# Fireflies.ai Alternatives: Otter, Granola, Read AI and More

> Fireflies.ai alternatives compared on price, capture and limits: Otter, Granola, Notion AI Meeting Notes, Read AI, Fathom and Gong, and when to stay.

_Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/fireflies-ai-alternatives — The Professional's Toolkit · updated November 2026_

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The closest like-for-like swap for Fireflies.ai is Otter.ai: the same kind of visible meeting bot, plus a bot-free desktop app. Otter Pro costs $8.33 per user per month billed annually, while Fireflies Pro costs $10 per seat per month billed annually. Beyond Otter, match the tool to your reason for leaving. Granola removes the bot. Read AI allows longer meetings. Fathom offers a free plan with unlimited recordings. Notion AI Meeting Notes fits teams already in Notion, and Gong is for revenue teams buying a full system.


**$8.33** — Otter Pro per user per month billed annually, vs Fireflies Pro at $10 per seat per month billed annually



- **$14** — Granola Business per user per month, billed monthly only
- **8 hours** — Longest meeting on Read AI Enterprise+; Fireflies Enterprise allows 4
- **100+** — Languages Fireflies says it transcribes, English primary and the rest in beta; Otter lists six


## The alternatives at a glance

Each row below names one product and its own limits; prices sit in the sections that follow, because billing terms differ. Read the Fireflies free tier with care. Accounts created since September 2026 get a few transcription credits, 3 when you sign up on the web, unless calendar auto-join is on. Storage is the second wall. Free holds 400 minutes per team as a running total, and at the limit older meetings must be deleted to open new ones.

| Product | Free option | Gate or limit to check |
|---|---|---|
| Fireflies.ai | Free plan, 400 minutes of storage per team | 2-hour recording limit per meeting on Free and Pro |
| Otter.ai | Basic, 300 transcription minutes a month | Pro is capped at 5 billed users |
| Granola | Basic, last 30 days of meeting history | No bot, no stored audio or video |
| Notion | AI is a trial on Free and Plus | AI Meeting Notes come with Business |
| Read AI | Free, 5 meeting reports a month (shared ones count), meetings up to 1 hour | HIPAA (annual billing only), SAML and SCIM on Enterprise+ only (5+ licenses) |
| Fathom | Free plan, unlimited recordings and transcriptions | Team and Business need at least 2 users |
| Gong | Custom proposal only | Per-user licences plus a platform fee |

## Otter.ai, the closest like-for-like swap

Otter works the way Fireflies does. Its Otter Notetaker auto-joins Zoom, Teams and Google Meet from a Google or Microsoft calendar as a visible participant, and a bot-free desktop app for macOS 12.3+ and Windows 10+ covers calls where a bot is unwelcome. On annual billing, Otter Pro costs $8.33 per user per month and Otter Business $19.99 per user per month [1]. Fireflies Pro is $10 per seat per month billed annually, and Fireflies Business is $19 per seat per month billed annually [2].

The gap is small and runs both ways. By our arithmetic, one seat for a year comes to $120 on Fireflies Pro against $99.96 on Otter Pro, but $228 on Fireflies Business against $239.88 on Otter Business. For five users on annual billing, Fireflies Pro totals $600 a year and Otter Pro $499.80. On monthly billing, Fireflies Pro costs $18 per seat per month and Otter Pro $16.99 per user per month.

Limits decide it, not dollars. Otter Pro meters transcription at 1,200 minutes per user per month and allows 90 minutes per conversation. That is 20 hours of meetings a month, so a heavier seat belongs on Otter Business, with unlimited meeting minutes, 4 hours per conversation and up to 25 billed users. Fireflies Pro has unlimited transcription but stores 8,000 minutes per seat, pooled across the team, and the bot leaves a meeting at 2 hours.

Languages and access split them further. Otter transcribes English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese, one at a time, with German and Chinese in beta; Fireflies says it covers 100+ languages, with English primary and the others in beta. Otter keeps its API, webhooks and video replay on Enterprise, while Fireflies runs its GraphQL API on every plan and captures 720p video from Pro. In Otter's favor, two-factor sign-in comes on every plan; Fireflies does not publish a built-in two-factor login. Our [Otter.ai review](/articles/otter-ai-review) covers the rest.


> 💡 **Fix auto-join before you switch:** Set Fireflies auto-join to only meetings you own and see whether the bot problem goes away; on Free that keeps transcription unlimited as raw text, while AI features still use credits. The invite-only option does not: Free accounts created since September 2026 then get only 3, 5 or 10 transcription credits, and Free stores 400 minutes per team.


