Fathom vs. Otter vs. Granola: Cheapest AI Meeting Notes Tool in 2026?
Fathom, Otter.ai and Granola pricing compared, based on each vendor's official pricing page as of Oct 3, 2026, not on hands-on testing.
Otter.ai is the only one of the three that caps usage by the minute, even on its paid Pro tier — that makes it the one to watch closely if your team runs long or frequent calls.
Fathom and Granola both publish unlimited recording/notes usage on every paid tier, so their price ladders are about which features unlock, not how many minutes you get. For a small team that just wants unlimited meeting notes without per-minute math, Granola's Business tier is the cheapest per-seat entry point of the three. For a solo user who wants better AI summaries without buying a team seat, Fathom's Premium tier is the more natural fit.
Why these three, and why now
Fathom, Otter.ai and Granola all sit in the same category — AI notetakers that join or record a meeting and turn it into a transcript, summary and action items — but they price that category three different ways. Otter meters by transcription/recording minutes. Fathom and Granola both advertise unlimited recordings and notes even on their free tiers, and instead gate advanced AI features, history length and team collaboration behind higher tiers. That's an easy detail to miss if you only glance at the headline monthly price, and it's the main reason a straight "which is cheapest" question doesn't have a one-line answer.
All three vendors updated their pricing pages during 2026 to fold AI-branded features more explicitly into each tier rather than treating AI as an add-on, which is also the point where a comparison written a year ago stops being reliable. This piece pulls the numbers directly from each vendor's current pricing page rather than reusing older notes.
Pricing at a glance
As of Oct 3, 2026, per each vendor's official pricing page. All three list prices in USD.
| Tool | Free tier | Entry paid tier | Team/mid tier | Top published tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fathom | $0/mo — unlimited recordings & transcriptions, basic AI summaries | Premium: $20/mo ($16/mo billed annually), solo — advanced summaries, AI action items | Team: $19/mo/user ($15/mo annually, 2-user minimum) — team search, shared playlists | Business: $34/mo/user ($25/mo annually) — CRM field sync, coaching metrics. Enterprise is custom. |
| Otter.ai | $0/mo — 300 transcription minutes/month, 3 lifetime file imports | Pro: $16.99/user/mo ($8.33/user/mo billed annually) — 1,200 recording minutes/month, 10 file imports/month | Business: $30/user/mo ($19.99/user/mo billed annually) — unlimited meetings, up to 4h/meeting, 3 concurrent meetings | Enterprise: custom — SSO, SCIM, HIPAA add-on, API/webhooks |
| Granola | $0/mo — AI meeting notes, 30-day history | Business: $14/user/mo — unlimited history, Notion/HubSpot/Zapier integrations, API access | (no separate mid tier — Business covers both solo and team use) | Enterprise: $35/user/mo (published, not "contact sales") — SSO, HIPAA, admin controls |
Sources: fathom.ai/pricing, otter.ai/pricing, granola.ai/pricing — all retrieved Oct 3, 2026.
What actually differs for a small team
Metered minutes vs. unlimited usage
This is the structural split that matters most. Otter's free tier caps at 300 transcription minutes a month, and even the paid Pro tier only raises that to 1,200 recording minutes a month — for a team doing back-to-back calls, that ceiling can be reached well before the end of a billing cycle. Fathom's pricing page states unlimited recordings and transcriptions on every tier, including Free; the tiers instead differ in how good the summaries are and whether action items, CRM sync or coaching features are included. Granola follows the same pattern as Fathom — no minute cap is published on either its Free or Business tier; the free tier's limit is a 30-day history window, not a usage cap, and Business removes that window entirely rather than raising a minute allowance.
In practice, that means a team evaluating "cost per hour of meetings" needs to ask a different question for Otter (how many minutes will we actually use against the 1,200/month allowance) than for Fathom or Granola (do we need the higher tier's AI depth and collaboration features, since usage itself isn't capped).
