Fireflies vs Fathom vs Otter: The Three-Way Meeting Bot Decision

Fireflies vs Fathom vs Otter: which one should you pick?

Pick based on the job, not the brand you have heard of most. Fathom fits solo users and small teams best, because its free plan has no minute cap at all: unlimited recordings and unlimited transcription, per fathom.ai/pricing. Fireflies fits teams already living inside a CRM, because its free plan gives unlimited transcription plus a public API on paid tiers, per fireflies.ai/pricing. Otter fits people who specifically want to watch a transcript build in real time on the screen in front of them, with a free plan capped at 300 minutes a month, per otter.ai/pricing.

All three are close enough on raw transcription quality that the gap between them is shape, not score. None of the three publishes an independent, third-party accuracy benchmark for its own product, so treat any specific percentage you see elsewhere as a claim from whoever wrote it, not a verified fact.

The rest of this post gives you the exact numbers, the honest caveats on each side, and the scenario that actually decides it.

Fireflies vs Fathom vs Otter: the verified numbers

Every figure below comes straight from each company's own pricing page, with the billing cycle stated, because all three vendors charge a very different monthly rate than their annual rate.

	Otter	Fireflies	Fathom
Free plan	300 min/mo, 30 min per call, 3 lifetime imports	Unlimited transcription, 400 min team storage, 20 AI credits, 2 hr recording cap	Unlimited recordings + transcription, no storage cap stated
Entry paid	$16.99/mo billed monthly, or $8.33/mo billed annually (Pro)	$18/seat billed monthly, or $10/seat/mo billed annually (Pro)	$20/mo billed monthly, or $16/mo billed annually (Premium)
Team tier	$30/mo billed monthly, or $19.99/mo billed annually (Business)	$29/seat billed monthly, or $19/seat/mo billed annually (Business)	$19/mo billed monthly, or $15/user/mo billed annually (Team, 2+ users)
Top tier	Custom (Enterprise, demo required)	$39/seat/mo, billed annually only (Enterprise)	$34/mo billed monthly, or $25/user/mo billed annually (Business)
Guarantee	None published	None published	90-day guarantee on every plan

One correction worth making plainly: several widely cited roundups, some still labeled as updated in 2026, print Fireflies' free storage as 800 minutes. Fireflies' own pricing page, read twice on 2026-07-16, states 400 minutes of team storage on the free plan. Use the official number, not the one that keeps getting copied forward.

Fathom, honestly

Fathom's free plan is the standout of the three: no meter runs on recording or transcription at all, only advanced features like CRM sync sit behind a paid plan. Every paid tier also carries a 90-day guarantee, which neither Otter nor Fireflies publishes.

The honest caveats are real. Some users report Fathom's auto-join not working reliably, requiring a manual "Start Meeting" click instead. There is no public API, a gap corroborated by both a Reddit thread of multi-tool testers and a third-party teardown. A February 2026 user report described transcript gaps mid-recording that Fathom's own support could not explain; attribute that to one user's report, not a confirmed ongoing issue.

Two organic testers in a widely read thread comparing all three tools landed on Fathom anyway: one wrote it "came out way ahead for me personally" after testing five tools, and a second said its recorder "joined most consistently" with summaries that "were the most accurate."

Fireflies, honestly

The real catch on Fireflies' free plan is not transcription, it is storage. Transcription and AI summaries are genuinely unlimited, but the whole team shares just 400 minutes of storage, roughly eight 50-minute meetings, before older recordings start aging out to make room for new ones. Pro fixes that with 8,000 minutes of storage per seat; Business removes the cap entirely.

Fireflies is built for teams, not solo capture: shared transcripts, a public API on paid plans, CRM integrations, and eight conferencing platforms plus dialers and file upload, all included on the free plan. Two caveats worth knowing before you commit: the free plan's 20 AI credits are not defined anywhere on the public pricing page, and HIPAA compliance and private storage are Enterprise-only features per the pricing table, despite a HIPAA badge appearing on the general homepage.

One user report from a Reddit thread, later disputed in the same thread, claimed Fireflies emailed a meeting's notes to 200 unrelated people. A second commenter pushed back that Fireflies "lets you choose who gets the email auto sent to," and the likely culprit was a distribution-list address already on the calendar invite. Print both halves: the honest lesson is to check your own auto-send settings on day one, not that Fireflies leaks meetings by default.

Otter, honestly

Otter's uncontested strength across every source we read, including its competitors, is the live collaborative transcript: text builds on screen while the meeting happens, and anyone with access can follow along or comment in real time. Its Google Play listing shows a 4.8-star rating from 38.9K reviews and 5M+ downloads, verified directly on the store listing rather than taken from a vendor's own marketing page.

