7 Best AI Note Takers in 2026, Priced for a 5-Person Team

If you are one person, use Fathom Free. It records and transcribes every meeting with no cap and no end date, and no other free plan I read comes close. If you are buying for a team, the answer hangs on a number most buyers never check: how many minutes of calls each person sits through in a month.

I read seven pricing pages on 5 October 2026: Fathom, Fireflies, Otter, Granola, Read AI, Krisp and Avoma. Then I priced the same five-person team on every one. On monthly billing, the cheapest plan that fit cost $70 a month. The dearest cost $150. Same people, same calls.

Most of the lists ranking for this search are written by note-taker companies, and most include their own product. They quote one per-seat price and move on. The cap that forces an upgrade and the gap between monthly and annual billing move the bill far more, and they rarely get a line.

A disclosure before the list. I run Gravity, an AI agent platform. Gravity does not join meetings or record audio, so it has no place in a ranking of note takers and is absent from both tables. Beyond the sign-up boxes, it comes up in one callout near the end, for the work that starts when the call ends, which I cover in more depth in AI agents for meeting follow-ups.

How I compared them

Every page got the same five checks:

• The free plan's real limit. Minutes, meetings, storage, days of history or who it covers. Fathom Free has no usage cap but is a plan for one person; every other free plan here caps usage.
• The cap that forces an upgrade. For a team, this picks the plan more often than any feature does.
• Monthly against annual. I wrote down both prices wherever the page showed both.
• Bot or no bot. Does the tool join the call as a visible participant, or capture audio from your own device?
• One team, priced on every tool. Five people, 1,500 minutes of calls each a month, meetings under 90 minutes.

What I did not do matters just as much. I did not record a meeting on any of these tools, compare transcripts or score a summary, so there are no accuracy numbers in this post. Every price is in US dollars per user per month, read with a desktop browser on 5 October 2026. tl;dv was on my list too, but its pricing page did not load its prices when I read it, so I could not verify them and left it out.

Quick comparison

Per user per month in US dollars, read on each vendor's pricing page on 5 October 2026: monthly billing first, then annual billing per month. "Not checked" means the pages I read did not settle the question, so I have not guessed. Gravity is not in this table because it does not take notes.

One team, seven bills

Here is the team. Five people, each in about 25 hours of calls a month, which is 1,500 minutes. No meeting runs past 90 minutes. The team also wants one shared account rather than five personal ones, which rules out five separate Fathom Free accounts, and more than 30 days of history, which rules out Granola Basic. For each tool I took the cheapest plan that covers that. One storage limit is worth flagging: Fireflies Pro keeps 8,000 minutes per seat, about five months of this workload. I did not make integrations a condition, because the pricing pages list them unevenly; each section below names the ones its page shows.

Cheapest plan on each tool that covers five people at about 1,500 minutes of calls each a month, meetings under 90 minutes. Prices from the vendors' pricing pages as of 5 October 2026.

The working, so you can redo it with your own headcount. Granola 5 × $14 = $70. Krisp 5 × $16 = $80, or 5 × $8 = $40 annual. Fireflies 5 × $18 = $90, or 5 × $10 = $50. Fathom 5 × $19 = $95, or 5 × $15 = $75. Read AI 5 × $19.75 = $98.75, or 5 × $15 = $75. Avoma 5 × $29 = $145, or 5 × $19 = $95. Otter 5 × $30 = $150, or 5 × $19.99 = $99.95.

Otter is the row worth a second look, because it is the only tool where the cap alone changes the plan. At 1,200 minutes a person or fewer, Otter Pro covers the team for 5 × $16.99 = $84.95 monthly, or 5 × $8.33 = $41.65 annual, among the cheapest rows in the table. At 1,500 minutes it has to be Business, and Otter becomes the dearest row. The workload picks the winner. The logo does not.

