Otter AI alternatives, checked one by one

Otter is a meeting notetaker. It joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls, writes the words as people speak, then gives you a recap and action items. So the right alternative depends on which part of that you want to replace: the notetaker, the price, the transcript itself, or something Otter was never built for, like a YouTube video.

We make Claras, which is on this list. It is a video tool, not a meeting tool, and for most people leaving Otter it is not the answer. We say so below, and we point to the tools that do the job better.

The short answer

• Closest swap for meetings, free: Fathom or Fireflies. Both have free plans built around recording calls.
• Same job, more minutes: Notta. Its Pro plan costs about the same per year as Otter Pro, with more minutes and longer recordings.
• No bot in the call: Tactiq, which transcribes Meet, Zoom and Teams from a Chrome extension.
• Many languages: Transkriptor, at 100+. Fireflies lists 100+ too, most of them in beta.
• A transcript a person has checked: Rev, which sells human transcription.
• Lots of recordings at a flat price: TurboScribe.
• Videos you watch, not meetings you attend: Claras.

How we checked

We read each product's own website and pricing page on 11 and 12 November 2026, and we only give a price when it was on that page. Prices are per month in US dollars unless we say otherwise, and they change, so check before you buy. Where a site blocked us, we say how we read it. We haven't run an accuracy test across these tools, so we don't rank them on accuracy.

For reference, Otter itself lists a free plan with 300 transcription minutes a month and a 30-minute cap per conversation. Pro is $16.99 per user a month, or $8.33 billed annually, and Business is $30, or $19.99 billed annually. Students and teachers with a .edu email get 20% off Pro.

1. Fireflies: the notetaker for teams

Fireflies does what Otter does: a bot joins your Zoom, Google Meet or Teams call, or you record from its Chrome extension without a bot in the room. You get live notes, a summary, action items and a search across your meetings. It lists transcription in 100+ languages, though its FAQ says English is the main one and most others are in beta. It also lists an editable transcript, file uploads, desktop and phone apps, and an API.

Where it beats Otter: room to grow. Fireflies lists team analytics and conversation intelligence on Business, and HIPAA readiness on Enterprise. Its language list is longer than Otter's six, if you can work with beta languages.

What to watch: the free plan says unlimited transcription, with an asterisk, but storage stops at 400 minutes per team and AI summaries are limited. Recordings cap at 2 hours on Free and Pro, 3 on Business.

Price: Pro is $18 per seat a month, or $10 billed annually. Business is $29, or $19 billed annually. Enterprise is $39, billed annually only.

Choose it if your team lives in calls and wants one shared record of them.

2. Fathom: free call notes for one person

Fathom records Zoom, Google Meet and Teams calls and writes a summary as soon as the call ends. Its free plan is generous by the standard of this list: unlimited recordings and transcripts, a summary of every call (with advanced summaries for the first 5 calls a month), a choice of a bot or bot-free capture (in beta, on Mac), clips and search across your calls. Asking questions about a call is included, with limited use.

Where it beats Otter: the free plan. Otter's free plan stops at 300 minutes a month and 30 minutes per call. Fathom's pricing page puts no minute cap on free recordings.

What to watch: action items, unlimited advanced summaries and the full meeting assistant are on Premium. Team and Business plans need at least 2 users.

Price: Premium is $20 per user a month, or $16 billed annually. Team is $19, or $15 billed annually, and Business is $34, or $25 billed annually.

Choose it if you have a lot of calls, work mostly alone, and want to pay nothing to start.

3. Notta: the same job for less

Notta is the closest like-for-like swap. A bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or Webex, or it records on your device with no bot. It labels speakers, lets you edit the text, transcribes 58 languages, and offers live translation (2 uses a month on every plan, more as a paid add-on). It can also take a YouTube link through its upload and link screen.

Where it beats Otter: price per minute. Notta Pro is $8.17 a month billed annually ($97.99 a year), with 1,800 minutes a month and up to 5 hours per conversation. Otter Pro billed annually is $8.33, with 1,200 minutes and 90 minutes per conversation. The yearly gap is only about $2, and Otter's .edu discount beats it.

What to watch: the free plan stops each conversation at 3 minutes, so it is a trial more than a plan.

Choose it if you like Otter but want more minutes, longer recordings or more languages for the money. Read how Claras and Notta differ if videos are part of your work too.

4. Tactiq: live transcripts without a bot

Tactiq runs mainly as a Chrome extension in Google Meet, Zoom and Teams, with a Mac app that for now covers Zoom desktop calls. It writes the transcript live without adding a bot to the call, which some people find less awkward with clients. It lists 60+ languages, and workflows to Slack, Notion, Linear and HubSpot. It also has a free YouTube transcript tool on its site that needs no email.

Where it beats Otter: it is built around bot-free capture, and it lists 60+ languages against Otter's six. Otter can also record without a bot, from its desktop app or Chrome. Tactiq lists ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and HIPAA on its site.

