Every AI meeting assistant has a free plan, and every free plan runs out somewhere different. One stops showing notes older than 30 days, one after 300 minutes a month, one after five meetings. You find out which when you go looking for a call you needed.
I read the pricing pages of six notetakers on 11 November 2026: Granola, Fathom, Otter, Fireflies, tl;dv and Read AI. I flipped every monthly/annual toggle and wrote down both numbers. I have not run these six side by side in real meetings, so this post covers what you pay and where the limits sit, not whose summaries are better.
AI meeting assistant pricing, cheapest plan first
Five of the six pricing pages open on the annual toggle, so the first price you see is the annual one. Otter's Pro plan shows $8.33 until you switch to monthly, where it becomes $16.99. If you pay month to month, you pay the bigger number.
| Tool | Cheapest paid plan | Month to month | Billed annually | One year, monthly vs annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Granola | Business | $14 | no annual price shown | $168 |
| Otter | Pro | $16.99 | $8.33 | $204 vs $100 |
| Fireflies | Pro | $18 | $10 | $216 vs $120 |
| Read AI | Pro | $19.75 | $15 | $237 vs $180 |
| Fathom | Premium | $20 | $16 | $240 vs $192 |
| tl;dv | Pro | $29 | $18 | $348 vs $216 |
All prices are per user per month, in USD, from each vendor's own pricing page on 11 November 2026. The yearly figures are my arithmetic.
Granola is the cheapest if you refuse to commit to a year, and lands in the middle once the others get their annual discount. Otter on annual billing is the cheapest paid seat here by a wide margin, about $100 for the year.
Where each free plan runs out
This is the part I would read before the prices. If the free plan covers you, none of the table above matters.
- Fathom is the generous one. Free means unlimited recordings, unlimited transcription and instant AI summaries, with no meeting count on the page.
- tl;dv also records and transcribes without a limit, but the free plan includes AI notes for 10 meetings and 10 Ask AI queries.
- Otter gives you 300 transcription minutes a month and 3 file imports for the life of the account. That is about five hour-long calls.
- Fireflies says "unlimited transcription" with an asterisk, then caps storage at 400 minutes per team, limits the AI summaries and gives you 20 AI credits.
- Granola takes notes for free, but Basic only shows 30 days of meeting history. Older notes stay out of reach until you pay.
- Read AI is the tightest: 5 meeting transcripts a month.
If you have a handful of calls a week and want a recording plus a summary, start with Fathom's free plan. That is my pick from the pages alone, not from using it for a month.
The annual toggle is where the money is
The discount for paying a year up front ranges from nothing to half the price. Otter advertises "save 51%" on the toggle, Fireflies "save up to 44%", tl;dv "up to 40% off", Fathom "save 25%+" and Read AI 25%. Granola shows one price and no toggle.
Month to month, Otter Pro and Fireflies Pro are about $1 apart. On annual billing, Otter is $1.67 a month cheaper, and Fathom Premium costs 60% more than Fireflies Pro.
My rule for these: run the free plan for a month, then buy annual only if you are sure. Notetakers are easy to switch, because your meetings live in your calendar and not in the tool. A year of prepaid seats is the one thing that makes switching expensive.
Fine print that changes the price
A few details on these pages will change what you pay if you miss them.
Otter's Business price is a promotion. On the monthly toggle the $30 is struck through to $24, with "20% off for 3 months". From month four you pay $30. Otter Pro also caps a single meeting at 90 minutes, and Business raises that to 4 hours.
Fathom's team plans need two people. Team is $19 a month per user and Business is $34, both with a 2-user minimum. Team costs a dollar less per seat than Premium, the solo plan, but you pay for at least two seats. Enterprise is $35 and annual only.
tl;dv is the most expensive month to month, with Pro at $29 and Business at $39. On 11 November its pricing page also ran a Black Friday coupon for 500 buyers on a year of Business. Check whether it is still live before you pay.
Read AI's Enterprise+ plan needs 5 licences, at $39.75 a month each or $29.75 billed annually.
The bot in the call
Price is half the decision. The other half is whether a bot joins your meeting as a participant. Some people on the other side of the call do not want a recorder in the attendee list, and some companies block meeting bots.
Granola lists "bot-free, device-audio capture" on every plan, including Basic. It records from your computer and nothing joins the call. Fathom now offers a choice of bot-free or bot capture, with the bot-free mode in beta and on Mac only. Fireflies lists a Chrome extension that records without its bot. The other pricing pages do not mention a bot-free option, so I would assume a bot unless their docs say otherwise.
If bots are a problem where you work, start with Granola, and keep Fathom's Mac beta and the Fireflies extension as the fallbacks. $14 a month for no bot is a fair trade, I think.
Which one I would pick
- You want free and you have a few calls a week: Fathom Free.
- You want the cheapest paid seat and will commit to a year: Otter Pro at $8.33 a month, if 1,200 minutes and 90-minute meetings cover you.
- You will not commit to a year: Granola Business at $14.
- No bot in the call: Granola.
- A sales team: Fathom Business ($25 billed annually) lists CRM field sync and a deal view, and Fireflies Business ($19 billed annually) lists conversation intelligence and team analytics. Compare those two first.
For a head-to-head on features, the compare pages go deeper than this post: Granola vs Otter, Fathom vs Fireflies, Fathom vs tl;dv and Otter vs Read AI. Each tool page also carries its pricing ladder with the date we last checked it, and the meetings category lists the rest of the notetakers we track. If your meeting notes end up in a notes app, Mem AI pricing 2026 covers what that side costs now.