## Granola and Notion AI Meeting Notes, the lighter options

### Granola removes the bot entirely

Pick Granola when the bot is the problem. It has no meeting bot at all and records device audio on macOS 14+, Windows 10+, iPhone, Android and Apple Watch. The trade is real. Granola stores no audio or video, so there is no playback; it takes no file uploads, and its transcripts cannot be edited. Fireflies joins as a named participant that cannot be hidden, although it can also capture without the bot. Its Google Meet SDK integration records Meet audio and video with no visible bot once a Workspace admin authorizes it, while desktop Take Notes saves no audio or video and the Chrome extension records Google Meet audio only.

Granola Business costs $14 per user per month, billed monthly only [3]. On monthly terms, Granola Business sits $4 a month below Fireflies Pro at $18 per seat per month and $15 below Fireflies Business at $29 per seat per month, which adds up to $180 a year per user by our arithmetic. The order flips on annual billing, where Fireflies Pro at $10 per seat per month billed annually undercuts Granola Business. Granola's free Basic plan shows only the last 30 days of meetings.

At the top tier the two meet. Granola offers HIPAA workspaces with a BAA on Enterprise, and its SSO and SCIM need 50 active members or a 50-seat Enterprise commitment. API access starts on Business, and its MCP server is on every plan. Granola trains on anonymized data unless you opt out. Our [Granola vs Fireflies comparison](/articles/granola-vs-fireflies) goes through the two line by line.

### Notion AI Meeting Notes keeps notes beside your docs

Notion is a workspace, not a notetaker-only product, and that is its whole case. AI Meeting Notes come with Notion Business at $20 per seat per month billed annually or $24 per seat per month billed monthly; on Free and Plus, Notion AI is only a trial. Against Fireflies Business at $19 per seat per month billed annually, Notion Business costs $1 more a seat each month. Notion lists speaker identification, real-time transcription, consent handling, configurable transcript retention and no training on your data.


> 💡 **Compare on the same billing term:** Granola Business is billed monthly only, so set it against Fireflies' monthly prices, then check the annual ones separately. The cheaper side changes with the term.


## Read AI and Fathom

### Read AI buys longer meetings

Read AI's Free plan is $0 with 5 meeting reports a month (reports shared with you count), meetings up to 1 hour, and no card. Read AI Pro costs $15 per user per month billed annually or $19.75 per user per month billed monthly; Read AI Enterprise $22.50 billed annually or $29.75 billed monthly; Read AI Enterprise+ $29.75 billed annually or $39.75 billed monthly, with 5+ licenses, also per user per month [4]. Our [Read AI pricing guide](/articles/read-ai-pricing) breaks down each plan. Length is the reason to look. Read AI records meetings up to 4 hours on Pro and Enterprise and 8 hours on Enterprise+, while Fireflies stops at 2 hours on Pro, 3 on Business and 4 on Enterprise.

Compliance sits higher on Read AI. HIPAA (with a BAA, on annual billing only), SAML, SCIM and custom data retention are Enterprise+ only, which requires 5 or more licenses. By our arithmetic, 50 Read AI Enterprise+ seats come to $17,850 a year against $23,400 for 50 Fireflies Enterprise seats, which are billed annually only. Fireflies attaches its own conditions to HIPAA: Enterprise, Private Storage switched on and a signed BAA. Read AI discounts 10% from 100 annual licenses, through sales.

### Fathom offers a free plan without a meter

Fathom's Free plan has no end date and includes unlimited recordings and transcriptions, captured by a bot or bot-free in beta. Its paid tiers are Premium, Team, Business and Enterprise, and Team and Business need at least 2 users. Two details matter against Fireflies. Fathom includes HIPAA with a standard BAA on its Team plans, where Fireflies keeps HIPAA on Enterprise with Private Storage, and it gives nonprofits 10 free seats. Fireflies says Superhuman acquired Fathom in September 2026.

## Gong, when calls feed a revenue team

Gong publishes no price. Licences are priced per user, plus a platform fee based on the number of users, through a custom proposal. That model fits a revenue organization buying a full system, not a team replacing a notetaker. Check first what Fireflies Business covers at $19 per seat per month billed annually: a conversation intelligence dashboard, Team Insights for admins, Deal Intelligence and Autofill CRM for HubSpot and Salesforce, with nothing sent until someone reviews it.