What to watch: AI actions use credits. The free plan has 10 meeting transcripts and 5 AI credits a month, and Pro has 10 credits.

Price: billed annually per user, Pro is $8 a month, Team $16.67 and Business $29.17. Visitors in Europe see €6.67, €13.33 and €25.50.

Choose it if you want the words of a call without anyone noticing a notetaker. There is more on this in our Tactiq alternatives guide.

5. Transkriptor: meetings and files in many languages

Transkriptor covers meetings with a bot for Zoom, Google Meet and Teams, a desktop recorder, and phone systems such as Aircall and Dialpad. It transcribes and translates in 100+ languages, labels speakers, and takes files and YouTube links. It syncs with Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and Amazon S3.

Where it beats Otter: languages and calls from phone systems.

What to watch: AI summaries and chat start on Pro, and unused minutes expire each month.

Price: Lite is $9.99 a month for 300 minutes. Pro is $19.99 a month, or $99.99 a year, for 2,400 minutes. Team is $30 per seat a month.

Choose it if your meetings or recordings are not in English, or you need to translate them. See Claras and Transkriptor side by side for the video side.

6. Rev: when a person needs to check the words

Rev now describes itself as an investigative intelligence platform, built around legal and case work. What sets it apart here is human transcription: $1.99 a minute in English, with 99%+ accuracy guaranteed in 12 hours or less. Its AI transcription is included in every plan, and it says that is 96%+ accurate.

Where it beats Otter: checked accuracy, legal transcripts, and paperwork such as SOC 2 Type II, with CJIS and HIPAA environments on its top plan.

What to watch: it has an AI Notetaker for Zoom, Meet, Teams and Webex calls, but its subscriptions are built and priced for legal and professional teams. Essentials is $29.99 per seat a month, or $25.49 billed annually. The free plan has 45 AI minutes a month, and AI transcripts can also be bought by the minute, from $0.25.

Choose it if the transcript will be quoted, filed or used as evidence. Our Rev alternatives guide covers the other side of that choice.

7. TurboScribe: a flat price for a lot of audio

TurboScribe is file transcription, not meetings. You upload recordings, or paste a link, and it transcribes them with OpenAI's Whisper models. Files can run up to 10 hours and 5 GB, you can upload 50 at a time, and it lists 98+ languages, optional speaker recognition, and exports to DOCX, PDF, TXT, SRT, VTT and CSV.

Where it beats Otter: volume. Its paid plan states no transcription cap, where Otter Pro stops at 1,200 minutes and 10 file imports a month.

What to watch: there is no bot and no live transcript. Summaries happen in ChatGPT, through prompts TurboScribe writes for you or its TurboScribe GPT. Its site blocked our automated visits, so we read its pages through search results.

Price: $20 a month, or $10 a month billed yearly. The free plan allows 3 files a day of up to 30 minutes each.

Choose it if you record your calls another way and just want the text, in bulk.

8. Claras: for videos, not meetings

Claras doesn't join calls, and it can't transcribe anything live. If that is why you use Otter, skip this one.

It is here because many people try Otter for something else: a lecture on YouTube, a webinar replay, a podcast clip on Instagram. Otter's own YouTube guide says to play the video aloud while Otter listens, or download it and upload the file. In Claras you paste the link. If the video has captions, Claras reads them, so a two-hour lecture is ready without waiting for it to play. If it has none, Claras transcribes the audio with AI, up to 30 minutes on the free plan and 3 hours on a paid one.

You get a timestamped transcript, a summary with key takeaways, chapters that jump to their moment, and Ask AI for questions. Bulk Summaries reads a whole playlist or YouTube search page and gives you one summary. You can also upload your own recordings, up to 6 hours per file within your plan's transcription hours, and send a transcript to Claude or ChatGPT for anything else.

What to watch: no speaker labels, no editing the transcript, no phone app, and it is made for one person. YouTube Shorts and live links don't work yet.

Choose it if what you need to get through is already published. Our full comparison of Claras and Otter goes into the detail, and the pricing page has the plans.

How to choose

Start with where your words come from.

• Live calls, mostly alone: try Fathom's free plan first, then Notta if you want more languages (58, against Fathom's 38).
• Live calls, as a team: Fireflies or Otter Business. Compare storage, recording caps and CRM sync, since those decide the bill.
• Calls where a bot would be awkward: Tactiq, or the bot-free modes in Otter, Fireflies, Fathom and Notta.
• Recordings you already have: TurboScribe for volume, Transkriptor for languages, Rev if a person must check the result. Claras works too for files up to 6 hours, if you also want a summary and chapters, and don't need speaker labels.
• Videos on YouTube, Instagram or TikTok: Claras. A meeting tool will make you download or play the video first.

Most of these have a free plan or trial. The fairest test is to run the same recording through two or three of them and read the results side by side.

Questions people ask

More guides like this are on the Claras blog, and every head-to-head we have written is in all comparisons.