AI Meeting Note Takers Compared: Which One to Use?

AI meeting note takers join your video calls, record them, and send you a summary with decisions and action items a few minutes after you hang up. For a small team that spends hours a week in meetings, that can mean fewer forgotten tasks and no more typing notes while you talk. This guide compares Otter, Fireflies, Fathom and tl;dv, plus the note takers already built into Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.

A quick note on how we wrote this: it is a comparison of features and published prices, checked on October 21, 2026, not a hands-on test of every tool. The official pricing pages could not be checked directly, so the prices below come from third-party pricing pages, some of them published by competitors of these tools. Treat them as a guide and confirm the current offer before you subscribe.

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The short answer

• Check what you already pay for first. Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams include AI notes on many paid plans.

• Best free plan: Fathom, for individuals who want free recordings and a few AI summaries a month.

• Most minutes for the money: Otter Pro.

• Best for a team library of meetings: Fireflies.

• Best for sales calls that feed a CRM: tl;dv.

Start with the tools you already have

Zoom's AI Companion, Google Meet's "Take notes for me" and Microsoft Teams with Copilot can all produce meeting summaries, but which features you get depends on your plan and your admin settings. If one of them is already included in your subscription, try it for two weeks before paying for another tool.

Otter

• Prices: Basic is free with 300 minutes a month and a 30-minute limit per conversation. Pro is $16.99 a month, or $8.33 a month billed annually ($99.99 a year), with 1,200 minutes a month. Business is $30 per user a month, or $19.99 billed annually (Sonix, updated August 2026).

• Good for: solo owners and consultants who record a lot of calls and want live transcription at a low price.

Fireflies

• Prices: Free with limited storage. Pro is $10 per user a month billed annually or $18 monthly; Business is $19 annually or $29 monthly (Sonix, updated August 2026). AI features use credits on some plans.

• Good for: teams that want a searchable library of every meeting and connections to tools like CRMs and project managers.

Fathom

• Prices: Free, with advanced AI summaries for the first 5 calls each month. Premium is $20 a month or $16 billed annually; Team plans start at $19 per user a month ($15 annually) for at least 2 users (Sonix, updated June 2026).

• Good for: individuals who want a generous free plan and simple, readable summaries.

tl;dv

• Prices: Free with AI notes for 10 meetings in total. Pro is listed at $29 per user a month, or $18 billed annually (CostBench, verified July 2026).

• Good for: sales and customer success teams that want call notes synced to their CRM.

Before you record anyone: consent and privacy

• Tell people the call is recorded, and let the note taker announce itself. In some places the law requires every participant to agree.

• Check where recordings are stored and how long they are kept, especially for client calls.

• Don't record sensitive conversations (health, legal, HR) unless you're sure it's allowed and necessary.

• Review summaries before sharing them. AI can mishear names and numbers.

Once you have good summaries, you can turn them into follow-up emails or tasks with a general assistant; our comparison of Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini for business tasks can help you pick one. For other categories of tools, see The Best AI Tools for Small Business in 2026.

The bottom line

Start with the AI notes built into your video platform if you already pay for them. If not, Fathom's free plan is the easiest way to try a note taker, Otter Pro gives the most minutes for a low price, Fireflies suits teams that want a meeting library, and tl;dv suits sales teams. Whichever you choose, ask for consent, check the summaries, and cancel anything your team doesn't open after a month.

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