Fireflies Pro costs $18/mo per seat and Business $29/mo, but the bigger complaint is metering. AI credits for add-on features are counted separately from minutes, so the free plan's 20 credits a month and Business's 30 can run out before your meetings do. The free plan also caps storage at 400 minutes for the whole team.
Fathom is the simplest free switch: unlimited recordings, transcripts and instant AI summaries. tl;dv matches Fireflies on integrations, with 5,000+ apps even on its free plan. Teams that want coaching analytics should look at Read AI, from $19.75/mo per seat.
| App | Free tier | Paid from | Top plan | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fireflies.ai | Yes | $18/mo | $39/mo | Sales and ops teams who want meeting data piped automatically into CRM, Slack, and analytics tools |
| Fathom | Yes | $20/mo | $34/mo | Sales call review, CRM-synced recaps, hiring interview notes |
| tl;dv | Yes | $29/mo | $39/mo | Sales and customer-facing teams that want unlimited free recording plus deep CRM and workflow integrations |
| Circleback | Yes | $18/mo | $35/mo | Teams that want unlimited free AI meeting notes and only want to pay for deeper history and CRM automations |
| Read AI | Yes | $19.75/mo | $39.75/mo | Teams that want engagement analytics and coaching feedback on top of standard meeting transcripts |
| Otter.ai | Yes | $16.99/mo | $30/mo | Teams already living in Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet who want automatic notes and searchable transcripts |
Monthly prices in US dollars before tax, from each vendor's official pricing (US list price; weekly-billed plans converted to a monthly figure). Updated November 2, 2026
Fathom's free plan lists unlimited recordings and transcriptions with instant AI summaries, clips and playlists. When you need more, Business ($34/mo) adds CRM field sync and deal-view summaries.
Pick it if: you want the record-and-summarise job done without paying or counting credits.
Where it falls short: The bot joins as a visible participant with no silent mode on most plans, and advanced summary templates cap at 5 a month after the trial.
Full Fathom pricing →tl;dv's free plan includes unlimited recordings and transcripts in 30+ languages plus 5,000+ app integrations, where Fireflies Free has basic integrations only. Pro adds unlimited AI notes, API access and cross-meeting search.
Pick it if: integrations were the reason you chose Fireflies in the first place.
Where it falls short: Free AI notes cover only about 10 meetings a month, and Pro ($29/mo) costs more per seat than Fireflies Pro.
Full tl;dv pricing →Circleback's free plan covers unlimited online and in-person meetings with AI notes, action items and speaker-labeled transcripts. Pro ($18/mo) adds unlimited history and automations into Notion, HubSpot and Salesforce.
Pick it if: you kept hitting Fireflies' AI-credit limits and mostly need notes and action items.
Where it falls short: Free meeting history only goes back 30 days.
Full Circleback pricing →Read AI adds participant analytics and a meeting coach, and searches across meetings, email and Slack. Pro ($19.75/mo) has unlimited transcripts and storage, plus premium integrations including Salesforce, HubSpot, Jira and Zapier.
Pick it if: you want feedback on how your meetings run, not only a record of them.
Where it falls short: The free plan stops at 5 meeting transcripts a month, and some attendees find participant analytics intrusive.
Full Read AI pricing →Otter pioneered real-time meeting transcription with Zoom, Teams and Google Meet integration. Pro ($16.99/mo) includes 1,200 recording minutes a month and Salesforce, HubSpot and Zapier integrations.
Pick it if: you want to follow the transcript live during the call.
Where it falls short: Pro caps meetings at 90 minutes, and the free plan's 300 minutes a month go quickly.
Full Otter.ai pricing →Fireflies splits usage into storage minutes and AI credits, and each alternative meters something different: Otter counts recording minutes, Read AI counts upload credits, and tl;dv's free plan limits AI notes by number of meetings. Take a typical month of calls and check it against each limit before you migrate your recordings.
Yes. Fathom and Circleback both include unlimited meetings with AI summaries or notes on their free plans, and tl;dv records and transcribes unlimited meetings for free.
Otter is the stronger choice for live, real-time transcription. Fireflies is built around integrations, and its Business plan adds conversation intelligence and team analytics. Otter Pro ($16.99/mo) and Fireflies Pro ($18/mo) are close in price.
How we choose: prices come from each vendor's official pricing page and are re-checked every week. We take no affiliate fees, so rankings aren't for sale.