AI meeting notetakers · Comparison
Otter.ai vs Fireflies.ai vs Fathom: Otter and Fathom tie at 6.6; 5 users cost $75 to $99.95 a month
We read the pricing, trust, legal, help center and developer pages of three AI meeting notetakers on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What 5 users with 20 hours of meetings a month cost, where video, SSO and retention sit, how each treats your data, and who should pick which.
On this page9 sections
On six indicators read from each vendor's public pages, Otter.ai and Fathom both score 6.6 out of 10 and Fireflies.ai scores 6.5. For our reference scenario, 5 users with 20 hours of meetings each a month, meetings of up to 2 hours, Zoom, Google Meet and Teams, and a shared team history, billed annually, Fathom Team comes to $75 a month, Fireflies Business to $95 and Otter Business to $99.95. Fathom stands out for its free plan and team price; Fireflies for how much sits on its scenario plan and its promise not to train on your meetings; Otter for AI chat from the free plan and bulk export, an activity log and two-factor sign-in on Business.
All three are in the Good band. The scores measure what the public pages commit to, not how accurate a transcript or summary is, and we did not sign up for any of them.
At a glance
| Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai | Fathom | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | A notetaker on Zoom, Meet and Teams with AI chat across meetings | A bot with video, CRM sync and an API on every plan | Unlimited recording and history free, a team plan at $15 |
| Free option | Basic: 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation | Free: 3 meetings (unlimited with Auto-join), 400 minutes of storage | Free: unlimited recordings and history, for individuals |
| Reference scenario (5 users, annual) | $99.95 on Business, computed | $95 on Business, computed | $75 on Team, computed |
| Meeting length on that plan | Up to 4 hours | Up to 3 hours | No cap stated |
| Video recording | Enterprise | From Pro (Business in one FAQ) | Every plan |
| Training on your meetings | De-identified data; Enterprise opted out | Not used (terms) | De-identified data; opt-out on every plan |
| SAML SSO | Enterprise, 100-user license | Enterprise | Enterprise |
| Transcript export | Bulk export from Business | Per meeting, full export on request, API | Copy in the app, JSON through the API |
| Score (public pages) | 6.6 Good | 6.5 Good | 6.6 Good |
What the public pages show
Otter.ai joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet on every plan and has AI Chat across meetings from Basic. Pro, at $8.33 a user billed annually, gives 1,200 minutes a month but caps each conversation at 90 minutes; Business, at $19.99, has unlimited meetings, 4 hours per conversation, bulk export, activity logs and CRM sync for 5 users. Video replay, the API, custom retention, SSO and the HIPAA add-on are Enterprise, sold through sales, and data is stored in the US.
Fireflies.ai transcribes without a monthly cap from Pro at $10 a seat, with video, Salesforce and HubSpot sync and downloads in six formats; the API is on every plan. Pro stores 8,000 minutes per seat, and Business, at $19, removes that cap. Its terms say your content is not used to train generative AI. SSO, auto-delete, the audit-events API, EU private storage and HIPAA are Enterprise, at a published $39 a seat.
Fathom records, transcribes and stores without limit on every plan, Free included, with video and MP4 downloads. Team, at $15 a user billed annually with a 2-user minimum, adds the shared workspace and global search; Business, at $25, adds unlimited CRM syncs and coaching metrics. The API and webhooks are on every plan. Transcripts are copied in the app or pulled through the API, and SSO and retention settings are Enterprise.
Strengths and things to know
Otter.ai. Strengths: Zoom, Meet and Teams and AI chat on every plan; bot-free desktop recording; unlimited meetings, bulk export and activity logs on Business; built-in two-factor sign-in. Things to know: Pro caps conversations at 90 minutes; it trains on de-identified data, with no opt-out stated below Enterprise; video, the API and retention are Enterprise; pages disagree on Business minutes and on languages.
Fireflies.ai. Strengths: the API on every plan; no training on your meetings; many export formats; consent emails and pause commands in the meeting. Things to know: Pro has a storage cap; plan card, table and help disagree on several limits; SSO, retention and the audit log are Enterprise; sign-in is through Google or Microsoft only.
Fathom. Strengths: unlimited recording, video and history free; a team plan at $15 a seat; the API on every plan; team consent settings. Things to know: no transcript file download in the app; the pricing page, help and trust FAQ place several features on different plans, and a 90-day guarantee sits beside terms that say fees are non-refundable; bot-free capture is a Mac beta; SSO and retention through sales.
