Otter vs Fireflies vs Fathom vs Krisp: 8 AI Meeting Assistants Compared (2026 Pricing)

AI meeting assistants all do the same thing: join your calls, transcribe them, generate summaries. The differences show up in the details: how many minutes you get free, whether a bot joins visibly, how they handle your audio data, and what happens when you need CRM sync.

I looked at 8 tools and pulled their pricing directly from official pages. Here is what I found.

Sources: Otter.ai pricing | Fireflies.ai pricing | Fathom pricing | tl;dv pricing | Krisp pricing | Granola pricing | MeetGeek pricing | Avoma pricing

The Two Types of Tools

Meeting assistants split into two categories: bot-based and bot-free.

Bot-based tools (Otter, Fireflies, tl;dv, MeetGeek, Fathom the first 5 summaries) join your meeting as a participant. Everyone sees the bot. The advantage is reliability: the recording lives on their server, not your machine.

Bot-free tools (Krisp, Granola) capture audio from your system directly. No bot joins, no one knows you are recording. The trade-off is they need a desktop app running, and the processing happens on your device or through an API.

Fathom is unique: it now offers bot-free recording on Mac as a beta feature while keeping its bot-based transcription.

Pricing Per Tool

Otter.ai

Free plan gives you 300 minutes per month with a 30-minute cap per meeting. That is 10 short meetings before you hit the wall. Pro at $8.33/mo (annual) jumps to 1,200 minutes with 90-minute meetings. Business at $19.99/mo (annual) removes the cap entirely.

The issue is the 10 file imports per month on Pro. If you need to upload recordings from other tools, this gets expensive fast. No video recording on any plan.

Source: Otter.ai pricing

Fireflies.ai

Free plan stores 800 minutes. Pro at $10/mo (annual) goes to 8,000 minutes. Business at $19/mo (annual) gives unlimited storage and video recording.

Fireflies has an AI credit system. Advanced features consume credits, and extra credits cost $5/50 to $600/10,000 per month. The credit system is the main thing that annoys power users. 100+ languages transcription is real, one of the broadest language supports in the category.

Source: Fireflies.ai pricing

Fathom

Best free tier in the category. Unlimited recordings and transcription, forever. The catch is you get only 5 AI summaries per month on free. That means you either use the basic chronological template or pay.

Premium at $16/mo (annual) unlocks unlimited AI summaries, advanced templates, and action items. Team at $15/mo (annual) adds SSO and global search. Business at $25/mo (annual) adds CRM field sync.

The free tier lets you try Fathom indefinitely without paying, just with capped AI summaries. For someone taking a few important meetings a month, 5 summaries might be enough.

Source: Fathom pricing

tl;dv

Free plan gives unlimited recordings with a 3-month retention. Only 10 AI notes, lifetime. After that you are on the basic transcript-only view.

Pro at $18/mo (annual) removes the AI note cap and adds 5,000+ integrations. Business at $59/mo (annual) adds native CRM, coaching, and playbooks.

The price jump from Pro ($18) to Business ($59) is the steepest in this comparison. The 5,000+ integration claim is real. They integrate with everything that has an API.

Source: tl;dv pricing

Krisp

Krisp started as a noise cancellation tool and added meeting assistant features later. The noise cancellation is still the best in class: works system-wide across all apps.

No permanent free tier. 7-day trial only. Core at $8/mo (annual) gives unlimited transcription, noise cancellation, and AI notes. Advanced at $15/mo (annual) adds accent conversion and Salesforce integration.

The bot-free approach captures system audio, so no bot joins your meetings. Krisp also promises data is never used for model training, a legit differentiator for privacy-conscious teams.

Source: Krisp pricing

Granola

Granola's pitch is "completely bot-free." It captures system audio and deletes it after transcription, with no cloud audio storage. Desktop app required (Mac and Windows).

No annual billing, which is unusual. Business at $14/mo. Enterprise at $35/mo adds SSO and API. The free tier limits meeting history to about 30 days.

Granola has an MCP integration, so you can query your meeting notes through Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor. Niche but useful for AI-heavy workflows.

Source: Granola pricing

MeetGeek

Free plan gives 3 hours of transcription per month with AI summaries included (unlike Fathom which caps summaries). Pro at $9.99/mo (annual) goes to 20 hours with Zapier/Make. Business at $17/mo (annual) removes the cap and adds video recording.

MeetGeek also has Voice Agents (AI agents that join meetings for you). That is different from just recording. The agents can participate in calls. 30% discount for startups and non-profits.

Source: MeetGeek pricing

Avoma

Avoma positions itself as a revenue intelligence platform, not just a meeting assistant. Startup at $19/seat/mo (annual) includes unlimited AI meeting assistant. Organization at $29/seat/mo. Enterprise at $39/seat/mo (annual only, minimum 10 seats).

The pricing gets complicated when you add Conversation Intelligence (+$29/seat/mo) or Revenue Intelligence (+$29/seat/mo). Real cost for a sales rep: $19 + $29 + $29 = $77/seat/mo.

Avoma offers a 14-day free trial with the full Organization plan. Viewers and collaborators are always free: you only pay for recording users.

Source: Avoma pricing

Quick Comparison Table

Tool	Free Tier	Cheapest Paid (annual)	Bot-Free Option	Language Support
Otter.ai	300 min/mo	$8.33/mo	No	6 languages
Fireflies.ai	800 min storage	$10/mo	No	100+ languages
Fathom	Unlimited recording	$16/mo	Yes (Mac beta)	English-focused
tl;dv	Unlimited recording	$18/mo	No	30+ languages
Krisp	7-day trial	$8/mo	Yes	10+ languages
Granola	30-day history	$14/mo	Yes	English-focused
MeetGeek	3 hrs/mo	$9.99/mo	No	100+ languages
Avoma	14-day trial	$19/seat/mo	No	70+ languages

Which One to Pick

For individuals on a budget: Start with Fathom free. Unlimited recording, and 5 AI summaries per month covers occasional use. If you hit the summary cap, $16/mo for Premium is reasonable.

For privacy-sensitive teams: Krisp (no bot, data not used for training) or Granola (audio deleted after transcription). Both are bot-free. Krisp's $8/mo is cheaper than Granola's $14/mo, but Granola has no data retention after processing.

For multilingual teams: Fireflies or MeetGeek. 100+ languages. Both cost about the same. Fireflies Pro at $10/mo vs MeetGeek Pro at $9.99/mo. Fireflies gives more storage (8,000 min vs 20 hrs), but MeetGeek includes AI summaries on free.

For sales teams needing CRM sync: Avoma if your budget allows $77/seat/mo for the full stack. Fathom Business at $25/seat/mo if you just need HubSpot/Salesforce sync without coaching. Fireflies Business at $19/seat/mo is the middle ground.

For the best value meeting assistant: MeetGeek Business at $17/mo (annual). Unlimited transcription, video recording, 100+ languages, workflow automation, and no AI credit system that limits features.