meetings yet, so this table says nothing about transcript accuracy. Prices in US dollars, before tax. Otter's yearly prices are unconfirmed until checkout. Facts checked 23 Oct 2026 on each maker's own pages. Prices change, so check before you buy.

What we checked, and what still needs testing

We read the pricing page of each tool in both monthly and yearly views where the page let us. We read Fireflies’ help article on its new free-plan rule, and Fathom’s language and bot-free recording pages. We have not recorded any meetings. Before we add anything about quality, we plan to run these tests on the free plans:

1. Record the same 30-minute Google Meet call with all three at once. Two speakers, one with a strong non-native English accent, and three agreed action items. Then compare word errors on a 2-minute sample, speaker labels, and whether each tool caught the action items.
2. Record a 5-minute clip in Spanish and another in Urdu or Hindi, and note which tools even accept it on the free plan.
3. Check the free-plan limits in practice: does Otter stop at 30 minutes, does Fireflies change when Auto-join is off, and what happens on Fathom’s sixth call of the month?
4. Record an in-person meeting with each phone app.
5. Open each upgrade screen without paying, and note the real yearly price and the currency shown outside the US.

Free plans compared: the limits that bite

	Otter Basic	Fireflies Free	Fathom Free
Price	$0	$0	$0, “Free forever”
Recording	300 min per user a month, no rollover	“Unlimited transcription*” (see the Auto-join rule below)	Unlimited recordings and transcription
Length cap	30 min per conversation	2-hour recording limit	Not listed as a cap on the free plan
Storage or history	25 most recent conversations	400 min of storage per team	Unlimited, per the pricing page
AI extras	3 lifetime file imports (AI features not compared here)	20 AI credits	Advanced AI features for the first 5 calls a month

Sources: Otter pricing, Fireflies pricing, Fathom pricing, checked 23 Oct 2026.

Otter Basic: 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation

Otter’s free plan gives each user 300 transcription minutes a month, and unused minutes don’t roll over. Each conversation stops at 30 minutes, so a typical one-hour client call won’t fit. You can import 3 audio or video files in total (that’s a lifetime limit, not monthly), and Otter keeps your 25 most recent conversations. Older ones drop out of view unless you upgrade. On the plus side, the free plan works with Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, and Otter has apps for iPhone and Android.

Fireflies Free: “unlimited” depends on Auto-join

The Fireflies pricing page lists “Unlimited transcription*” on the free plan, with 400 minutes of storage per team, 20 AI credits, a 2-hour recording limit, a Chrome extension, a mobile app and API access. The asterisk matters. According to Fireflies’ own help article, from 1 September 2026:

• With Auto-join on (the Fireflies bot, “Fred”, joins your calendar meetings automatically), there’s no cap on transcriptions.
• With Auto-join off, you get 3 transcriptions.
• The setting “Only when I invite fred@” doesn’t count as Auto-join.
• The mobile app records in-person meetings on the free plan.

So the plan is unlimited only if you’re happy for a bot to turn up in your meetings. The 400-minute storage limit per team still applies, which is under 7 hours of meetings in total.

Fathom Free: unlimited recording, AI extras for 5 calls a month

Fathom’s free plan has unlimited recordings and transcription. You can record with a bot that joins the call, or with bot-free capture. Bot-free capture is a Mac app that Fathom labels as beta. The limit is on the AI layer: the advanced summaries, the Ask Fathom chat and AI action items cover only your first 5 calls each month. After that you still get the recording and transcript.

If you mainly want a searchable record of every call, Fathom’s free plan goes furthest. If you want AI-written follow-ups for every call, you’ll need a paid plan on any of the three.

Paid plans and the cost for a team of 1, 3 and 10

Plan	Monthly billing	Yearly billing (per month)	Key limits	Source
Otter Pro	$16.99 per user	$8.33 shown (unconfirmed)	1,200 min a month, 90 min per meeting, max 5 billed users	Otter
Otter Business	$30 per user, shown as $24 with an offer for first-time subscribers	$19.99 shown (unconfirmed)	4 hours per meeting, 3 meetings at once, up to 25 billed users	Otter
Fireflies Pro	$18 per seat	$10 per seat	8,000 min storage per seat	Fireflies
Fireflies Business	$29 per seat	$19 per seat	Unlimited storage, multi-language mode, 1080p video	Fireflies
Fireflies Enterprise	Yearly only	$39 per seat	HIPAA support on this plan	Fireflies
Fathom Premium	$20	$16	Individual plan	Fathom
Fathom Team	$19 per user	$15 per user	2-user minimum	Fathom
Fathom Business	$34 per user	$25 per user	2-user minimum; CRM field sync	Fathom

All prices checked 23 Oct 2026, in USD, before tax.

