Granola Alternatives: 7 AI Meeting Note Tools Compared (2026)

Granola's alternatives split on one question: should a bot join the call and keep the recording, or should your own computer listen and throw the audio away? Granola is the second kind. Business costs $14 per user per month, billed monthly, and Basic is free with a 30-day visible history ^[1]. On monthly billing, Granola Business costs less per user than Otter Pro, Fireflies Pro, Read AI Pro, Krisp Core or Notion Business, by our arithmetic. Switch for stored recordings, file uploads or a different free plan. Not for price alone.

Three gaps that send people looking

Granola runs on your Mac or Windows computer, captures the microphone and system audio after you start it, and joins no call. Other participants see no bot. The trade is that Granola deletes the audio after transcription, so there is no recording to replay or export. It also cannot transcribe uploaded files, and its phone apps cannot capture Zoom, Meet or Teams audio; they handle in-person meetings and outbound phone calls. Those three gaps are the honest reasons to look elsewhere. Price rarely is, since Granola sells no annual Business plan and bills Business monthly ^[2].

Seats and history matter too. A paid Granola workspace bills every active member, admins included, on the same plan, and the Granola pricing guide walks through the seat rules. On Basic, notes older than 30 days are hidden in the app, kept rather than deleted, and they return on upgrade. HIPAA is Enterprise only, from $35 per user per month, with a BAA covering the desktop apps only. Granola stores data on AWS in the US and offers no regional data residency.

Otter.ai: a bot, file imports and a minute meter

Otter.ai is the rival most buyers check first, and our Otter.ai review covers it in full. Its Otter Notetaker auto-joins Zoom, Teams and Meet, and a bot-free desktop app runs on Mac and Windows. It imports audio and video files up to 5 GB, which Granola cannot do at all. The cost is a meter. Otter Basic is free with 300 transcription minutes per user a month, only the first 30 minutes of each conversation viewable until you upgrade, and your 25 most recent conversations, and Pro raises the allowance to 1,200 minutes a month ^[3].

Otter Pro costs $16.99 per user a month billed monthly, or $8.33 billed annually, and stops at 5 billed users. Otter Business costs $30 per user a month billed monthly, or $19.99 billed annually; first-time subscribers on monthly billing pay $24 for the first 3 months only. On the same monthly term, Otter Pro runs $2.99 above Granola Business per user, and Otter Business $16 above it, by our arithmetic. A team of six needs Otter Business. Otter's Business trial lasts 7 days and needs a card, and under its Terms, fees are non-refundable.

Governance differs as well. Otter puts MCP on every plan, as Granola does, but keeps its public API and webhooks on Enterprise, while Granola opens its API and webhooks from Business. Otter requires 100 users for SSO and SCIM on Enterprise; Granola sets that threshold at 50 active members or a 50-seat Enterprise commitment. Otter offers HIPAA as an Enterprise add-on with a BAA. If you need both a bot that joins for you and uploaded files transcribed, Otter is the catalog option that covers both.

Fireflies.ai: storage, uploads and a credit meter

Fireflies defaults to a bot, fred@fireflies.ai, which auto-joins calendar meetings on Zoom, Meet, Teams and Webex. Bot-free routes exist: a desktop app that detects meetings and starts transcribing automatically, a Chrome extension for Google Meet, and a mobile app. Unlike Granola, it keeps recordings, accepts MP3, MP4, WAV and M4A uploads, and adds video on Pro. Storage is the catch. Free holds 400 minutes, Pro 8,000 minutes per seat, and Business and Enterprise are unlimited. Free meetings record up to 2 hours each.

Fireflies Pro costs $18 per seat a month billed monthly, or $10 billed annually; Business costs $29 monthly or $19 annually; Enterprise costs $39 per seat a month, billed annually only ^[4]. On monthly billing, Fireflies Pro sits $4 above Granola Business per user and Fireflies Business $15 above it, by our arithmetic. AI credits pay for AskFred, AI Skills and custom summaries: 20 on Free, 30 on Business and 50 on Enterprise, with extra packs starting at 50 credits for $5 a month. When credits run out, paid users are moved to that pack unless Auto upgrade is off.

Two more points decide it for many teams. The 7-day Business trial needs a card and charges automatically unless cancelled. Set a reminder. Fireflies offers HIPAA and FERPA on Enterprise on request, tied to Private Storage and a signed agreement; Granola is not FERPA compliant at any tier. Fireflies also exposes its API on every plan, Free included, with rate limits that grow by plan. Granola's API starts at Business.

