All four tools join your Zoom, Teams or Google Meet calls, transcribe them and write the summary for you. They meter completely different things, though — minutes, storage, AI-note counts, or advanced summaries — so the sticker price alone will mislead you. This guide lines up the published limits side by side.
Pro, per user, billed annually ($16.99 monthly). Free Basic plan available.
Pro, per seat, billed annually ($18 monthly). Business is $19/mo billed annually.
Pro, per seat, billed annually ($29 monthly). Business is $29/mo billed annually.
Premium, per user, billed annually ($20 monthly). Team is $15/mo billed annually, 2-user minimum.
| Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai | tl;dv | Fathom | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Individuals and small teams who think in "hours of meetings per month" | Sales and CS teams that push notes into a CRM | Teams that share video clips and highlights asynchronously | Individuals who want to start free and stay free for a long time |
| What is actually metered | Transcription minutes per month, plus a per-meeting length cap | Stored minutes (a lifetime total, not monthly) plus AI credits | Full AI notes: a lifetime count on Free; retention period | Advanced summaries per month (Free); transcription itself is not metered |
| Free plan — the real limit | 300 min/month, max 30 min per meeting, 3 file imports ever, only your 25 most recent conversations kept | Unlimited transcription, but 400 min of storage per team in total, 20 AI credits, 2-hour meeting cap, no video recording | Unlimited recordings & transcription, but full AI notes on your first 10 meetings ever — after that, notes cover the first 10 minutes of each call. Recordings deleted after 3 months | Unlimited recordings, transcription and storage. Advanced summaries capped at 5/month; standard-template summaries after that |
| Entry paid plan | Pro $8.33/user/mo billed annually ($16.99 monthly): 1,200 min/month, up to 90 min per meeting | Pro $10/seat/mo billed annually ($18 monthly): unlimited transcription, 8,000 min of storage per seat | Pro $18/seat/mo billed annually ($29 monthly): unlimited AI notes, recordings kept until you delete them | Premium $16/user/mo billed annually ($20 monthly): unlimited advanced summaries and action items |
| Team plan | Business $19.99/user/mo billed annually ($30 monthly): unlimited meeting transcription, up to 4 hours per meeting | Business $19/seat/mo billed annually ($29 monthly): unlimited storage, multi-language mode, conversation intelligence | Business $29/seat/mo billed annually ($39 monthly): cross-meeting AI analysis, custom vocabulary, coaching features | Team $15/user/mo billed annually ($19 monthly, 2-user min.); Business $25 billed annually ($34 monthly) adds CRM field sync and AI scorecards |
| Platforms | Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet; iOS/Android apps, desktop app | Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex and more; uploads, Chrome extension, mobile apps | Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams; file uploads on paid usage | Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams — online meetings; no audio-file import workflow |
| Transcription languages | 6: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified). One language per meeting, set in advance | 100+ listed with auto-detection; the vendor's own FAQ treats English as the primary language and the rest as beta | 30+ for transcription, notes and reports; multi-language meetings are a Business-tier capability | 38, including Japanese. Summary auto-translation is documented for only 6 languages — Japanese summary output needs confirming |
| Trade-off to know | The 30-minute (Basic) and 90-minute (Pro) per-meeting caps cut long workshops even when you have minutes left | "Unlimited" means transcription, not storage: the 400-minute free storage is shared by the whole team and does not reset monthly | The free plan's 10-meeting AI-note limit never resets — it is a lifetime allowance, not a monthly one | Online calls only, and team features (shared search, folders) start at the Team tier, not on Free or Premium |
Prices checked November 2026 — always confirm on the vendor's site before you buy. Prices are USD, before tax, per user/seat. Plans and free-plan limits change frequently in this category; the figures above follow each vendor's pricing page as cross-checked in November 2026.