Across all seven, the spread on monthly billing is $70 to $150, about 2x for identical work. On annual billing it is $40 to $99.95, about 2.5x. Annual billing roughly halves Krisp, Fireflies and Otter Pro, so a team paying monthly for flexibility pays heavily for it. Once you trust the tool, switching to annual is the cheapest decision on this page. I run the same kind of sum for agent platforms in the cheapest AI agent platforms, where the billing unit does similar damage.

1. Fathom: the free plan one person can actually live on

Fathom's homepage now says it is part of Superhuman (7 October 2026); the plans and prices below are the ones on its own pricing page.

I ordered this list by how far each free plan carries you, and Fathom carries you furthest. Krisp and Avoma, which offer a trial and no free plan, sit at the end. Fathom's free plan, labelled "Free forever", gives you unlimited recordings and transcriptions and instant AI call summaries. You choose how it captures the call: a bot that joins, or bot-free capture, which the page marks as a beta feature for Mac.

Free is an individual plan, though. Once a team wants to search across everyone's calls, it needs Team at $19 a user monthly or $15 annual as of October 2026, with a two-user minimum. Premium, the paid plan for one person, costs $20 monthly or $16 annual and adds advanced summaries, AI action items, a conversational meeting assistant and a custom meeting bot.

Fathom's sales features start on Business

CRM field sync, a deal view and coaching scorecards arrive on Business, at $34 monthly or $25 annual per user, again with a two-user minimum. Enterprise is $35 a user, annual only. Every plan carries a 90-day guarantee, and the page says annual billing saves "25%+", which holds for Business ($34 to $25) but not for Team, where $19 to $15 is about 21%.

Best for

One person who wants every call recorded without paying, or a small team that wants shared search.

Pricing

Free; Premium $20 monthly or $16 annual; Team $19 or $15 per user; Business $34 or $25; Enterprise $35, annual only. Two-user minimum on the team plans. As of October 2026.

Free tier

Yes: unlimited recordings and transcriptions, forever.

Five seats, this workload

$95 monthly or $75 annual on Team, the middle of the table.

2. Fireflies: unlimited free transcription, short free storage

The free plan promises "unlimited transcription", asterisk included. The limit lives in storage: 400 minutes for the whole team, after which older meetings fall off. You also get limited AI summaries and 20 AI credits, which is Fireflies' own name for the allowance behind its AI features.

Pro removes the summary limit and raises storage. It brings unlimited transcription and summaries and 8,000 minutes of storage per seat, at $18 monthly or $10 annual as of October 2026. Business carries the page's "most popular" tag at $29 monthly or $19 annual and adds unlimited storage, conversation intelligence and team analytics. Enterprise is $39 a seat on annual billing only, with SSO, SCIM, HIPAA and private storage.

Check how long your longest meeting runs

Each plan caps a single recording. Free and Pro stop at 2 hours, Business at 3 and Enterprise at 4, so a team whose meetings run past 2 hours should price Business, and one that runs half-day workshops of up to 4 hours should price Enterprise. If a client objects to a bot, the Chrome extension records "without Fireflies bot", in the page's words.

For the five-person team, Pro comes to $90 a month on monthly billing and $50 on annual. Only Krisp is cheaper once you commit to a year.

3. Granola: no bot on any plan, and a 30-day memory for free

Granola captures audio from your own device on every plan, so nothing joins the call and nobody has to explain a stranger in the participant list. According to its pricing page, the audio is deleted after transcription, and the company holds SOC 2 Type II.

Basic is free and gives you AI meeting notes plus AI chat within and across meetings, with 30 days of meeting history. That last limit is the one that bites. A team that wants to search last quarter's calls needs Business at $14 per user per month as of October 2026, which brings unlimited notes and history, integrations with Attio, Notion, HubSpot, Affinity and Zapier, and an API and MCP. Enterprise is $35 a user and adds SSO, HIPAA-compliant workspaces and admin controls. If HubSpot is your system of record, the HubSpot AI agent guide covers what else connects to it.

