The best Otter.ai alternatives in 2026

What an AI meeting note taker should do

An AI note taker joins your call (or takes a recording you upload), writes a transcript, and turns it into a summary you can act on. The transcript is the easy part now. The hard parts are the ones that save you time afterwards: did it catch what was decided, did it list every action item with the right owner and date, and did it put each sentence under the right speaker?

That is what we check in our hands-on tests. We wrote a 10-minute scripted meeting between two people with one clear decision and three action items, and we give the same recording to every tool. We time everything from opening the sign-up page to reading the first summary, and we check the summary against the script. The results table on this page shows every tool we have run so far.

Otter.ai is the name most people know, which is why so many people look for an alternative. Usually the reason is one of three things: the free plan's limits (30 minutes per conversation, 3 file imports in total), the price once a team needs it, or wanting sales features such as CRM updates and call coaching. This guide covers the five tools people compare it with most: Fireflies.ai, Fathom, tl;dv, Read AI and Avoma.

Comparison table

Prices are USD list prices from each vendor's own pricing page, checked in October 2026. Otter showed us a regional discount for India-issued cards; the prices above are its standard prices.

Otter.ai

Otter is a transcription app that grew into a meeting assistant. It can join Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet calls, record in its own mobile and desktop apps, and import audio and video files.

What we saw in our test: Otter caught the decision (the launch moved from March 3 to March 17) in the first line of the summary, listed all three action items with the right deadlines, and gave every turn of the transcript to the right speaker. It even put two side topics we planted under "Unresolved Items" instead of treating them as decisions. Two catches: the speakers are labeled Speaker 1 and Speaker 2 until you rename them, and the action items have no owner attached, even though the summary says who does what. The full step list and screenshots are in our Otter hands-on review.

Pricing: Basic is free with 300 transcription minutes a month, a 30-minute cap per conversation, 3 file imports in total and only your 25 most recent conversations. Pro is $16.99/user/month, or $8.33 billed annually, with 1,200 minutes, 90 minutes per conversation and 10 imports a month. Business is $30/user/month, or $19.99 billed annually, with unlimited meetings, 4 hours per conversation and unlimited imports up to 6,000 minutes a month. Enterprise is custom and adds SSO, SCIM and an API.

Pick it if: you record in person or upload files as often as you join calls, and you want a low annual price.

Skip it if: your meetings run past 30 minutes and you want to stay on a free plan.

Fireflies.ai

Fireflies sends a bot ("Fred") into your calls and builds a searchable library of transcripts. It is aimed at teams: shared channels, analytics for admins and a long list of integrations.

Pricing: The free plan has unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team and 20 AI credits, and it can upload audio and video files. Pro is $18/seat/month, or $10 billed annually, with unlimited AI summaries, video recording and 8,000 minutes of storage per seat. Business is $29, or $19 billed annually, and adds team analytics and user groups. Enterprise is $39/seat/month on annual billing only.

What to watch: the free plan's 400 minutes of storage is shared by the whole team, so it fills quickly once several people record. AI credits are a separate allowance from summaries, so check what your plan includes before relying on AskFred.

Pick it if: you want the cheapest annual price for unlimited AI summaries across a small team.

Skip it if: you need a free plan that keeps months of meetings.

Fathom

Fathom's pitch is a generous free plan. It records Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls, with a bot or (in beta, on Mac) without one.

Pricing: Free gives unlimited recordings, transcripts, downloads and clips, plus instant AI call summaries. Premium is $20/user/month, or $16 billed annually, and adds advanced summaries, AI-generated action items and a custom bot. Team is $19, or $15 annually, for at least 2 users, and adds shared search, folders and comments. Business is $34, or $25 annually, and adds CRM field sync and coaching scorecards. Enterprise is through sales.

What to watch: on the free plan you get summaries but not AI action items, which for many people is the main reason to use a note taker. Fathom's pricing page does not list file uploads, so it is a tool for live calls rather than recordings you already have.

Pick it if: you mostly need a record and a summary of live calls and want to pay nothing.

Skip it if: you work from recordings, or you need action items without paying.

tl;dv

tl;dv records and transcribes Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams calls in 30+ languages. It says its data is hosted and stored in the EU and that it is GDPR and SOC 2 compliant, which matters to European teams.