Pricing reality
Reference scenario: 5 users on the cheapest plan that records and transcribes 1,200 minutes (20 hours) of meetings per user a month with no per-meeting cap under 2 hours, joins or captures Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams meetings, and gives a shared team workspace with central billing that keeps transcripts with no history limit, billed annually, at regular US list prices before tax, plus any published overage or top-up and any seat minimum, without extra AI credit usage.
| Service | Plan | Monthly cost | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fathom | Team | $75 | Computed: 5 × $15; the 2-user minimum is met; Free and Premium are for individuals |
| Fireflies.ai | Business | $95 | Computed: 5 × $19; Pro ($10) stores 8,000 minutes per seat, after which older meetings must be deleted |
| Otter.ai | Business | $99.95 | Computed: 5 × $19.99; Pro ($8.33) caps each conversation at 90 minutes |
Month to month, the same seats cost $95 on Fathom, $145 on Fireflies and $150 on Otter (computed); Otter's first-time subscribers pay $24 a seat, $120 for 5, for the first 3 months. Teams whose meetings stay under 90 minutes and 1,200 minutes a user can use Otter Pro at 5 × $8.33 = $41.65 a month, and Fireflies Pro costs 5 × $10 = $50 until its storage fills, in about 7 months at our scenario's volume (computed). None of the three sells extra meeting minutes; Fireflies sells AI credits in packs from $5 for 50.
How we scored them
Every product in this category is scored on the same six indicators, read from the vendor's own pricing, trust, legal, help center and developer pages, with fixed formulas. The overall score is the plain mean. Our methodology page explains how these scores work.
| Indicator | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai | Fathom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing clarity | 6 | 2 | 2 |
| Free plan and trial | 7.5 | 8.5 | 10 |
| Price for 5 users | 5.4 | 5.5 | 6.3 |
| Notetaking features | 8.3 | 10 | 8.6 |
| Privacy and compliance | 5.7 | 7.9 | 8.5 |
| Admin and data exit | 6.9 | 4.8 | 4.4 |
| Overall | 6.6 | 6.5 | 6.6 |
Pricing clarity is where the three differ most: Otter's pages disagree on four points, Fireflies' on seven, and Fathom's on six, with one Team limit left unstated; Fireflies and Fathom also state some limits only in help articles. Fireflies puts all six listed features on its scenario plan; Fathom gains on its free plan and privacy terms; Otter's lead on admin comes from an activity log on Business and built-in two-factor sign-in, where Fireflies keeps its audit log on Enterprise and Fathom lists none.
Also in this category
Granola scores 7.2: it transcribes device audio in any meeting app with no bot and no stored audio, and 5 users cost $70 a month on Business, billed monthly (computed), with retention settings on its self-serve plans; it does not record video, trains on anonymized data unless each user opts out, and needs 50 seats for SSO. tl;dv scores 7.0: data is hosted in the EU on every plan, video is on the free plan and customer meetings are not used for training, and 5 users cost $90 a month on Pro (computed); recordings are capped per week, and Free recordings are deleted after 3 months.
Who should choose which
- Choose Fathom if you want unlimited recordings, video and history free, and a shared team workspace at $15 a seat. Look elsewhere if you need transcripts as files, an audit log or EU data storage.
- Choose Fireflies.ai if you want video, CRM sync, many export formats and an API from the first paid plan, with a written promise not to train on your meetings. Look elsewhere if you need SSO or retention controls without an Enterprise plan.
- Choose Otter.ai if your team uses Zoom, Meet and Teams and wants AI chat across meetings, bulk export and an activity log on a self-serve plan. Look elsewhere if you need the API, video or EU storage without an Enterprise contract.
Bottom line
From public pages alone, the three are close: Otter.ai and Fathom at 6.6, Fireflies.ai at 6.5. Fathom costs least for 5 users at $75 a month and gives the most away free; Fireflies puts video, CRM sync and the API on its $19 plan and does not train on your meetings; Otter adds unlimited meetings, bulk export and admin logs on Business at $99.95. Compare the plan that has the meeting length, storage, export and privacy terms you need, not the entry price.
How we checked
We read the vendors' pricing pages and plan tables, trust and security pages, legal terms, help center articles and developer docs on Oct 16, 2026. The pricing pages served us US dollar prices. Otter's help center refuses plain requests from our location, so its articles were read from Internet Archive copies, each checked for its update date; Fireflies' trust center renders only in a browser script and was not read. We did not sign up, start a trial or call an API. Facts the pages did not state, such as Fathom's longest meeting or whether Otter's recordings can be paused, are left out rather than guessed. Every figure is on the vendors' pages as of that date or, where marked, computed from them.