Granola shows one price per plan and no annual toggle

Granola's page shows a single number for each plan, so $14 is the price and I have not invented an annual discount for it. That single number made Granola the cheapest monthly bill for the five-person team, $70, and kept it out of the annual comparison entirely.

4. Otter: cheap below 1,200 minutes, the dearest above it

Otter's free Basic plan gives you 300 transcription minutes a month and 3 file imports for the life of the account. It joins Zoom, Teams and Google Meet as a participant, so everyone in the call sees it arrive.

Pro is Otter's first paid plan: $16.99 monthly or $8.33 annual as of October 2026, which the page frames as "save 51%". It covers 1,200 in-app recording minutes a month, meetings of up to 90 minutes and 10 file imports a month, and it connects to Salesforce, HubSpot and Zapier. On annual billing that is one of the two cheapest seats in this post, just above Krisp Core's $8.

At 1,500 minutes a month, Otter forces Business

The team I priced sits through about 1,500 minutes each a month, past Pro's 1,200. That forces Business at $30 monthly or $19.99 annual, with unlimited meetings and in-app recordings, up to 4 hours per meeting, 3 concurrent meetings and admin features. Five seats cost $150 a month, the most expensive monthly bill in my table. Trim the workload to 1,200 minutes and the same five people pay $84.95 monthly on Pro.

Two details on the page are easy to misread. The monthly Business card showed a promotion, $24 with 20% off for three months; I used the $30 list price because the offer runs out. A lower Pro price also appears with an asterisk, and its footnote limits that offer to India-issued credit cards, so I have left it out.

Best for

Teams whose people each stay under 1,200 recording minutes a month.

Pricing

Basic free; Pro $16.99 monthly or $8.33 annual; Business $30 or $19.99; Enterprise by demo, with SSO, SCIM, a HIPAA add-on and an API. As of October 2026.

Free tier

300 transcription minutes a month and 3 lifetime file imports.

Five seats, this workload

$150 monthly or $99.95 annual on Business.

5. Read AI: a five-meeting taster, then a plain ladder

Read AI's free plan stops at 5 meeting transcripts a month. That is enough to see whether you like it and nowhere near enough to run a working week on. Pro removes the limit with unlimited meeting transcripts at $19.75 monthly or $15 annual as of October 2026, which puts five seats at $98.75 or $75.

Read AI prints every upper-tier price

Enterprise adds audio and video playback and highlights for $29.75 monthly or $22.50 annual. Enterprise+ adds HIPAA, SAML and SCIM for $39.75 monthly or $29.75 annual. Otter keeps its SSO, SCIM and HIPAA add-on behind a demo; Read AI prints the number.

Best for

A team that needs HIPAA, SAML and SCIM and wants to see the price before talking to anyone.

Pricing

Free; Pro $19.75 monthly or $15 annual; Enterprise $29.75 or $22.50; Enterprise+ $39.75 or $29.75. As of October 2026.

Free tier

5 meeting transcripts a month.

Five seats, this workload

$98.75 monthly or $75 annual, tied with Fathom Team on annual billing.

6. Krisp: the lowest annual bill, and no free plan

Krisp and Avoma show no free-forever plan; Avoma offers a 14-day free trial instead. With Krisp you get a 7-day trial with no card, and then you pay. Core costs $16 monthly or $8 annual as of October 2026 and includes the unlimited AI note-taker, bot-free capture, transcription, recording, notes and action items, plus an MCP integration. Advanced is $30 monthly or $15 annual and adds accent conversion and more controls.

Five Core seats are the cheapest annual bill here

Five Core seats cost $40 a month on annual billing, the lowest number in my table. On monthly billing the same five cost $80, second only to Granola. Because Core is bot-free, it is also the cheapest annual answer here for a team whose clients will not sit in a call with a bot. On monthly billing, Granola Business is cheaper at $70 for five.

