These three are the AI notetakers most people actually shortlist — Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, and Fathom. They all join your Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams calls, transcribe with speaker labels, and hand back a summary with action items. So the real question isn’t “which transcribes best” — it’s which fits how you work and what you’ll pay. Here’s the honest breakdown.
The 15-second answer
- Solo, and want it free: Fathom — genuinely free with no recording limit.
- A sales/CS team living in a CRM: Fireflies — best logging + conversation analytics.
- You want the most polished transcript + search: Otter — the transcription veteran.
Side by side
| Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai | Fathom | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Transcripts & search | Sales teams & CRM | Free solo use |
| Free tier | Limited minutes/mo | Limited credits | Unlimited (1 user) |
| Paid from | ~$8.33/mo | ~$10/mo | ~$16/mo (Team) |
| Capture | Bot joins call | Bot joins call | Bot joins call |
| Chat over meetings | Otter AI Chat | AskFred | Ask Fathom |
| Standout | Searchable archive | Conversation analytics | Fast, clean summaries |
| CRM sync | Salesforce, HubSpot | Salesforce, HubSpot, +many | Salesforce, HubSpot, Close |
Pricing is indicative and changes often — check each tool’s site for current plans.
Fathom — the one that’s actually free
Fathom’s pitch is simple: the single-user tier is free with no recording limits, where Otter and Fireflies both cap free usage. Summaries are fast and cleanly sectioned (next steps, decisions, topics), and you get shareable highlight clips. The paid Team edition (~$16/mo) adds shared libraries and CRM sync — but most solo founders, reps, and consultants never hit the free tier’s ceiling. If you want a notetaker on your calls and don’t want to think about billing, start here.
Fireflies — the team & CRM workhorse
Firefliesis built for teams that run on a CRM. It logs calls to Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Notion, and dozens more, and its Conversation Intelligence layer tracks talk-time, sentiment, and topic trends — which is why sales orgs use it for coaching, not just notes. AskFred answers questions across your whole meeting history, and there’s a public API if you want to build on top. If more than a couple of people need one shared, searchable record of every call, this is the pick.
Otter — the transcription veteran
Otterhas been doing this longest and it shows in the core experience: reliable live transcription, an OtterPilot that joins automatically, and an AI Chat that answers questions across every meeting you’ve recorded. Its searchable archive is the best of the three if your main job-to-be-done is “find what was said and when.” It also starts cheapest at ~$8.33/mo. If you care most about transcript quality and search — think journalists, researchers, PMs — Otter is the safe default.
How to decide
- I’m one person and cost matters → Fathom (free, unlimited).
- My team runs on a CRM and does sales calls → Fireflies.
- I mostly need accurate, searchable transcripts → Otter.
- I don’t want a bot visibly joining calls at all → neither — look at Granola instead.
The bottom line
You can’t really pick wrong here — all three transcribe and summarize well. Choose on cost at your scale and where the notes need to land: Fathom if free-and-solo, Fireflies if team-and-CRM, Otter if transcripts-and-search. For the wider field — including botless options — see our best AI meeting assistants guide and the full meeting-assistants ranking.
Want a different pair head-to-head? Build any comparison on our comparison pages, or browse every category in the best of 2026 rankings.