Otter.ai vs Granola: Bot or Bot-Free AI Meeting Notes (2026)

Pick Otter.ai if you want a meeting bot that joins calendar calls on its own, keeps the audio and transcribes files you already have. Pick Granola if nobody else should see a notetaker in the call and you are happy to start every note yourself. That split decides most of the rest. Billed monthly, Granola Business costs $14 per user a month and Otter Pro $16.99 per user a month, so Granola is $2.99 a month cheaper per seat by our arithmetic. That holds for teams of up to five, because Otter Pro allows at most 5 billed users. The units differ, too. Otter Pro caps each user at 1,200 transcription minutes a month, while Granola says no plan carries a daily transcription limit.

Bot or no bot: who presses record

Otter Notetaker (formerly OtterPilot) is a visible guest in Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. Once you connect a Google or Microsoft calendar, it auto-joins every event with a valid video link by default, posts a chat message linking to the live transcript, and can share notes with all guests after the call. Any participant can remove it, even without an Otter account. Our guide to removing the Otter bot and stopping auto-join covers the settings worth changing on day one.

Otter also has a bot-free path. Its desktop app for Mac and Windows records supported meetings from your device with no Notetaker, and it can detect a meeting and either remind you or record automatically. The Chrome extension offers on-device recording for Google Meet only. Here nothing tells the other people in the call that Otter is listening, and Otter's Terms leave the user solely responsible for notice and consent. Bot-free capture shifts the disclosure job to you.

Granola never sends a bot. On the desktop it captures microphone and system audio from your own machine, for Zoom, Meet, Teams or any other meeting app ^[1]. It does not auto-join or record in the background: you click a notification, open the meeting's note or start a New Note. It stops after 15 minutes without new audio, when the call ends or when the computer sleeps. An optional automated chat message and camera watermark tell others it is in use, per user on Basic and Business and admin-enforceable on Enterprise. It records only the notes you start. While it runs, it takes the combined system audio, not one app.

What each one keeps: audio, files and history

Otter keeps the recording itself. Even the free Basic plan exports mp3 and txt, and Pro adds pdf, docx and srt. It also transcribes files you already have: Basic allows 3 imports per user for the account's lifetime, Pro 10 a month, and Business unlimited files within 6,000 imported minutes per user a month, each file up to 5 GB. Granola does neither. It passes audio to its transcription provider without saving audio or video, so meeting audio cannot be replayed later, and it does not accept pre-recorded files such as MP3s. Its transcripts can even auto-delete after a day, a week or up to a year, while the notes stay.

The free plans limit different things. Otter Basic gives 300 transcription minutes per user a month, shows only the first 30 minutes of each conversation's transcript until you upgrade, and lists the 25 most recent conversations, with older ones archived rather than deleted. That is ten 30-minute meetings a month. Granola Basic allows unlimited notes but shows only the last 30 days of history, and its AI chat and MCP access on Basic see the same 30 days. Older notes are hidden, not deleted, and return on upgrade.

On paid plans the caps change shape. Otter Pro allows 1,200 minutes per user a month, about twenty 1-hour meetings, with 90 minutes per conversation, no rollover and no extra minutes for sale; imports draw from the same pool. Otter Business removes the monthly cap on meeting and in-app recording minutes but keeps a 4-hour limit per conversation. Granola Business lists unlimited notes and history. For a heavy meeting load, that matters more than the sticker price.

Prices, compared only at the same billing term

Otter.ai prices per user a month: Basic is free, Pro costs $16.99 billed monthly or $8.33 billed annually, Business costs $30 billed monthly or $19.99 billed annually, and Enterprise is sold through sales with no published price ^[2]. First-time Business subscribers on monthly billing pay $24 a month for the first three months. Granola Basic is $0, Business is $14 per user a month, and Granola Enterprise is $35 or more per user a month ^[3]. Granola bills Basic and Business monthly and offers annual billing only on Enterprise contracts ^[4].

