Every major video-calling platform now has some kind of built-in transcript, but dedicated AI meeting notetakers go further: searchable transcripts, auto-generated summaries and action items, CRM syncing, and increasingly, “ask your meetings a question” chat interfaces. Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, and Fathom are three of the most widely used standalone options. Here’s how their pricing, integrations, and — importantly — their data-handling policies compare, straight from each vendor’s own pages.
At a Glance
| Tool | Starting Price | Free Plan | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Otter.ai | $16.99/user/month billed monthly, or $8.33/user/month billed annually (Pro plan) | Yes — Basic plan, “free forever,” 300 minutes/month | Individuals and small teams wanting a straightforward transcription-and-notes tool with light CRM/Zapier integration on Pro |
| Fireflies.ai | $10/seat/month billed annually (Pro plan) | Yes — Free plan, unlimited transcription with 400 minutes of team storage | Teams wanting unlimited transcription at a low per-seat cost plus a vendor commitment not to train AI models on meeting content |
| Fathom | $20/user/month billed monthly, or $16/user/month billed annually (Premium plan) | Yes — Free plan, unlimited recordings and transcription for individuals | Sales and customer-facing teams wanting CRM field sync, deal tracking, and AI coaching scorecards on top of notetaking |
Short Verdict
All three will competently record, transcribe, and summarize Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams calls (per each vendor’s own site) — the real differentiators are pricing shape, feature depth per tier, and especially how each company says it handles your meeting data. Fireflies is the most explicit about not training AI models on customer meeting content and offers the lowest headline seat price. Fathom leans hardest into sales-team features (CRM sync, deal views, coaching scorecards) and lets users opt out of AI-training use of their data in account settings. Otter is the most mature and widely integrated option but is the only one of the three whose privacy policy explicitly describes training its AI on de-identified user recordings and transcripts without describing an opt-out.
What It Is
Otter.ai is one of the longest-running AI meeting transcription tools, built around live transcription, searchable notes, and automated summaries, with integrations for Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zapier at various tiers, per its own pricing page.
Fireflies.ai centers on an AI assistant it calls “Fred” that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings, with an AI chat layer (AskFred) for querying meeting history, plus a task manager and, on higher tiers, “Voice Agents” and conversation-intelligence analytics for sales teams.
Fathom (now operating its pricing and marketing at fathom.ai, with fathom.video redirecting there) focuses on instant AI call summaries and action items, with a notable “bot-free” capture option on some plans, plus — starting at the Business tier — CRM field sync, a Deal View, and AI coaching scorecards aimed squarely at sales teams.
Pricing Breakdown
| Tool | Plan | Price | Key Limits / Inclusions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Otter.ai | Basic | Free forever | 300 minutes/month, 30-min max per conversation, 1 concurrent meeting, 5 workspace members |
| Otter.ai | Pro | $16.99/user/month billed monthly, or $8.33/user/month billed annually | 1,200 minutes/month, 90-min max per conversation, Salesforce/HubSpot/Zapier integrations |
| Otter.ai | Business | $30/user/month billed monthly (“Best Value”), or $19.99/user/month billed annually | Unlimited meeting minutes, 4-hour max per conversation, live notes/captioning for Zoom, 25 workspace members |
| Otter.ai | Enterprise | Custom — contact sales | Custom CRM/dialer integrations, Otter API and webhooks, AI Chat with Gmail/Drive/Notion/Jira |
| Fireflies.ai | Free | $0 | Unlimited transcription, 400 minutes of team storage, limited AI summaries, AskFred assistant, API access |
| Fireflies.ai | Pro | $10/seat/month billed annually | Unlimited transcription, 8,000 minutes storage/seat, unlimited AI summaries, video recording, unlimited integrations |
| Fireflies.ai | Business | $19/seat/month billed annually | Unlimited transcription and storage, Multi-language Mode, conversation intelligence, team analytics |
| Fireflies.ai | Enterprise | $39/seat/month billed annually only | SSO/SCIM, audit logs, HIPAA-ready with BAA, private storage, custom data retention |
| Fathom | Free | $0 “free forever” | Unlimited recordings/transcription, bot-free (beta) or bot capture, instant AI summaries, clips and playlists |
| Fathom | Premium | $20/user/month billed monthly, or $16/user/month billed annually | Advanced call summaries, AI action items, conversational meeting assistant, custom meeting bot |
| Fathom | Team | $19/user/month billed monthly, or $15/user/month billed annually (2-user minimum) | Shared workspace, trackers, “Ask Fathom” across team calls, HIPAA compliance with standard BAA |
| Fathom | Business | $34/user/month billed monthly, or $25/user/month billed annually (2-user minimum) | CRM field sync, Deal View, AI coaching scorecards, custom org-wide summaries |
| Fathom | Enterprise | Billed annually only; the exact per-user figure was ambiguous on Fathom’s own pricing page — confirm with sales | “Launch Assist” implementation, SSO/SCIM, custom data retention, dedicated Success Manager |
Pros
- Otter.ai: The most mature integration set of the three at the Pro/Business tiers, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zapier, and at Enterprise, a public API and webhooks.