The headline prices hide the real comparison, because each vendor meters something different. The table below is simple arithmetic on the published prices and limits above — no estimates, no testing. Scenario A is 20 hours of meetings a month (twenty 1-hour calls). Scenario B is 40 hours.
| Plan | At 20 hrs/month | At 40 hrs/month |
|---|---|---|
| Otter.ai Pro — $8.33/mo | Fits exactly: 1,200 minutes = 20 hours, about $0.42 per hour of transcription | Does not fit. There is no minute top-up path in the published plans — you step up to Business at $19.99/mo |
| Fireflies.ai Pro — $10/mo | Transcription is unlimited (~$0.50/hr), but the 8,000-minute storage total (about 133 hours) fills in roughly 6–7 months at this pace unless you delete recordings | Still unlimited transcription (~$0.25/hr); storage fills in roughly 3–4 months |
| tl;dv Pro — $18/mo | Unlimited AI notes, about $0.90 per meeting hour. The free plan cannot cover this scenario: full AI notes stop after 10 meetings, ever | About $0.45 per meeting hour, same plan |
| Fathom Free — $0 / Premium — $16/mo | Free covers the recording and transcription at $0, but only 5 of your 20 calls get an advanced summary. Premium ($16, ~$0.80/hr) removes that cap | Same pattern: free transcription holds, 35 of 40 calls fall back to standard summaries. Premium is ~$0.40/hr |
The takeaway: "cheapest" depends on your meeting load. Otter.ai Pro is the lowest-priced full plan at 20 hours a month with meetings under 90 minutes — and stops being an option at 40 hours, where Fathom Premium and Fireflies.ai become the cheaper published routes.
Otter.ai is the most established name here, built around live transcription: it joins Zoom, Teams and Google Meet calls (and also records via its mobile and desktop apps), shows captions in real time, and produces a summary with action items afterwards. Its pricing is the easiest to understand of the four — you buy monthly transcription minutes. Basic (free) gives 300 minutes a month, capped at 30 minutes per conversation, 3 file imports for the life of the account, and access to your 25 most recent conversations. Pro ($8.33/user/mo billed annually, $16.99 monthly) raises that to 1,200 minutes a month and 90 minutes per conversation. Business ($19.99 billed annually, $30 monthly) removes the monthly cap on meeting transcription and allows 4-hour conversations. Transcription covers six languages — English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese (Simplified) — with the language chosen before the meeting and one language per meeting as the basic model.
Fireflies.ai flips Otter's model: transcription minutes are unlimited on every plan, including the free one. What you pay for is storage, AI features and team analysis. The free plan transcribes without a minute cap but stores only 400 minutes of recordings per team in total, includes 20 AI credits (advanced AI features such as custom skills draw on credits), caps meetings at 2 hours and does not record video. Pro ($10/seat/mo billed annually, $18 monthly) raises storage to 8,000 minutes per seat and adds video recording and downloads. Business ($19 billed annually, $29 monthly) makes storage unlimited and adds multi-language mode, conversation intelligence and team analytics. Fireflies lists transcription in 100+ languages with automatic detection — with the honest caveat, from its own FAQ, that English is the primary language and the others are treated as beta.
tl;dv (by a German company, with EU data hosting as part of its pitch) treats the meeting recording as something to be clipped and shared, not just filed: timestamped moments, clips and playlists are its core workflow, alongside transcription and AI notes in 30+ languages across Zoom, Google Meet and Teams. The free plan is generous about capture — unlimited recordings and transcription — and strict about intelligence and retention: full AI notes are included for your first 10 meetings ever, after which automatic notes cover only the first 10 minutes of each call, and recordings are deleted after 3 months. Pro ($18/seat/mo billed annually, $29 monthly) makes AI notes unlimited and keeps recordings until you delete them. Business ($29 billed annually, $39 monthly) adds cross-meeting AI analysis, custom vocabulary, playbooks and coaching features. Recordings are capped at 3 hours per meeting on every plan.