About Otter’s yearly prices. On 23 October, with the yearly toggle on, Otter’s page showed Pro at $8.33 a user a month (“save 51%”) and Business at $19.99 (“save 33%”). Our research notes from earlier the same week showed Pro yearly as $8.49 with an unexplained asterisk. Otter’s page also carries India-card pricing that uses some of the same figures. Until we see the price at checkout, treat Otter’s yearly numbers as unconfirmed and check the live page.

The Otter Business monthly offer ($24 instead of $30) is labelled “Offer valid for first-time subscribers only”. The page we saw didn’t say how long it lasts, so budget for $30.

Worked example: what a team would pay

Our arithmetic from list prices, before tax. Each row uses the cheapest plan that fits.

Team	Otter	Fireflies	Fathom
1 person, yearly	Pro $8.33/mo (unconfirmed)	Pro $10/mo	Premium $16/mo
1 person, monthly	Pro $16.99	Pro $18	Premium $20
3 people, yearly	Pro 3 × $8.33 = $24.99/mo (unconfirmed)	Pro 3 × $10 = $30/mo	Team 3 × $15 = $45/mo
3 people, monthly	Pro 3 × $16.99 = $50.97	Pro 3 × $18 = $54	Team 3 × $19 = $57
10 people, yearly	Business 10 × $19.99 = $199.90/mo (unconfirmed; Pro caps at 5 billed users)	Pro 10 × $10 = $100/mo	Team 10 × $15 = $150/mo
10 people, monthly	Business 10 × $30 = $300	Pro 10 × $18 = $180	Team 10 × $19 = $190

Two things stand out. Otter’s Pro plan stops at 5 billed users, so a team of 10 has to move up to Business. And Fireflies Pro has the lowest confirmed cost at every team size on yearly billing. Plans don’t include the same features, though, so check that the plan you pick covers what you need, such as CRM sync or longer meetings.

Fathom also runs two programmes worth knowing about: its pricing page offers up to 2 years of the Team plan free for qualifying venture-backed startups, and 10 free seats for nonprofits. Check the eligibility rules on the page.

Languages: who handles non-English meetings?

If your meetings aren’t in English, check the language list before anything else.

• Otter lists six: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese.
• Fireflies claims “100+ languages” across its plans. Its multi-language mode, for meetings that switch between languages, is on the Business plan.
• Fathom is unclear. Its help page on languages says 38. Its overview page describes 7 native languages plus 29 more through translation. Its Fathom 3.0 material says 20. We can’t tell you which is current, so test your language on the free plan first.

None of the three pages we read promised Urdu or Hindi by name in a way we could confirm, so if you need either, run a short test clip first.

Bot or no bot? How each one joins your call

Most AI note takers work by sending a bot into the meeting as an extra participant. Everyone on the call can see it, which is good for transparency, but some clients find it off-putting.

• Otter joins Zoom, Teams and Google Meet calls. It also records in person through its phone apps.
• Fireflies uses its bot (Fred), a Chrome extension, or the mobile app. On the free plan, the Auto-join setting changes how many transcripts you get, as explained above.
• Fathom offers a bot or bot-free capture. Bot-free capture runs as a Mac app and is labelled beta. Fathom’s site footer links to an iOS mobile app page, but we haven’t confirmed what the app can record.

Whatever you pick, tell people they’re being recorded. Consent rules differ by country and, in the US, by state. Some places require everyone on the call to agree. This is a general note, not legal advice.

Privacy, security and compliance (the makers’ claims)

These are the makers’ own claims. We haven’t audited them.

• Fireflies states SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and ISO 42001 (a standard for managing AI systems). HIPAA support (the US health-privacy law) is on Enterprise.
• Fathom lists a signed HIPAA BAA (a business associate agreement, needed by US healthcare providers) on its Enterprise plan.
• Otter lists SSO and a HIPAA add-on on Enterprise. Its pricing page notes that SMS two-factor login works only in the US and Canada.

If you handle medical, legal or financial conversations, ask each vendor for its current security documents before you sign up, and check where recordings are stored.

Integrations: CRM, Zapier, Slack, ChatGPT and MCP

• Fathom’s feature table lists Claude and ChatGPT integrations, Zapier and Make, Slack, a public API and an MCP server (MCP is a standard way to let AI assistants read your data). CRM syncs are capped at 3 users per domain on lower plans.
• Fireflies lists API access even on its free plan.
• Otter lists an MCP server, plus API access and webhooks on Enterprise.