Run the trial on a normal week of calls, not a quiet one, before you commit to a year. Annual billing is where Krisp wins, and that only pays off if you stay.

7. Avoma: CRM notes and follow-up emails, billed by the recorder seat

Avoma charges for the people who record and lets viewers in free. Startup is $29 monthly or $19 annual per recorder seat as of October 2026, and it already reaches past the notes: an AI meeting assistant, AI email follow-ups, notes saved to CRM records and a 1:1 scheduler.

Organization costs $39 monthly or $29 annual. Enterprise is $39 per recorder seat, annual only. Add-ons sit on top, each priced per seat: Conversation Intelligence and Revenue Intelligence at $35 monthly or $29 annual apiece, and Lead Router at $25 monthly or $19 annual.

Count recorders before you count heads

Five recorders on Startup cost $145 monthly or $95 annual, the second-highest bill on the board. Anyone who only reads the notes costs nothing, so list who actually records before you compare Avoma with anything else.

Avoma is also the closest thing in this list to after-the-meeting work, since follow-up emails and CRM notes already come in the entry plan. That is money well spent for a sales team and wasted on a team that only wants a transcript.

Best for

Sales teams that want follow-up emails and CRM notes from the note taker itself.

Pricing

Startup $29 monthly or $19 annual per recorder seat; Organization $39 or $29; Enterprise $39, annual only. Add-ons extra. As of October 2026.

Free tier

No free plan; a 14-day free trial of Organization, and view-only seats are free (checked 7 October 2026).

Verdict

Worth it when selling is the job. For notes alone, five other tools here cost less.

Bot or no bot

Some clients will not take a call with a bot in it, and some companies ban them outright. If that is your situation, this question picks the tool before price does.

Four of the seven can capture from your own device's audio. Granola does it on every plan and Krisp on Core. Fathom offers it as a beta, on Mac only, and Fireflies through a Chrome extension that records "without Fireflies bot". Otter joins Zoom, Teams and Google Meet as a participant. I did not settle the question for Read AI or Avoma from the pages I read.

Removing the bot does not remove the consent question. The rules vary by place, so check your own consent rules before you switch anything on.

Your meeting software may already include something. Zoom's ZoomMate Basic, the renamed AI Companion, is free with Workplace Basic and covers meeting summaries for 3 hosted meetings a month and AI note-taking for 3 uses a month. Google Meet and Microsoft Teams have their own built-in options, which I did not price. If all you need is one digest of a standing weekly call, recurring meeting summaries covers that job.

Which one should you choose?

Start with one number: minutes of calls per person per month. Then find the cap that forces the upgrade, and only then compare annual prices. Route on this, with prices as of October 2026:

• You are one person: Fathom Free. Unlimited recording and transcription, and no reason to pay until you need team features.
• A small team paying monthly that wants full history: Granola Business at $14 a seat.
• You will commit to a year: Krisp Core at $8 a seat, or Fireflies Pro at $10 if you want a free plan to start on first and about five months of storage is enough at your volume.
• Everyone stays under 1,200 minutes a month: price Otter Pro at $8.33 a seat annual. Above that line, look elsewhere.
• A client or your security team refuses a bot: Granola or Krisp. Fathom's bot-free mode also works if everyone is on a Mac and comfortable with a beta.
• You sell for a living and want follow-ups and CRM notes from the tool itself: Avoma Startup, or Fathom Business for CRM field sync.
• You need HIPAA, SAML or SCIM with a price on the page: Read AI Enterprise+, Fireflies Enterprise on annual billing, or Granola Enterprise at $35 a user for HIPAA-compliant workspaces.
• You take a handful of meetings and live in Zoom: try ZoomMate Basic's free allowance first. Turning those notes into tasks is a separate job, covered in Zoom meeting action items.

Then check my figures against the vendor before you buy. Every price here was read on 5 October 2026, and a footnote or a promotion can change which plan your team needs.

FAQ

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