Comparisons

The Best AI Meeting Assistants: Otter vs Fireflies vs Fellow

By ToolPilot Editors · Updated November 3, 2026

Otter vs Fireflies vs Fellow compared on pricing, free-plan limits, and strengths: live transcription, searchable archives, or structured meetings with follow-ups.

AI meeting assistants promise the same thing: never take notes again. They join your calls, transcribe what was said, and hand you a summary with action items. But Otter, Fireflies, and Fellow solve different problems, and their pricing and free-plan limits differ enough to change the answer. Otter is the live-transcription specialist, Fireflies is the searchable archive for team and client calls, and Fellow is built around structured meetings with agendas and follow-ups. Pick the one that matches how your team actually meets.

All three work with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, and all three offer a free plan. The differences show up in the limits: Otter counts transcription minutes, Fireflies counts storage, and Fellow counts AI notes. Check the limit that binds your workflow before you check the price.

At a glance

Otter.ai: the live-transcription specialist

Otter's strength is real-time transcription. It transcribes as people speak, identifies speakers, and produces a searchable transcript you can query afterward with its AI chat. If your main need is a reliable record of what was said — for interviews, lectures, accessibility, or team meetings you need to search later — Otter is the most direct fit of the three.

The catch is the meter. The free Basic plan stops at 300 transcription minutes a month with 30 minutes per conversation, and only your most recent conversations stay accessible. Pro, at $8.33 per user a month billed annually, raises the cap to 1,200 minutes a month and 90 minutes per meeting. Truly unlimited meetings start on Business at $19.99 per user a month billed annually ($30 billed monthly). If your team meets a lot, work out your monthly minutes before committing: a team with an hour of meetings a day will blow past the free plan in a week.

Otter also offers a mobile app that can record in-room meetings, which the other two handle less directly, and its summaries and action items integrate with tools like Asana and Jira. AI chat queries are capped on every plan, at most 200 per user per month, so heavy question-asking has a ceiling too.

Fireflies.ai: the searchable call archive

Fireflies takes a different approach to the meter: transcription is unlimited on every plan, free included. What the free plan limits is storage — 400 minutes per team — and AI summaries. Pro, at $10 per seat a month billed annually ($18 billed monthly), adds unlimited AI summaries, video recording, transcript downloads, and 8,000 minutes of storage per seat. Business, at $19 per seat a month billed annually ($29 monthly), adds more admin controls and integrations.

That makes Fireflies the best fit for teams that record a high volume of calls and need to find things later: sales calls, client conversations, and support calls you want to search by keyword, topic, or speaker. Its integration depth is a real selling point, with connections to CRMs and project tools including Asana, Jira, and Linear, plus AI features that analyze calls for sentiment and topics. Fireflies records with a notetaker bot, or bot-free from its desktop app, and works across Zoom, Meet, Teams, and more.

The trade-off is that Fireflies is less of a live experience than Otter. Its summaries arrive after the call, and its free plan's storage cap means a busy team will need to upgrade or regularly clear old recordings. If you mostly need notes from a handful of recurring meetings, you may be paying for archive depth you never use.

Fellow: meetings with structure, not just transcripts

Fellow is the odd one out, and that is its appeal. It is built for teams that run recurring meetings from shared agendas: you write the agenda collaboratively before the call, capture notes and decisions during it, and assign action items with owners and due dates afterward. Those action items sync to Asana, Jira, ClickUp, monday.com, and Linear. If your problem is not "we forgot what was said" but "nobody follows up on what we agreed," Fellow attacks the right problem.

Its free plan is the tightest of the three: 5 AI notes and recordings per user, lifetime. That is enough to try it, not enough to run on it. Team, at $7 per user a month billed annually ($11 billed monthly), is the cheapest paid entry point in this comparison, and Business, at $15 per user a month billed annually ($23 monthly), adds more controls. Fellow also offers a desktop app alongside its meeting bot, and works with Zoom, Meet, Teams, and Slack Huddles.

Fellow's transcription and summaries are solid, but they are not the product — the agenda-to-action-item workflow is. If you just want a transcript of an ad-hoc call, Otter or Fireflies will serve you better. If your calendar is full of recurring team meetings that drift without follow-through, Fellow is the one designed for that.

Privacy and consent: the part people skip

All three tools record conversations, and that carries obligations. Tell participants before recording starts — the bots usually announce themselves, but do not rely on that alone. Some jurisdictions and some companies require consent from everyone on the call, and some clients will object to a third-party bot joining. Check your company's policy and your clients' comfort before rolling any of these out, and be careful with sensitive calls: transcripts stored in a vendor's cloud are subject to that vendor's retention and security policies, and enterprise plans exist partly to add controls like single sign-on and, on the highest tiers, HIPAA-related agreements.

Which one should you pick?

• Choose Otter if you want the best live transcription and a searchable record, and your monthly meeting minutes fit inside Pro's 1,200-minute cap or you can justify Business.
• Choose Fireflies if you record a lot of calls — especially sales or client calls — and need a searchable archive with CRM integrations, since transcription itself is never metered.
• Choose Fellow if your meetings are recurring, agenda-driven, and the real problem is follow-through: agendas, decisions, and assigned action items are its core, and its Team plan is the cheapest paid tier here.

A practical way to decide: run each free plan for two weeks on your real meetings. Otter's free plan will tell you quickly whether minutes are your constraint, Fireflies' will tell you whether storage is, and Fellow's will tell you whether your team actually uses shared agendas. The tool your team keeps opening after the trial is the right one, whatever the comparison table says.

Frequently asked questions

Do these tools work with Zoom, Meet, and Teams?

Yes, all three support Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Fellow also supports Slack Huddles, and Fireflies supports additional platforms beyond the big three.

Can I use one free?

Yes, but with real limits: Otter gives 300 minutes a month, Fireflies gives unlimited transcription but only 400 minutes of team storage and limited AI summaries, and Fellow gives 5 lifetime AI notes and recordings per user. Light users can stay free; regular teams will hit a limit within weeks.

Are AI meeting notes accurate enough to rely on?

Transcripts are generally good for clear audio with distinct speakers, and weaker with crosstalk, accents, heavy jargon, or poor microphones. Treat summaries as drafts: skim the action items and decisions before forwarding them, especially for anything with a deadline or a commitment to a client.

The bottom line

Otter, Fireflies, and Fellow all take notes for you, but they are not interchangeable. Otter wins on live transcription, Fireflies wins on high-volume searchable archives, and Fellow wins on structured meetings that end in assigned follow-ups. Match the tool to the limit that matters in your workflow — minutes, storage, or follow-through — and start on the free plan to find out which limit you hit first.