Pricing: Free includes unlimited video recordings and transcription, with AI notes for 10 meetings and 10 Ask AI queries. Pro is $29/seat/month, or $18 billed annually, and adds unlimited AI notes, custom note templates, AI action item assignment, unlimited uploads and storage, and an API. Business is $39, or $29 annually, and adds custom vocabulary, multi-meeting insights and scheduled AI reports. Enterprise is custom.

What to watch: the free plan's 10 meetings with AI notes are the limit that matters; after that you still get recordings and transcripts but no summary. Uploads are listed from Pro.

Pick it if: you want EU hosting and unlimited free recording, and you will upgrade once the AI notes run out.

Skip it if: you pay monthly; Pro's $29 monthly rate ties Avoma Startup for the highest entry price here.

Read AI

Read AI joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet calls and adds meeting reports with live metrics and a personalized meeting coach. It also searches across email and messages, not only meetings.

Pricing: Free covers 5 meetings a month (transcripts, summaries and live notes), meetings up to 1 hour, and no file uploads. Pro is $19.75/user/month, or $15 billed annually, with unlimited reports and transcripts, meetings up to 4 hours, premium integrations (Notion, Salesforce, HubSpot, Jira, Confluence, Zapier) and 100 upload credits a month. Enterprise is $29.75, or $22.50 annually, for 5 or more licenses, and adds audio and video playback. Enterprise+ is $39.75, or $29.75 annually, and adds HIPAA, SAML and SCIM.

What to watch: you cannot upload a recording on the free plan, and even Pro has a monthly upload allowance. Playback of the recording itself starts at Enterprise.

Pick it if: you want feedback on how meetings go, not only notes.

Skip it if: you want to upload recordings, or you need more than 5 meetings a month for free.

Avoma

Avoma is a meeting assistant built for revenue teams. Besides recording, transcription and AI notes, it saves notes to your CRM, drafts follow-up emails, connects to dialers and includes a meeting scheduler. It records Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Webex, GoTo Meeting and more.

Pricing: There is no free plan. A 14-day trial of the Organization plan needs no credit card and has every add-on turned on. Startup is $29 per recorder seat per month, or $19 billed annually, for up to 25 paid seats. Organization is $39, or $29 annually, and adds custom AI templates, group scheduling and translation. Enterprise is $39 per seat per month on annual billing, minimum 10 seats. Conversation Intelligence and Revenue Intelligence are add-ons at $35 a seat per month each, or $29 billed annually. Viewers and collaborators are free.

What to watch: the add-ons are where the sales features live, so a fully equipped seat can cost more than double the base price. After the trial your account becomes view-only.

Pick it if: you run a sales or customer success team and want notes, CRM updates and coaching in one tool.

Skip it if: you need a note taker for yourself; the cheaper tools above cover that.

Free plans side by side

If you want to pay nothing, the free plan's limits decide more than the features do:

• Longest meetings for free: Fathom and tl;dv record without a stated length limit. Read AI stops at 1 hour, Otter at 30 minutes.
• Most AI summaries for free: Fathom (unlimited summaries). tl;dv covers 10 meetings, Read AI 5 a month, and Fireflies gives "limited" summaries.
• Uploading a recording for free: Fireflies and Otter (3 imports in total). Read AI and tl;dv need a paid plan.
• No free plan: Avoma, which offers a 14-day trial instead.

How to choose

1. Live calls or recordings? For recordings you already have, start with Otter or Fireflies. For live calls only, Fathom or tl;dv.
2. Just you, or a team? For one person, a free plan or an individual Pro plan is enough. For a team, compare the annual per-seat price: Fireflies Pro at $10 and Otter Pro at $8.33 are the lowest here.
3. Sales features? CRM sync, call scoring and deal views push you toward Avoma, Fathom Business or Fireflies Business.
4. Where your data lives: if EU hosting matters, tl;dv states it outright. For HIPAA, look at Otter Enterprise (add-on), Read AI Enterprise+ or Avoma Enterprise.
5. Test with your own meeting. Use a recording where you know what was decided, as we do, and check the summary against it. A transcript can look perfect while the action items are wrong.