- Otter.ai: Transcription is supported in six languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese) per its pricing page.
- Fireflies.ai: States explicitly that it does not use meeting content to train AI models, and that its AI vendors are contractually barred from doing so — a stronger, more specific commitment than the other two make.
- Fireflies.ai: Lowest entry-level paid seat price of the three ($10/seat/month annually) with unlimited transcription even on its free plan.
- Fathom: A genuinely free plan with unlimited recordings and transcription for individuals, plus a bot-free (beta) capture option.
- Fathom: Deepest sales-workflow features of the three — CRM field sync, Deal View, and AI coaching scorecards — starting at its Business tier.
Cons
- Otter.ai: Its own privacy policy states it trains its proprietary AI on de-identified audio recordings and transcriptions, relying on consent or “legitimate interests” as the legal basis, and the policy doesn’t describe a specific opt-out mechanism for this training use.
- Otter.ai: Some of the lowest-advertised pricing (the $8.49/$4.17 “promo” rates) is explicitly restricted to India-issued credit cards per the page’s own footnote, so most buyers will pay the higher listed rate.
- Fireflies.ai: Per-meeting recording length is capped even on paid plans (2 hours on Free/Pro, 3 hours on Business, 4 hours on Enterprise) — a hard ceiling for very long sessions.
- Fireflies.ai: Enterprise is billed annually only, with no monthly-billing option disclosed.
- Fathom: Team and Business plans both carry a 2-user minimum, so a true single-user paid upgrade only exists via the solo Premium plan.
- Fathom: Its own pricing page presented Enterprise pricing ambiguously (two similar but unlabeled dollar figures), making it harder to confirm the exact rate without contacting sales.
Who It’s a Good Fit For
Teams already using Salesforce, HubSpot, or Zapier heavily, and who want those integrations available without jumping straight to an Enterprise plan, are well served by Otter’s Pro/Business tiers. Teams and privacy-conscious buyers who want the clearest vendor statement against using meeting content for AI training, at a low per-seat price, should look closely at Fireflies. Sales organizations that want notetaking paired with CRM sync, deal tracking, and rep coaching should look at Fathom’s Business tier.
Who Should Look Elsewhere
Organizations with strict internal policies against any AI training on recorded conversations should read Otter’s privacy policy carefully before adopting it, since it is the most explicit of the three about training on user data without describing an opt-out. Teams needing routine meetings well over 2-4 hours should check Fireflies’ and Otter’s per-conversation caps before relying on either for very long sessions. And solo users or very small teams who don’t need CRM/deal-tracking features will find Fathom’s Team/Business 2-seat minimums an unnecessary cost floor compared to its own solo Premium plan or Fireflies’ lower-cost Pro seat.
Bottom Line
Functionally, Otter, Fireflies, and Fathom all record, transcribe, and summarize the same core set of meeting platforms. The decision increasingly comes down to two things vendor marketing doesn’t always lead with: integration depth for your existing CRM/stack, and exactly what each company says, in its own privacy policy, about using your meetings to train AI. On that second point, Fireflies’ and Fathom’s current policies are more specific and more opt-out-friendly than Otter’s, which is worth weighing alongside price and features.
FAQ
How accurate is each tool’s transcription? None of the three vendors publish a specific accuracy percentage or word-error-rate figure on their own pricing or marketing pages at the time of writing. Otter markets itself with the tagline “the world’s smartest AI Notetaker,” and Fireflies and Fathom describe their output as “AI generated” summaries and transcripts — these are vendor marketing claims, not independently verified benchmarks, and should be treated as such.
Which of these three trains AI models on my meeting data? Per each company’s own privacy policy: Otter.ai states it trains its proprietary AI on de-identified audio recordings and transcriptions. Fireflies.ai states it does not use meetings, transcripts, or conversations to train AI models, and operates a “Zero Data Retention” policy for meeting content with its AI vendors. Fathom says it may use de-identified meeting data to train its own in-house models, depending on account settings, but states users can opt out, and that it does not authorize third parties (it names OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google) to train on that data.
Do all three support Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams? Yes — each vendor’s own site confirms support for all three platforms, though the specific features available per platform (for example, live captioning vs. post-meeting transcription) vary by plan.
Is there a genuinely free plan among the three? Yes, all three offer a free tier: Otter’s Basic plan (300 minutes/month), Fireflies’ Free plan (unlimited transcription, 400 minutes of team storage), and Fathom’s Free plan (unlimited recordings and transcription for individuals).
Which is cheapest for a small team that just needs basic transcription? On list price, Fireflies’ Pro plan at $10/seat/month (billed annually) undercuts both Otter’s Pro ($8.33-$16.99/user/month depending on billing and promo eligibility) and Fathom’s Team plan ($15-$19/user/month, 2-user minimum) — though Otter’s annual rate can come close if you qualify for its listed pricing.
Sources
Otter.ai Pricing — Otter.ai Privacy Policy — Fireflies.ai Pricing — Fireflies.ai Homepage — Fireflies.ai Privacy Policy — Fathom Pricing — Fathom Homepage — Fathom Privacy Policy