The free plan is the tightest of the three: 300 minutes a month, a 30-minute cap per conversation, and only 3 lifetime file imports. The recurring complaint theme across Reddit and Play reviews is auto-join: Otter connects to your calendar and joins scheduled meetings by default, which some users describe as showing up uninvited. The fix is official and fast: type "stop otter" in the meeting chat and it leaves immediately, per Otter's help center.

Account deletion is instant and unrecoverable, and the delete option is hidden entirely if you belong to a workspace of 2 or more members. A 2025 class-action lawsuit alleges Otter records conversations without permission to use as AI training data; that is an allegation, not a finding, and is worth knowing either way.

Which one fits your situation?

If you are a solo user or freelancer watching cost, pick Fathom. The free tier has no minute meter, video is included, and organic testers describe the most consistent auto-join among the three.

If you are on a sales or CS team living inside a CRM and need multilingual capture or a public API, pick Fireflies. Just build a habit around the 400-minute free storage clock before it becomes a surprise.

If you specifically want a live transcript visible on screen during the call itself, pick Otter, and plan around its tighter free tier and its auto-join behavior from day one.

All three share a gap nobody advertises: none of them can walk into a physical room. Otter, Fireflies, and Fathom each join meetings through a Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams link; there is no version of any of them that captures a conversation with no video call attached. If what you actually need is notes from an in-person meeting, our guide to taking meeting notes without becoming the transcript covers the discipline that fills that exact gap: prepare before, capture selectively during, one cleanup pass after.

Why do the top-ranking comparisons get this wrong?

Several of the highest-ranking pages for this exact search are not neutral, and most do not say so. One widely shared three-way comparison is written by the founder of a competing meeting-notes company, with no disclosure statement anywhere on the page, and it prints accuracy percentages down to a decimal point for all three products with no named source for any of them. A separate ten-tool roundup, still labeled as updated in 2026, still lists Fireflies' free storage at 800 minutes, the figure the official pricing page does not support.

The pattern shows up on social platforms too. A widely read Reddit thread comparing all three tools had its own top comment flagged by three separate replies in the same thread as reading like marketing rather than a genuine review.

None of this means every comparison online is dishonest. It means the safest habit is the boring one: check the vendor's own pricing page before you commit to a plan, and treat any specific accuracy percentage as a claim from whoever wrote it, not a fact you can build a decision on.

What if you are not actually running a meeting?

None of these three is built for the debrief you record for yourself after a meeting ends, or the idea that has nothing to do with a meeting at all. Full disclosure: InstantOwl is our product, and this is our blog. It does not compete with Otter, Fireflies, or Fathom on meeting transcription.

It is built for the recording you make about your own thinking: a debrief on the walk out of a meeting, a task list, an idea that shows up mid-afternoon. One recording turns into organized notes and tasks instead of a transcript to sort through later. InstantOwl is currently free to use.

If you have already narrowed it down to two of the three, our deeper pairwise comparisons cover the specifics with the same verified numbers: Otter vs Fathom for the widest gap in free-tier shape, Otter vs Fireflies for the closest head-to-head on price, and Fathom vs Fireflies for the free-tier tradeoff in more depth. Our full Fireflies.ai review covers its pricing and offboarding steps on their own.

Frequently asked questions

Which is best, Fireflies, Fathom, or Otter?

None is best overall, they solve different jobs. Fathom fits solo users and small teams who want unlimited recording without a meter. Fireflies fits teams already living in a CRM who need shared transcripts and a public API. Otter fits anyone who specifically wants to watch a transcript build in real time on screen.

Which has the best free plan?

Fathom's free plan is the most generous of the three: unlimited recordings and unlimited transcription, with no storage cap stated, per fathom.ai/pricing. Fireflies' free plan is also unlimited transcription, but caps total team storage at 400 minutes, per fireflies.ai/pricing, not the 800 minutes some older roundups still print. Otter's free plan caps transcription itself at 300 minutes a month, per otter.ai/pricing.

Do any of them work for in-person meetings?

No. Otter, Fireflies, and Fathom all join meetings through a Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams link. None has a way to capture a conversation with no video call attached, so an in-person meeting with no virtual component is outside what any of the three can do.

Are AI meeting notes accurate?

It depends, and none of the three vendors publishes an independent, third-party accuracy benchmark for its own product. Treat any specific accuracy percentage on a comparison page as a claim from whoever wrote it, not a verified fact, and judge accuracy on your own recordings before committing to a paid plan.

Related reading

• Otter vs Fathom: exact free tiers and the claims worth ignoring on both vendor comparison pages.
• Otter vs Fireflies: the closest head-to-head on pricing, plus how to leave each one.
• Fathom vs Fireflies: the free-tier tradeoff, HIPAA scope, and account deletion compared.
• Fireflies.ai review: the free tier's real catch and how to turn it off.
• How to take meeting notes: the in-person, no-bot version of this same problem.