Read AI's free plan covers just 5 meeting transcripts a month, and paid plans are per seat: Pro is $19.75/mo, Enterprise $29.75/mo and Enterprise+ $39.75/mo, which climbs past Otter and Fireflies when billed monthly. Some attendees also find its participant analytics intrusive.
Fathom is the free alternative, with coaching scorecards on its Business plan. tl;dv Business offers sales coaching insights and team analytics. If you don't need analytics at all, Granola ($14/mo) is a cheaper paid note-taker.
| App | Free tier | Paid from | Top plan | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read AI | Yes | $19.75/mo | $39.75/mo | Teams that want engagement analytics and coaching feedback on top of standard meeting transcripts |
| 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 |
| Fireflies.ai | Yes | $18/mo | $39/mo | Sales and ops teams who want meeting data piped automatically into CRM, Slack, and analytics tools |
| Granola | Yes | $14/mo | $35/mo | Teams that want meeting notes wired into their existing tools (Slack, Notion, HubSpot) plus MCP access to Claude/ChatGPT |
| 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 |
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 has unlimited recordings and transcriptions with instant AI summaries. Business ($34/mo) adds coaching metrics, AI scorecards and CRM field sync.
Pick it if: you want every meeting transcribed for free and coaching only for the sales team.
Where it falls short: Team and Business plans require at least 2 users.
Full Fathom pricing →tl;dv records unlimited meetings for free; Business ($39/mo) adds premium transcription quality, sales coaching insights, multi-meeting AI insights and team analytics.
Pick it if: coaching customer-facing teams is the main reason you'd pay.
Where it falls short: Free AI notes are limited to about 10 meetings a month.
Full tl;dv pricing →Fireflies Business ($29/mo) includes conversation intelligence, multi-language transcription and team analytics, and the free plan already offers unlimited transcription and summaries.
Pick it if: you want analytics plus meeting data piped into CRM, Slack and analytics tools.
Where it falls short: AI credits are metered separately from minutes, so heavy summary users can hit limits even on paid plans.
Full Fireflies.ai pricing →Granola blends your typed notes with the transcript into a shareable summary, with no participant scoring. Business ($14/mo) adds unlimited history and MCP and API access.
Pick it if: attendees pushed back on Read AI's analytics and you just want good notes.
Where it falls short: The free plan keeps only 30 days of meeting history.
Full Granola pricing →Circleback includes unlimited AI notes and action items on its free plan; Business ($29/mo) adds admin and member roles, unlimited free viewers and a usage dashboard.
Pick it if: you want to roll notes out to a whole team without paying for every viewer.
Where it falls short: Free history lasts 30 days.
Full Circleback pricing →Read AI's price buys participant analytics and search across meetings, email and Slack. If your team only reads the summary and action items, you're paying for features nobody opens, and a free note-taker covers the job. If coaching is the point, compare Read AI with Fathom Business and tl;dv Business rather than with their free plans.
There is a free plan, but it includes only 5 meeting transcripts a month, alongside unlimited enterprise search and basic integrations. Unlimited transcripts start with Pro at $19.75/mo per seat.
Fathom and Circleback both cover unlimited meetings with AI summaries or notes on their free plans. tl;dv records and transcribes unlimited meetings for free too, with AI notes on about 10 a month.
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.