Credits are the cost to model on the Fireflies side. Business includes a one-time allotment of 30 AI credits shared by the team, and Autofill CRM uses 1 credit per meeting extraction. A team syncing 200 meetings a month would need about 200 credits for that alone, which matches the 200-credit add-on at $20 a month, or $16 a month billed annually. Treat that as an estimate and measure it in a pilot.


> ⚠ **Cancelling does not stop the bot:** Cancelling a Fireflies subscription moves the account to Free, and the bot keeps auto-joining calendar meetings. Turn auto-join off in settings, or delete the account.


## When staying on Fireflies is the right call

Stay if your meetings are multilingual, uploaded or wired into other systems. Fireflies says it transcribes 100+ languages, most of them in beta, and Business adds Multi-language Mode (beta) for several languages in one call. File uploads work on every plan, though on Free each upload uses a transcription credit and video files are capped at 100 MB. The GraphQL API and an MCP server, with tools to search and fetch meetings, also run on every plan. Most integrations open from Pro, while a few (Redtail, WhatsApp, Amazon S3, Snowflake and Affinity) need Business. Fireflies says it connects to 240+ apps.

The bot is partly a setting. By default a visible Fireflies.ai Notetaker auto-joins every calendar meeting with a video link and emails the recap to everyone on the invite. Switch auto-join to meetings you own before deciding; that keeps Free transcription unlimited, as raw text, while AI features still use credits. The invite-only option does not count: on a Free account created since September 2026 it leaves you with 3, 5 or 10 transcription credits, depending on where you signed up, and Free still stores only 400 minutes per team. AI features draw on a small one-time credit allotment, then a paid add-on; the [Fireflies.ai pricing guide](/articles/fireflies-ai-pricing) works through the math.

Reviewers back the product side of that case. Fireflies holds up well with business-software reviewers and in both app stores. We read Trustpilot as a map of complaints rather than a trend, which helps when you list what to test during a trial. Use the scores below as one input, and weigh them less than the limits above: a high score cannot tell you whether a 2-hour recording limit or a 400-minute storage total fits your meetings.


**What users rate it, by platform**

| Platform | Rating | Reviews | As of |
|---|---|---|---|


_Rendered from our current record; these are other platforms' user scores, separate from our own Toolkit Score._



## FAQ

**What happens to my Fireflies meetings if I leave?**

Any user can request a full account export (MP3, MP4, TXT, JSON) through Fireflies' data request form, and Pro and higher plans can download transcripts, summaries, audio and video directly. A deleted account is deactivated at once and its data erased after a 30-day grace period.

**Do the Fireflies and Otter trials need a card?**

Yes. Fireflies gives 7 days of Business with a credit or debit card required and bills automatically on day 7 unless you cancel; Otter's 7-day Business trial also needs a card and converts at the Business monthly rate.

**Can I bring Otter, Granola or Read AI history into Fireflies?**

Yes. Fireflies imports meetings from Otter, Granola, Read AI, Fathom, Gong and others for free; the imports only read the source account, and the Import Data option may need Fireflies support to switch it on. Imported meetings count toward storage: 400 minutes per team on Free and 8,000 minutes per seat on Pro, while Business and Enterprise have unlimited storage.

**Is downgrading to Fireflies Free an alternative to switching?**

Moving to Free counts as cancelling: paid features stay until the billing cycle ends, and meetings stay within Free limits, including 400 minutes of storage per team. Free also caps each recording at 2 hours, and an account created since September 2026 gets only a few transcription credits unless calendar auto-join is on.


## The bottom line

Leave Fireflies for a reason, not for a small price gap, because the annual gaps with Otter run both ways. Otter is the like-for-like move if six languages and its seat caps fit your team. Granola removes the bot and the recording with it. Read AI buys longer meetings. Fathom buys a free plan without a meter. Notion suits teams that already live in Notion. Gong is a different purchase altogether. If none of those reasons is yours, change the auto-join setting and stay.



## Sources

[1] Pricing — https://otter.ai/pricing (2026-11)
[2] Pricing & Plans — https://fireflies.ai/pricing (2026-11)
[3] Pricing plans — https://www.granola.ai/pricing (2026-11)
[4] Plans & Pricing — https://www.read.ai/pricing (2026-11)
[5] Fireflies help center — https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/4027724828-learn-about-the-fireflies-free-plan
[6] Fireflies.ai Terms of Service — https://fireflies.ai/terms-of-service
[7] Fireflies.ai Privacy Policy — https://fireflies.ai/privacy-policy