If you want meeting notes to land in your CRM or project board automatically, any of the three can be a starting point. Linking them to the rest of your tools is usually done with Zapier, Make or n8n; see our n8n vs Make vs Zapier comparison. If you’d rather someone set that up for you, AIFix automation can build it. That’s our own service.

Outside the US? Prices, payments and languages

• Currency: all three pages showed US dollars when we checked. Local taxes such as VAT or GST may be added at checkout.
• Payment: Otter takes cards and in-app payments through the App Store or Google Play; we didn’t see PayPal. Payment options for Fireflies and Fathom weren’t listed on the pages we read.
• Regional pricing: Otter’s page has a separate price for cards issued in India. We haven’t confirmed whether Fireflies or Fathom offer regional prices.
• Country note, Pakistan: we haven’t confirmed whether Pakistani cards go through at checkout on any of the three. In-app payment through Google Play or the App Store may be the simpler route for Otter.
• EU and UK: Fireflies states GDPR compliance. Recording consent rules are stricter in some European countries.
• Non-English markets: check the language section above before choosing.

Pros and cons

These come from the makers’ own pages, not from testing.

Otter

• Pros: works with Zoom, Teams and Meet on the free plan; iOS and Android apps; an MCP server; a student and teacher discount.
• Cons: 30-minute cap per conversation on the free plan; six transcription languages; Pro caps at 5 billed users; yearly prices unconfirmed.

Fireflies

• Pros: cheapest confirmed yearly seat ($10); “100+ languages”; API on the free plan; SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and ISO 42001 claims.
• Cons: the free plan’s “unlimited” depends on Auto-join; 400-minute storage cap per team on Free; multi-language mode only from Business.

Fathom

• Pros: unlimited free recording; startup and nonprofit programmes; Claude, ChatGPT, Zapier, Make and MCP integrations.
• Cons: AI extras for only 5 calls a month on Free; bot-free capture is Mac-only and in beta; Fathom’s own pages disagree on languages; team plans need at least 2 users.

Who it's for

Which one should you pick?

If you…	Start with	Why
Want a free tool for your own calls	Fathom	Unlimited free recording and transcripts
Run a team of 3 to 10 on a tight budget	Fireflies Pro (yearly)	$10 a seat, the lowest confirmed seat price
Record in-person meetings on your phone	Otter	iOS and Android apps on the free plan
Hold meetings in several languages	Fireflies (Business for mixed-language calls)	Longest language list of the three
Need meeting notes in your CRM	Fathom Business or Fireflies Business	CRM and automation features sit on higher plans

Our pick for most small businesses is to start free with Fathom or Fireflies, run both on a few real calls for two weeks, and only then pay for seats. If you want the notes to feed straight into follow-up emails, tasks or your CRM, AIFix automation can wire that up. That’s our own service.

Alternatives

People who compare these three also look at Granola, Read AI and tl;dv. Google Meet has its own “Take notes for me” feature on some Google plans. We haven’t checked their prices for this article, so open their pricing pages before deciding.

For answering calls rather than taking notes, see our AI receptionist comparison.

FAQ

Is there a completely free AI note taker?

Yes, on paper. Fathom’s free plan has unlimited recording and transcription, with AI extras for 5 calls a month. Fireflies Free is unlimited for new accounts only with Auto-join on, and has a 400-minute storage limit per team. Otter Basic gives 300 minutes a month.

Does Otter work with Zoom, Teams and Google Meet?

Yes. Otter’s pricing page lists Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, including on the free plan.

Can AI note takers record in-person meetings?

Otter and Fireflies have mobile apps that record in person, and Fireflies says its app does this on the free plan. Fathom’s site links to an iOS app, but we haven’t confirmed what it records.

What is Fireflies’ Auto-join rule?

For accounts created from 1 September 2026, Fireflies Free is unlimited only while Auto-join is on. With it off, you get 3 transcriptions. Fireflies’ help article has the details.

Which is cheapest for a team of 3?

On yearly billing, Fireflies Pro works out at $30 a month for 3 seats. Otter Pro would be $24.99 if its $8.33 yearly price holds at checkout, which we haven’t confirmed. Fathom Team is $45. All before tax.

Do I have to tell people I’m recording?

You should. Consent laws vary by country and by US state, and some require everyone’s agreement. This isn’t legal advice.

Are my meeting recordings used to train AI?

Each vendor sets its own policy. Read the privacy page and data settings of the tool you choose. We haven’t reviewed those policies for this article.