AI Meeting Note-Taker Pricing Compared 2026: Otter, Fireflies, Notta, Fathom, tl;dv, Granola, Read AI — Free Limits and Paid Starting Prices at a Glance

The official price list for an AI meeting note-taker usually reads beautifully: one free plan, one or two paid plans, a monthly fee that doesn't look bad at all. But once you actually start using it — and actually start paying for a whole team — many people discover that the "unlimited" in the free plan comes with strings attached, and "a few dollars per person per month" isn't cheap once you multiply it by your headcount.

This piece isn't about which tool has the better features. It settles one question: How much do Otter, Fireflies, Notta, Fathom, tl;dv, Granola, and Read AI actually cost? How far the free tier gets you, where the paid tier starts, and which hidden costs are easy to miss. At the end you'll find a pricing comparison table and a team cost estimate, plus a neutral explanation of why "live-translation" tools like Traverba use a different pricing model.

All figures reflect publicly available information as of mid-2026. Vendors adjust prices often, so the official latest announcement always takes precedence. The same product sometimes shows different prices on different pages (usually due to monthly vs. annual billing, promotions, or currency conversion); this article flags the conditions where it can.

The 30-second version

• Free plans split into two camps: one caps you by the minute (Otter 300 minutes/month, Notta 120 minutes/month); the other gives you unlimited recording and transcription but limits AI summaries or storage (Fathom 5 summaries/month, tl;dv 10 summaries/month, Read AI 5 meetings/month, Fireflies 400 minutes of shared team storage with no download, Granola around 25 notes / 30 days of history). "Unlimited" usually means recording — not AI.
• Paid plans are mostly "per seat": personal plans run about US$8–20/month, while team/business plans run about US$15–59 per seat per month. With more people, the monthly bill is simply "unit price × headcount".
• Watch the hidden costs: AI-credit add-ons (Fireflies), live translation sold separately (Notta), minimum-seat requirements (Fathom's team plan needs at least 2 seats, Read AI's enterprise plan at least 10).
• A different pricing category: tools built for live transcription plus live translation (like Traverba) don't follow the "per-seat, after-the-fact notes" route. They typically charge a single low monthly fee or are free (ad-supported), with live translation built in rather than an add-on.

Let's break it down item by item.

First, understand the 3 pricing logics

Before comparing prices, recognise the three charging structures in this market — that's how you know which number actually matters to you:

1. Free plan: capped by "minutes" or by "AI count"? This determines which wall you hit first. Light users who only meet occasionally may find a minute-based plan (Otter/Notta) enough; people who meet often but only want the occasional summary will find the "unlimited recording, limited summaries" camp (Fathom/tl;dv) more economical — until the meetings you need to summarise each week exceed the free allowance.

2. Paid plan: almost always "per seat". A sticker price of "US$10/seat/month" looks cheap, but that's the price per person. A 10-person team on a business plan is billed for 10 seats and up. Always estimate with "unit price × actual seats", not just the unit price.

3. Add-ons and thresholds: the real total cost hides here. Some features (advanced AI credits, live translation, CRM integrations) cost extra; some plans set a minimum seat count, so even if you only have 3 people, you may be required to buy up to a floor. All of this pushes your real spend higher.

Pricing comparison table (mid-2026)

The table below lays out each vendor's free allowance, paid starting price, and common hidden costs. Prices are mostly in US dollars and rounded; "annual" means the per-month price when billed yearly, usually cheaper than monthly.

A reminder: The figures above are for understanding "roughly which price band and pricing model", not live quotes. Promotions (tl;dv, for instance, has long-running annual discounts), currency, and regional taxes all affect the final amount — check the official page before you buy.

Free plans: what "unlimited" really means

In recent years many tools have led with "free, unlimited recording", which sounds tempting. But unfold the fine print and you'll find "unlimited" almost always refers only to recording and transcription — the genuinely valuable AI summaries are where the limits kick in:

• Fathom: unlimited recording, unlimited transcription, unlimited storage — but only 5 AI summaries per month, after which you get generic templates only. For anyone meeting more than once a week who wants a summary every time, free runs out fast.
• tl;dv: likewise unlimited recording, but 10 AI summaries per month.
• Read AI: free gives you 5 meetings per month, with no file uploads.
• Fireflies: unlimited transcription, but only 400 minutes of storage for the whole team, and no transcript downloads — meaning the free tier can't retain your data.
• Granola: unlimited meetings, but free keeps only about 25 notes / 30 days of history; older notes disappear from the app.
• Otter/Notta: traditional minute-based plans (300/120 minutes per month) with a per-session cap (30/3 minutes), so one long meeting can eat most of your allowance at once.

How to read this: whether free is enough depends on "how often you meet" and "whether you need a summary every time". Meet occasionally, and a minute-based plan usually holds up; meet daily and want AI summaries, and you'll likely hit the free wall within two or three weeks.

Paid plans: multiply out the "per seat"

The point of a paid plan isn't the unit price — it's unit price × seats. Using a 10-person team on each vendor's business/team plan (annual), here's a rough estimate:

(The above is an illustrative estimate, rounded, excluding taxes, promotions, and add-ons; actual figures follow official quotes.)

The point isn't who's cheapest, it's this: under per-seat pricing, cost rises linearly as your team grows; you pay for "headcount", not "usage". If only one or two people use it, a personal Pro plan (about US$8–20/month) is usually the most economical; once you roll it out to a whole team, multiply the seats in — and check whether there's a minimum-seat threshold.