Where the AI depth lives in each tier ladder
Fathom's free tier already includes AI call summaries; Premium adds advanced summaries, AI-generated action items and a conversational meeting assistant — the jump from Free to Premium is about summary quality and follow-up automation, not access to AI at all. Otter's free tier includes speaker identification and basic transcription but reserves "advanced AI workflows" and CRM integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot) for Pro and above. Granola's free tier includes AI meeting notes and cross-meeting AI chat already; Business adds "advanced AI thinking models," deeper integrations (Notion, HubSpot, Affinity, Zapier) and API access rather than a fundamentally different AI feature set.
Team pricing and seat minimums
Fathom's Team tier has a 2-seat minimum at $15–19/user/month depending on billing cycle — a solo user cannot buy into team features at all without a second seat. Otter's Business tier has no stated seat minimum but is priced highest per seat of the three team-capable tiers ($19.99–30/user/month). Granola has no separate "Team" tier — its single $14/user/month Business tier works for one person or a full team and is the cheapest published per-seat price among all three vendors' team-capable tiers.
Enterprise pricing transparency
A smaller but genuinely useful difference: Fathom and Otter both push their top tier to "custom, contact sales," so there's no public number to compare. Granola is the only one of the three that publishes a fixed Enterprise price ($35/user/month) rather than gating it behind a sales conversation — useful if you want to budget without a sales call, though it also means Granola's Enterprise tier may include less room for custom negotiation than the other two.
Who should pick what
- Solo user who wants better AI summaries without buying a team seat: Fathom Premium at $16–20/month. It's the only one of the three with a paid tier built for a single user rather than requiring a 2-seat minimum.
- Small team that wants unlimited notes and integrations without per-minute math: Granola Business at $14/user/month — the cheapest team-capable entry price of the three, with no usage cap to track.
- Team that's already committed to Zoom/Teams bots and wants deep CRM sync (Salesforce/HubSpot) at scale: Otter Business or Fathom Business, depending on which CRM and coaching features matter more — both are priced above Granola's Business tier.
- Team that needs a fixed enterprise price without a sales call: Granola Enterprise at $35/user/month is the only published number among the three top tiers.
What this comparison doesn't cover
None of the three vendors' pricing pages publish transcription accuracy, meeting-bot reliability across different video platforms, or how support response times compare — none of that is something a pricing page can answer, and it would require actual usage to evaluate. This comparison also doesn't cover data-retention or model-training defaults in detail beyond what each pricing page states; teams handling sensitive meeting content should check each vendor's privacy documentation directly before committing, not just the pricing page. For automation-focused pricing rather than meeting notes, see ToolPulse's comparison of Zapier, Make and n8n.
Sources & methodology
This comparison is based on the vendors' public information as of Oct 3, 2026, not on hands-on testing.
- Fathom — Pricing, retrieved Oct 3, 2026
- Otter.ai — Pricing, retrieved Oct 3, 2026
- Granola — Pricing, retrieved Oct 3, 2026
Tools in this post
Granola
Granola is an AI notetaker for meetings that publishes unlimited recordings and notes on every tier, gating history length, i…
- Free plan
- From $14/user/month · Business
- Prices checked Sept 29, 2026
Fathom
Fathom (fathom.ai) is an AI notetaker that joins and records video calls, producing transcripts, summaries and action items; …
- Free plan
- From $20/month (annual billing) · Premium
- Prices checked Sept 29, 2026
Otter.ai
Otter.ai is an AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls, with pricing metered by transcription/recording mi…
- Free plan
- From $16.99/user/month (annual billing) · Pro
- Prices checked Sept 29, 2026
Zapier
Zapier is a no-code automation platform connecting thousands of apps, billed by the number of monthly 'tasks' — individual ac…
- Free plan
- From $19.99/month (annual billing) · Professional
- Prices checked Sept 29, 2026
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