Eight meeting-notes and transcription tools compared on the three things that decide a switch: the real per-seat price, how much the free tier actually transcribes, and whether it works in a language other than English.
8 tools compared · Last reviewed
Otter is per seat, and meeting notes are a tool the whole team ends up needing. That is the arithmetic behind most of this search: the product is fine, but five people wanting it costs five times as much as one person wanting it, and the value does not obviously multiply the same way.
The second reason is metering. Otter's plans are measured in transcription minutes, and the free tier's allowance is what most people hit before they hit any feature limit. If your meetings are long or frequent, you upgrade for the minutes rather than for anything new.
The third is language. Otter's strength has always been English, and teams working in Spanish, Japanese, Hindi or Portuguese consistently find accuracy drops enough to matter. Two tools below are noticeably better on that axis and are here for that reason alone.
Every price on this page was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 14 September 2026, with the seat basis stated. Where a page blocked us or rendered its prices in JavaScript, we say so rather than repeating a number from somewhere else.
Meeting notes only work properly when everyone in the meeting has them. That makes per-seat pricing feel worse here than it does for tools one person owns — the bill scales with headcount while the benefit stays roughly flat per person.
Minute allowances rather than feature limits
Plans are metered in transcription minutes. Teams with long or back-to-back meetings exhaust the allowance well before they run into a missing feature, which makes the upgrade feel like paying for the same product twice.
English-first accuracy
Transcription quality in English is strong and has been for years. Accuracy in other languages is a different conversation, and for a team that runs meetings in Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese or Hindi it is usually the deciding factor rather than price.
A visible bot in the room
Otter joins calls as an identifiable participant. Some organisations are fine with that; others have consent, legal or client-confidentiality reasons to avoid a third-party attendee appearing in every meeting. That is a compliance question, not a preference, and it does not go away with a discount.
How we chose
We started from meeting-assistant and transcription tools already in our directory, then opened each vendor's own pricing page on 14 September 2026 and read the figures out of the page. Every price below carries that date and says whether it is per seat or per account. Two tools resisted: TurboScribe returned a 403 to our request, and VOMO AI renders its prices in JavaScript with nothing in the HTML — both entries say so rather than quoting a number we did not verify. We have excluded general-purpose video editors that happen to include captions, and note where a pick is a transcription service rather than a meeting assistant, because those solve different problems despite ranking for the same search.
Best for: The most direct swap, with a free tier that does not expire
The closest like-for-like replacement and the default answer to this search. Fireflies records and transcribes across Zoom, Google Meet and Teams, produces summaries and action items, and searches across your whole meeting history. Its pricing page on 14 September 2026 listed a free-forever tier, Pro at $10 per seat per month, Business at $19 per seat per month, and Enterprise at $39 per seat per month billed annually only.
Free tier: Yes — a free-forever plan, which is the single biggest reason it wins this comparison for small teams.
Watch out: Still per seat, so if per-seat pricing is your actual objection rather than Otter specifically, this changes the number but not the model. The free tier limits transcription credits and storage, and the conversation-intelligence features most teams are shown in demos sit on the Business tier rather than Pro.
Best for: Teams who want automatic summaries pushed into their existing tools
Built around what happens after the meeting rather than the recording itself: summaries, highlights and action items delivered automatically into Slack, a CRM or a project tool without anyone opening the app. Its pricing page listed Pro at $9.99 per user per month and Business at $17 per user per month on 14 September 2026, alongside a free Basic tier. The cheapest paid entry on this list among the tools we could verify.
Free tier: Yes — a free Basic plan with a monthly transcription allowance.
Watch out: The free tier's monthly transcription allowance is modest and is what pushes most teams to upgrade. Its search across meeting history is less capable than Fireflies', which matters more than people expect once you have a few hundred meetings recorded.
The pick if language is your reason for leaving. Notta handles a wide set of languages with genuine translation rather than transcription-then-machine-translate as an afterthought, and it records across Zoom, Meet and Teams like the others. Its pricing page on 14 September 2026 showed a free tier with no card required and a paid plan at $8.17 per month, with higher tiers around $15.
Free tier: Yes, with a monthly minute cap.
Watch out: The collaboration layer is thinner than Fireflies or MeetGeek — this is a transcription-and-translation product that also does meetings, rather than a meeting-intelligence platform. If you want shared workspaces, conversation analytics and CRM sync, look elsewhere.
Best for: Bulk transcription of files rather than live meeting capture
A transcription service first and a meeting tool second, which is exactly right if your real job is turning a folder of recordings, interviews or podcast episodes into text. Broad language coverage and a straightforward editor. Its pricing page listed plans at $9.99 per month for individuals starting out, with higher tiers around $20 and $30 per month, when checked on 14 September 2026.
Free tier: Limited free trial rather than an ongoing free tier.
Watch out: Not a meeting assistant. There is no bot joining your calls, no action-item extraction, no CRM integration — you bring the file, it returns text. Comparing it to Otter on features will mislead you; compare it on cost per hour of audio.