So the fair comparison is monthly against monthly. Billed monthly, five seats cost $84.95 a month on Otter Pro and $70 a month on Granola Business, by our arithmetic. Five is also the ceiling: Otter Pro holds at most 5 billed users, so a team of six or more sets Otter Business, at $30 per user a month billed monthly, against Granola Business at $14 per user a month billed monthly. If you can pay a year upfront, Otter Pro billed annually comes to $99.96 a year by our arithmetic, cheaper than Otter's monthly Pro once you keep it six months or more. Granola has no annual option below Enterprise, so we do not set that figure against its monthly price.

Trial and exit terms differ sharply. Otter's 7-day Business trial needs a card and converts automatically at the monthly Business rate for every seat unless an admin cancels in time; Otter advertises no Pro trial. Under Otter's Terms, subscriptions are non-refundable; Otter documents narrow exceptions elsewhere, so cancel at least 24 hours before renewal; our Otter.ai pricing breakdown covers the full billing rules. Granola says a workspace whose trial ends without a subscription moves to Basic without a charge, and every active member, admins included, is a paid seat on one shared tier.

Platforms, languages and phone calls

Otter records in the browser, in iOS and Android apps, in the Mac and Windows desktop app, and through a Chrome extension for Zoom and Google Meet links. Granola transcribes only in its desktop app (macOS 14 or later, or Windows) and its iPhone and Android apps; Apple Watch note-taking works through the iPhone app. Its web interface views and edits notes but cannot capture a meeting. Its phone apps cannot capture virtual meeting audio either, so mobile Granola covers in-person meetings and outbound calls through its built-in dialer. Otter cannot record phone calls directly; you record with the phone's own recorder and import the file.

Languages split the other way. Otter transcribes English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Simplified Chinese, with German and Chinese in beta and one language per recording. Granola supports 31 languages on desktop and 17 on mobile, with an English-only interface. Speaker labels differ as well: Granola tags speakers by display name on desktop for Meet, Zoom and Teams, other desktop meetings read Me and Them, and the mobile app separates speakers in face-to-face meetings.

Security, admin and developer gates

HIPAA is Enterprise-only on both sides. Otter sells it as an Enterprise add-on and is not a business associate until a BAA is signed. Granola offers HIPAA workspaces and a BAA only on Enterprise, its BAA covers the desktop and laptop apps only, and it says it is not FERPA compliant. Both name SOC 2 Type II, and both keep data on AWS in the United States; Granola offers no regional residency and Otter does not publish a choice of data region. SSO and SCIM need Enterprise on both, with a 100-user minimum licence at Otter and at least 50 members at Granola.

Smaller gates matter too. Otter offers authenticator-app 2FA on every plan; Granola has no built-in 2FA and leaves sign-in security to Google, Microsoft or your SSO provider. On training, Otter uses de-identified recordings and transcripts for its own models, and its privacy pages name no opt-out from training on that de-identified data. A separate Help improve Otter setting lets each user refuse Otter and third-party providers access to their conversations for training, including human review. Granola lets each user opt out of training on anonymized data. Both turn training off by default for Enterprise. Developers face a reversed gate: Otter's MCP server works on every plan, but its Public API and webhooks are Enterprise-only, while Granola's API and webhooks start on Business and its MCP serves all users.

Which one fits your meetings

Choose Otter when meetings must be captured without anyone remembering, when the audio or uploaded recordings matter, or when your team works from one shared record of calls. Choose Granola when a bot in the call would cost goodwill, when you take notes alongside the transcript, when you meet in languages Otter lacks, or when you need an API without an Enterprise contract. Teams weighing other options can scan our Otter.ai alternatives roundup.

These ratings are Otter's own platform listings, so read them as sentiment about Otter's apps and its bot rather than as a head-to-head score. Granola's reviews are not part of this set, and a single rating cannot tell you whether a bot in your calls is acceptable to your clients. That question decides more than any star count.

The bottom line

The choice is about capture, not price. Otter.ai joins meetings for you, keeps the audio, imports files and adds a bot-free desktop recorder, at the cost of minute caps on Basic and Pro and a bot that guests will notice. Granola stays invisible, records only when you ask, keeps no audio, accepts no uploads and charges $14 per user a month billed monthly for Business. If your calendar runs your day, start with Otter. If discretion runs it, start with Granola.