Both Fireflies.ai and Otter.ai join your meetings automatically, produce transcripts, and generate post-meeting summaries. At the paid tier, both cost roughly $8 to $10 per user per month. But they serve different use cases, and picking the wrong one creates friction that the transcript accuracy alone will not fix.
Otter.ai is the better starting point for individuals and small teams who want clean transcripts from Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams calls without much setup. The free tier covers 300 minutes per month, which is enough to test the tool on real meetings. The Pro plan at $8.33 per month removes per-conversation limits and gives you 1,200 minutes monthly. Otter's interface is faster to navigate and the summary format is simpler, which makes it easier to skim for action items. The main limitation is that Otter works best on well-structured calls with clear audio. Group discussions with crosstalk or heavy accents produce messier results.
Fireflies.ai is the better fit for sales teams or any team that uses Salesforce or HubSpot heavily. The CRM integrations push meeting notes into the right contact or deal record automatically after every call, which removes a manual step that usually gets skipped. The Pro tier at $10 per user per month removes transcription caps entirely and stores up to 8,000 minutes per seat. AskFred, Fireflies' chatbot for querying past transcripts, is genuinely useful for reviewing what a prospect said across multiple calls. The cost to consider: AskFred runs on AI credits, and paid plans include a limited number per month. Heavy users will buy additional credits.
Pick Otter if you want simple transcription at the lowest cost. Pick Fireflies if your team runs sales calls and you want the notes to land in your CRM without copy-pasting.