The hidden costs that are easy to overlook

Beyond the per-seat monthly fee, the following often aren't on the price list you see at first glance:

• AI-credit add-ons. Fireflies, for example, runs its AI features on a "credit pool", with each plan bundling a set amount (Pro 20 / Business 30, etc.); heavy users of summaries, action items, and AI Q&A may need to buy extra credit packs.
• Live translation sold separately. Notta, for instance, includes transcript translation in the plan, but live translation / bilingual transcription is a standalone add-on (from about US$6/month). If what you want is "seeing the translation right there in the meeting", budget for it separately.
• Minimum seats. Fathom's team plan needs at least 2 seats, Read AI's enterprise plan at least 10 — even with a small headcount, you may be required to buy up to the floor.
• Annual lock-in. Most "cheap unit prices" are the annual-amortised price, meaning you pay for a year upfront; monthly billing is more flexible but noticeably pricier per unit (e.g. Otter Pro US$16.99 monthly vs. US$8.33 annual).

Factor these in and a plan that looks like "US$10/seat" on paper can end up costing quite a bit more in total.

Chinese, Cantonese, and "live": a different pricing model

The seven tools above are all excellent after-the-fact meeting note-takers at heart, and their pricing logic revolves around "per seat, after the meeting, in the cloud". For most single-language teams focused on post-meeting summaries, that's perfectly reasonable.

But two common needs get little coverage from them — and both directly affect your cost structure:

1. Chinese, especially Cantonese and Cantonese-English code-switching. "Supports Chinese" often defaults to Mandarin; the mainstream tools that explicitly list Cantonese in their official language list are few (Notta is one of the exceptions). If your meetings often feature mixed sentences like "我想去 Causeway Bay 開會" ("I want to go to Causeway Bay for a meeting"), test the recognition with real recordings first, then decide whether it's worth paying for.
2. Live, not after the fact. Most of these tools give you the full transcript and summary only after the meeting; for everyone to understand each other in the moment, you usually need to buy live translation separately, or it's simply outside their design scope.

That's exactly why a differently-priced category of tools exists. Take Traverba: rather than building yet another "per-seat, after-the-fact note-taker", it merges live transcription and live translation into one — and so it's priced differently too:

• Free to use, ad-supported — the core features are free, backed by ads; no monthly minute wall.
• Paid is a single low monthly fee — Basic is about US$1.99/month (or US$19.99/year), removing ads and unlocking speaker labels (separation) and Bring Your Own LLM. This is unified pricing aimed at individuals, not a per-seat pile-up.
• Live translation built in, not an add-on — as someone speaks, the subtitles and translation appear together; attendees scan a QR code and see live subtitles in their own language on their own phone.
• Cantonese first — specially optimised for Hong Kong's Cantonese-English code-switching and local vocabulary, precisely where general tools are weakest.
• On-device first — speech recognition runs on-device by default, with translation and cloud AI optional; an extra layer of control for sensitive meetings.
• After-the-fact covered too — you can export the full transcript and translation after the meeting.

To be clear: this isn't a cheaper-vs.-pricier comparison of like-for-like products. If what you want is after-the-fact summaries of English meetings and deep CRM integration, the seven tools above remain excellent choices; what Traverba fills is the "multilingual, understand each other in the moment" gap, offering a relatively simple, predictable price for that scenario.

How to choose? A price-focused decision checklist

Light usage, occasional meetings, want zero cost —

• If minutes are enough, pick a minute-based plan (Otter/Notta free); if you meet a lot but only want summaries occasionally, pick the "unlimited recording" camp (Fathom/tl;dv/Read AI free), but watch the AI-summary caps.

One or two people, heavy use, want after-the-fact summaries and integrations —

• Compare personal Pro plans (about US$8–20/month); for Chinese-friendliness look at Notta, for a mature English ecosystem look at Otter, for a generous free tier look at Fathom.

Buying for a whole team —

• Calculate with "unit price × seats", and confirm the minimum seats and add-on items; if budget is tight, note the lower business unit prices of Granola/Fathom, and for the fullest features look at Fireflies/Otter.

Need live translation, or Cantonese-heavy multilingual meetings —

• Watch for whether "live translation is a separate purchase"; if you need everyone to understand in the moment during the meeting, consider a live-translation tool (like Traverba), typically priced as a single low monthly fee or free, rather than piling up per seat.

Learn more

There's no "cheapest AI meeting note-taker" — only the one "closest to how you work, with the lowest total cost". Ask three things first — is the free tier capped by minutes or by AI count? Is the paid tier per seat, and how many people do you multiply by? Are there minimum seats and add-ons? — then cross-reference the comparison table and estimate above, and you can usually narrow it to one or two candidates, then decide by trying them yourself.

If your priority is multilingual, real-time communication with a predictable price: Traverba offers live transcription plus live translation for meetings and events — one speaker, 100+ languages, and attendees scan a QR code to see live subtitles in their own language, with the full transcript and translation exportable after the event. To explore meeting and event plans, visit traverba.com; for personal live translation you can also download the app for free, available on Google Play and the App Store.

This article covers the free allowances, paid prices, add-on items, and language support of products such as Otter, Fireflies, Notta, Fathom, tl;dv, Granola, and Read AI, reflecting publicly available information as of mid-2026, which may change at any time; each figure (including the team cost estimate) is a rounded illustration for ease of comparison, not a live quote — actual amounts follow each company's official announcements and may vary by monthly/annual billing, promotions, taxes, region, and currency. Traverba's pricing (free, ad-supported; Basic about US$1.99/month or US$19.99/year) is likewise subject to change; the official page prevails. All brands and trademarks belong to their respective owners.