Read AI, Krisp and Circleback: three price sheets

Read AI

Read AI's Free plan allows 5 meeting transcripts a month, meetings up to an hour, and needs no card. Pro costs $19.75 per user a month billed monthly, or $15 billed annually, with 100 file upload credits a month. Audio and video playback start on Enterprise, at $29.75 per user a month billed monthly or $22.50 billed annually. HIPAA, SAML and SCIM need Enterprise+, at $39.75 per user a month billed monthly or $29.75 billed annually. Every licence in a workspace sits on one plan. Read AI offers no refunds.

Krisp

Krisp is the bot-free rival here. Core costs $16 per user a month billed monthly, or $8 billed annually, with bot-free transcription, in-person notes, a mobile app, MCP and 10 GB of storage. Advanced costs $30 per user a month billed monthly, or $15 billed annually. Storage rises to 60 GB. The Advanced plan also brings a Salesforce connection and admin controls. Two differences from Granola stand out: each team in a Krisp workspace can sit on its own plan, and the 7-day trial needs no card. Krisp signs a BAA only for Enterprise teams of 100 or more seats.

Circleback

Circleback offers a bot or a bot-free desktop app. Its Free plan keeps 30 days of meeting and recording history and includes API, MCP and CLI access. Pro costs $15 per user a month, Business $25 and Enterprise $35, all billed annually; Circleback prints no monthly price. Pro adds 1 year of recording storage, Business 2 years, Enterprise unlimited, along with HIPAA, SSO and SCIM. Circleback gives nonprofits 30% off and students 50% off.

Fathom and Notion: free recordings, or notes in your workspace

Fathom

Fathom's Free plan records and transcribes without limit, through a bot or bot-free capture that is still in beta on Mac. Paid plans run from Premium for individuals to Team and Business, both with a 2-user minimum, then Enterprise with SSO and SCIM. Team includes HIPAA with a standard BAA. Business adds CRM field sync, Deal View and coaching metrics, the kind of conversation intelligence Granola says it does not build. Paid plans carry a 90-day guarantee, startups backed by select VCs can get up to 2 years of Team free, and nonprofits can get 10 free seats.

Notion

Notion is a workspace for docs, wikis and databases, not a dedicated notetaker; our Notion review covers the rest. AI Meeting Notes come with Notion Business, at $24 per seat a month billed monthly or $20 billed annually, alongside Notion Agent, Enterprise Search and SAML SSO. The Plus plan, at $12 per seat a month billed monthly or $10 billed annually, includes only a Notion AI trial. On monthly billing, Notion Business costs $10 a seat more than Granola Business, by our arithmetic. It fits teams whose notes already live in Notion.

Matching the alternative to your reason for leaving

Start with the reason, then do the sums. For five users on monthly billing, Granola Business comes to $70 a month by our arithmetic. Five seats on Krisp Core and Otter Pro come to $80 and $84.95 a month. Five seats on Fireflies Pro and Read AI Pro come to $90 and $98.75 a month. Over a year on monthly billing, one Granola Business user costs $168 by our arithmetic, against $203.88 for Otter Pro. Per-seat pricing keeps that order.

Annual billing changes the picture, but only if you commit. Otter Pro billed annually comes to $99.96 a year by our arithmetic. Monthly Granola Business stays cheaper than that prepaid Otter Pro year only for up to 7 months ($98 against $99.96); from the eighth month, $112 against $99.96, the prepaid Otter year costs less. Neither figure covers what differs: Otter meters minutes, Granola does not. Granola Business also stays cancellable month to month, running to the end of the period before dropping to Basic.

So match the tool to the gap. Need recordings to replay or files to upload: Otter, Fireflies or Read AI's Enterprise playback. Need a bot that joins without anyone pressing start: Otter or Fireflies. Want bot-free capture with a different seat model: Krisp. Want a free plan without minute meters: Fathom or Circleback. Granola's own store ratings sit below; they describe its app users, not how it stacks up against these rivals.

The bottom line

Leave Granola for a reason Granola cannot cover: a recording to replay, uploaded files to transcribe, a bot that joins on its own, or virtual meetings captured from a phone. Otter and Fireflies cover the first three, at higher monthly prices per user. Krisp captures without a bot and Circleback offers a bot-free desktop app alongside its bot, each with a different plan structure, Fathom keeps recordings free, and Notion folds notes into a workspace. If none of those gaps applies, Granola Business at $14 per user per month, billed monthly, costs less per user than each monthly price listed here for a rival plan that includes meeting notes.