Fathom's pitch is that the free plan should not be a trial. For individuals it offers unlimited recordings, unlimited transcription and unlimited storage at $0 across Zoom, Google Meet and Teams, with instant summaries, clips and search. The one published catch is summary depth: free includes 5 advanced summaries a month, after which calls get a standard-template summary. Premium ($16/user/mo billed annually, $20 monthly) makes advanced summaries, AI action items and follow-up email drafts unlimited for one person. Team ($15/user/mo billed annually, $19 monthly; 2-user minimum) — priced slightly below Premium per user, as published — adds the shared workspace: global search across team calls, folders, comments and keyword tracking. Business ($25 billed annually, $34 monthly; 2-user minimum) adds CRM field sync, Deal View and AI coaching scorecards. Transcription covers 38 languages including Japanese; Fathom documents automatic summary translation for only six languages, so confirm Japanese summary output if that matters to you. It is built for online meetings and does not offer an audio-file import workflow.
Under ~20 hours a month with meetings under 90 minutes, Otter.ai Pro's minutes model is the cheapest full plan. Above that, per-minute pricing stops working and the unlimited-transcription tools (Fireflies.ai, Fathom) take over. Your calendar from last month is the only data you need.
Fireflies: unlimited transcription, limited storage. tl;dv: unlimited recording, limited AI notes (lifetime) and 3-month retention on Free. Fathom: unlimited capture, limited advanced summaries. The limit never disappears — it moves. Find where it moved before you switch.
All four claim Japanese transcription, with very different footnotes: 6 named languages (Otter), beta status outside English (Fireflies), 30+ languages (tl;dv), 38 languages but narrower summary languages (Fathom). Run one real Japanese — or mixed Japanese/English — meeting through two free plans and compare the transcript and the summary language before paying anyone.
Leaving a tool can mean leaving your archive: free plans delete (tl;dv after 3 months) or stop surfacing older calls (Otter keeps the 25 most recent on Basic), and Fireflies storage you have filled stays filled. Export the meetings you need before you cancel, and check whether custom vocabulary and CRM mappings have to be rebuilt.
It depends on meeting volume, because they meter different things. On published annual pricing, Otter.ai Pro is $8.33/user/month and includes 1,200 transcription minutes; Fireflies.ai Pro is $10/seat/month with unlimited transcription and 8,000 minutes of storage. At 20 meeting hours a month, Otter Pro is cheaper and exactly sufficient. At 40 hours, Otter requires Business ($19.99), while Fireflies Pro's price does not change. Prices checked November 2026 — always confirm on the vendor's site.
On published limits, Fathom's free plan is the only one with no cap on recordings, transcription or storage — its limit is 5 advanced summaries a month. The others ration something structural: Otter rations minutes (300/month, 30 minutes per meeting), Fireflies rations storage (400 minutes per team, total), and tl;dv rations full AI notes (first 10 meetings, ever) and deletes free recordings after 3 months.
All four list Japanese transcription, but the fine print differs. Otter names Japanese among its six languages and asks you to set the language per meeting. Fireflies covers Japanese within its 100+ languages while treating non-English as beta in its FAQ. tl;dv lists 30+ languages for transcripts and notes. Fathom lists 38 transcription languages but documents summary translation for only six languages, so Japanese summary output needs confirming. Because this guide is based on published information, not hands-on testing, the practical step is to run the same Japanese meeting through two free plans and compare.
Sometimes, yes. If you only need a rough record of calls on one platform, the built-in transcription and summary features of your meeting platform may be enough and cost nothing extra. These dedicated tools earn their price when you need one searchable archive across Zoom, Teams and Meet, automated summaries and action items in a consistent format, CRM sync, or clip sharing — none of which a single platform's built-in feature covers across all three.
Four things, all visible in the published specs: (1) whether your past recordings can be exported before the old plan's retention deletes them; (2) whether the new tool's limit — minutes, storage, note counts or summary counts — matches your actual monthly meeting load; (3) whether features you rely on, like custom vocabulary or CRM field sync, sit in a higher tier at the new vendor; (4) how recording consent is announced to participants, since every tool here records via a visible bot or app and your organisation's policy applies.
Because this guide is compiled from the vendors' published specifications and pricing, not from hands-on testing. Transcription accuracy depends on audio quality, speakers and vocabulary, and no vendor here publishes a reproducible public benchmark — so any percentage would be marketing, not measurement. Judgments on this page are arithmetic on published prices and limits, shown next to the numbers so you can check them.