Fireflies.ai alternatives in 2026: what to use instead

Fireflies’ free tier is unusually generous on transcription and unusually tight on storage — 400 minutes for the whole team, not per seat — so the most common reason to look elsewhere is running out of room rather than running out of minutes. Otter trades that the other way and caps minutes instead. Fathom is free for unlimited recordings. Granola avoids putting a bot in the participant list. None of the four record a conversation that is not on a call, which is a different product category.

Match the alternative to the limit you hit

01 / You filled the 400 minutes

The free tier’s storage is shared across the team, so a second person halves it. Fireflies Pro at $10 a seat billed annually gives 8,000 minutes per seat, which is usually the cheapest fix and does not require changing tools. Moving to Otter’s free tier instead swaps a storage limit for a 300-minute monthly cap and a 30-minute conversation cap.

02 / You want free to actually last

Fathom’s free plan covers unlimited call recordings and summaries, which is the most durable $0 tier in this group. The catch arrives later: both paid tiers state a two-user minimum, so a solo user cannot upgrade without buying a seat they will not use.

03 / The bot in the participant list is a problem

Fireflies joins meetings as a visible attendee. In some client and legal settings that reads as adding a third party to the call, and it is a conversation you may not want to have every time. Granola uses your own computer’s audio and does not appear as a participant; Basic is $0, Business is $14 per user per month.

04 / Half your meetings are not on a call

Fireflies, Otter, Fathom and Granola all need a Zoom, Teams or Meet session. If the conversations that decide things happen across a desk, on a site visit or in a corridor, none of them are in the room. A device is the only answer to that — Scriben is a pen that records to its own 64GB for up to 18 hours with no phone or network.

05 / You want one bill, once

Everything above is per seat, per month, forever. If the structure is the objection rather than the number, the options are a free tier you can live inside or hardware you own. Scriben is $129 once and $0 a month on Free; Pro is $12.99 a month and at that price we are not the cheapest thing on this page.

Where these numbers come from

Competitor pricing moves. Every figure here is quoted from the vendor’s own published pages on the date given — check theirs before you decide anything on ours.

Fireflies figures checked on 15 September 2026 on fireflies.ai/pricing: Free at $0 with unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries and 400 minutes of storage per team; Pro $18 per seat per month, or $10 billed annually; Business $29 per seat per month, or $19 billed annually, with unlimited storage; Enterprise $39 per seat per month. Prices change — check theirs before you decide.

Otter figures checked on 15 September 2026 on otter.ai/pricing: Basic free with 300 monthly transcription minutes and a 30-minute conversation cap; Pro $16.99 per user per month, or $8.33 billed annually; Business $30 per user per month, or $19.99 billed annually, with unlimited minutes; Enterprise custom. Prices change — check theirs before you decide.

Fathom figures checked on 15 September 2026 on fathom.video/pricing: a free plan with unlimited recordings and instant summaries; Team $19 per user per month, or $15 billed annually; Business $34 per user per month, or $25 billed annually. Both paid tiers state a two-user minimum. Prices change — check theirs before you decide.

Granola figures checked on 14 September 2026 on granola.ai/pricing: Basic at $0 per user per month with limited history; Business $14 per user per month; Enterprise $35 per user per month. MCP and API access start at Business. Prices change — check theirs before you decide.

Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, Notta and Granola each require a virtual meeting or a running app to capture from — checked on 15 September 2026 against each vendor’s own product pages and documentation. All five offer mobile apps that can record in person from a phone; none captures a conversation with no session and no app running. If that changes, this page is wrong and we would like to be told.

Questions

What is the best Fireflies alternative?

It depends which limit pushed you off it. For a bigger free storage allowance, Fathom. For unlimited minutes on a paid tier, Otter Business. For no visible bot, Granola. For in-person meetings, a recording device rather than any of these — none of the software tools capture a conversation with no call attached.

Is Fireflies free tier good enough?

For one person with short calls, often yes: transcription is unlimited and it is the summaries and the 400 minutes of storage that run out. For a team it is tight, because that storage is shared rather than per seat.

Fireflies vs Otter: which is cheaper?

Annually billed, Fireflies Business is $19 per seat per month against Otter Business at $19.99, so they are close enough that price should not decide it. The free tiers differ more than the paid ones: Fireflies limits storage, Otter limits minutes and caps conversation length.

Can Fireflies record in-person meetings?

It has a mobile app, so you can record from a phone on the table. It is not what the product is built around, and a phone placed between you and a client is a visible piece of technology in a way a notebook is not.

Do I need both a software tool and a device?

Many people do, and it is a sensible answer rather than a hedge. A virtual transcription tool covers calls; a pen covers rooms. Neither covers the other, so the honest recommendation for someone whose week contains both is one of each.

We make a competing product. Four of the five recommendations below are not ours, and on a per-seat basis for a virtual-first team Fireflies is often the better buy. Prices are from each vendor’s own page with the date we checked. Scriben is recording people know about. You say what the pen is and what it does, they agree, and then it stays out of the way for the rest of the conversation — that second half is the product, and it only works after the first. Recording law varies by jurisdiction and by profession: see recording people lawfully before you start.