Best for: Teams already paying for Zoom who should stop paying twice
The cheapest answer for light use, if your meetings are on Zoom. Zoom's AI assistant is now called ZoomMate, and its free Basic tier, included with a Zoom Workplace Basic account, gives you meeting summaries for 3 hosted meetings and 20 AI queries a month. For a team whose entire use of Otter is 'what did we agree' on a few calls, that may be enough. Beyond it, ZoomMate is sold as its own per-user plan built on AI credits; the page we read on 25 September 2026 did not show its price or say what paid Zoom Workplace plans include, so check before you cancel anything.
Free tier: Included at no extra cost with a paid Zoom plan — there is no separate subscription.
Watch out: Zoom only. The moment meetings move to Google Meet or Teams you have nothing, and it does not transcribe uploaded files. The summaries are also less detailed than a dedicated tool's, and there is no cross-meeting search worth the name. It is the cheapest adequate option, not the best one.
Best for: High-volume file transcription at a flat rate
Aimed at people transcribing a lot of audio rather than attending a lot of meetings — long files, many of them, with fast turnaround and wide language support. For podcasters, researchers and journalists sitting on an archive, the flat-rate shape fits far better than per-seat meeting pricing.
Free tier: Yes, with a daily cap on the number of files.
Watch out: We could not verify its pricing: turboscribe.ai returned a 403 to our request on 14 September 2026, so no figure is published here — check the site directly. Like Transkriptor, it is a transcription service rather than a meeting assistant, with no call bot and no action items.
Best for: When the transcript is the first step in editing, not the output
A different category that legitimately competes here, because Descript treats the transcript as the editing surface — delete a sentence in the text and it disappears from the audio. If your meetings become clips, training material or podcast episodes, this replaces both Otter and your editor. Its pricing page listed Hobbyist at $16 per month, Creator at $24 per month as the most popular tier, and Business at $50 per month on 14 September 2026.
Free tier: Yes, with limits on transcription hours and exports.
Watch out: Overkill and overpriced if you only want to know what was decided in a meeting. It is not built around call capture the way Otter or Fireflies are, and the learning curve is real. Choose it for the editing, not the notes.
Best for: Regulated environments where meeting data cannot go anywhere
The enterprise and compliance answer. Cogram focuses on automated notes and action items for organisations that need control over where meeting content is processed and stored — the kind of requirement that rules out most of this list before price is even discussed. Its pricing page listed $79 per month for individuals on 14 September 2026.
Free tier: No — paid from the individual tier.
Watch out: By far the most expensive entry here, with no free tier, and that price is for one person. If you are leaving Otter because of cost this is the wrong direction entirely — it is on this list for teams whose constraint is governance rather than budget.
Two different answers depending on your setup. If your meetings are on Zoom, start with ZoomMate Basic, Zoom's free AI tier (formerly AI Companion): it covers summaries for 3 hosted meetings and 20 AI queries a month, which is enough only for light use. If your meetings are not on Zoom, Fireflies has a free-forever plan that covers cross-platform recording and summaries, with limits on transcription credits and storage. MeetGeek and Notta also have free tiers with monthly allowances worth checking against your meeting load.
Which alternative is cheapest per seat?
Of the prices we verified on 14 September 2026, MeetGeek's Pro tier at $9.99 per user per month was the lowest paid entry, just under Fireflies Pro at $10 per seat. Notta's $8.17 per month is lower still but is priced per account rather than per seat for a single user, so it is not a like-for-like comparison for a team. Zoom's ZoomMate has a free Basic tier with small monthly limits; its paid per-user plan showed no price when we checked on 25 September 2026. TurboScribe and VOMO AI are absent from this ranking because neither published a price we could read.
Which is best for meetings that are not in English?
Notta, and it is the main reason it appears here. It handles a broad set of languages with real translation rather than transcribing to English and translating afterwards, which is where most tools lose accuracy. Transkriptor is the alternative worth testing if you are transcribing recorded files rather than joining live calls. Whichever you pick, run a ten-minute test recording in your actual language and accent before you migrate — published language lists and real-world accuracy are not the same thing.
Can I get meeting notes without a bot joining the call?
Yes, and it is a real requirement in consulting, healthcare and legal work where a visible third-party attendee raises consent questions. ZoomMate (formerly Zoom AI Companion) runs inside Zoom itself rather than joining as a participant. Transkriptor and TurboScribe sidestep the issue entirely because you upload a recording afterwards instead of inviting anything to the call. Cogram exists specifically for organisations where this is a governance requirement rather than a preference.
What does Otter.ai actually cost?
Otter's pricing page showed a Pro tier at $8.33 per user per month when we checked on 14 September 2026, which is the annual-billing rate — paying monthly costs more — alongside a free tier and higher business pricing. The figure to compare against the alternatives here is that per-user rate multiplied by your team size, not the headline number. Note also that plans are metered in transcription minutes, so the seat price is a floor rather than a ceiling if your meetings run long.
Will I lose my past transcripts if I switch?
Your text, no — Otter exports transcripts in common formats and every tool here imports them or will at least store them. What does not travel is the structure built around them: speaker labels frequently degrade, highlights and comments rarely survive, and the searchable link between a transcript and its calendar event is almost always lost. Export everything before you cancel rather than after, because access to historical transcripts usually ends with the subscription.
