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Otter AI alternatives, compared
Otter captures meetings. AudioPen captures your thinking. If there's no call to join, you don't need another meeting bot. AudioPen's free converter turns a recording you already have into text, and the AudioPen app turns your talking into finished writing. The meeting tools are in the table below too.
Free to start. Loved by over 200,000 people.
At a glance
Here's Otter next to five tools people compare it with, plus AudioPen. We gave AudioPen two rows, because the free converter and the app have different limits. If you only read two columns, make it the first two: what each tool is built around, and whether it has to join your call.
| Tool | Built around | Joins your calls | Upload a recording, free | Free plan | Gives you back | Price for a year, one person |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OtterWhat you have now | Meetings, with a notetaker in your calls and apps that record in the room | Yes, Notetaker joins Zoom, Google Meet and Teams. The Mac and Windows app records without a bot | 3 files for the life of the account | 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes a conversation, your 25 most recent conversations | A transcript with speakers named, and a summary with action items. AI Chat drafts an email or post when you ask, 20 queries a month on free | $99.96 (Pro, billed yearly) |
| AudioPen app | Your own voice: notes you keep, and voice typing in any app | No | On Prime: 100 files every 4 weeks, up to 100 MB each | Recordings up to 3 minutes and a limited number of voice typing sessions, no card needed | Finished writing in a built-in or custom style, with the plain transcript kept too | $99 (Prime, on the web) |
| AudioPen converterFree audio to text tool | A recording you already have | No | Yes, a file up to 60 minutes and 100 MB, no account | Free, with daily limits | A transcript with optional timestamps, as text, SRT or VTT | Free |
| Fathom | Calls, plus in-person recording on iPhone | Yes, a bot by default. Bot-free capture is a beta on Mac | No, it doesn't support uploaded calls | Unlimited recordings and transcription, with AI call summaries. Advanced summaries are limited | A transcript and a call summary. Follow-up emails are on Premium | $192 (Premium, billed yearly) |
| Fireflies.ai | Meetings, plus Fireflies Talk for dictation on Mac and Windows | Yes, a bot you invite or that joins your calendar meetings. The desktop app can take notes without one | Yes (MP3, MP4, WAV, M4A) | Transcription listed as unlimited, 400 minutes of storage per team, meetings up to 2 hours, limited AI summaries | A transcript and AI summaries | $120 (Pro, billed yearly) |
| Granola | Meeting notes, on your computer or in the room with its phone app | No, it uses your computer's audio | No, it doesn't import recordings | Unlimited meeting notes. Notes older than 30 days need an upgrade | Meeting notes and a chat about them. Follow-up emails are on Business | $168 (Business, billed monthly only) |
| Notta | Meetings and files: a bot, a bot-free desktop recorder, and uploads | Yes, if you use its bot. The Mac and Windows app records without one | Yes, 50 files a month, 3 minutes each | 120 minutes a month, 3 minutes a conversation, 10 AI summaries a month | A transcript and AI summaries. Follow-up email drafts and documents built from meetings are listed too | $97.99 (Pro, billed yearly) |
| TurboScribe | Files you upload, in a web app | No bot listed. You upload the recording | Yes, one file at a time | 3 files a day, 30 minutes each, at lower priority | A transcript with speaker recognition, as PDF, DOCX, SRT, VTT, CSV or TXT | $120 (Unlimited, billed yearly) |
Yearly prices are for one person buying on each company’s website in October 2026. Granola bills Business monthly only, so its figure is 12 months at $14. In the iPhone and Android apps, AudioPen Prime is sold at the app stores’ prices.
Why people leave Otter
Read the threads where people say they're done with Otter and a pattern shows up. Most of them aren't recording calls. They have interviews, lectures and voice memos, and a plan built for meetings.
Otter’s free plan limits each conversation to 30 minutes and gives you 3 file imports for the life of the account. Import a 45-minute lecture and you can read only the first 30 minutes until you upgrade. The free converter below takes files up to an hour long, so the whole lecture fits.
Otter’s Notetaker joins your calls as a participant. That’s handy on a call and no use in a coffee shop, on a site visit or in a lecture hall. Otter’s phone app can record in the room, from the same 300 free minutes. AudioPen never joins a call: you record, or you bring the file.
Otter’s AI Chat can draft an email or a post from a transcript, in a tone you set, once you write the prompt. That’s two jobs: record, then ask. In AudioPen you pick the style before you talk, so the writing comes back with the recording. There’s an example further down.
Already have the recording?
Drop an MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG, WebM, MP4 or FLAC file into the free audio to text converter. It takes a file up to 60 minutes and 100 MB and gives you the transcript, with timestamps if you want them, to copy or download as text, SRT or VTT. You don’t sign up for anything.
Your file goes to AudioPen’s private storage only to be transcribed, and it’s deleted as soon as the transcript is ready.
Sitting on 40 voice memos from site visits? Upload them to the app with Prime and each one comes back written up in your style, not just transcribed. Recording something new? The free online voice recorder runs for up to an hour in your browser.
Thinking out loud?
Say you've just walked out of an interview. On your iPhone, open Slack, switch to the AudioPen keyboard and talk for about a minute on what you got. What lands in the message to your editor is the short version, in a style you set up once. No transcript to read back, no prompt to write.
Talk the way you think. Start mid-thought, circle back, change your mind halfway through. AudioPen types your exact words when you want them, or writes it up in a style you pick, right at your cursor.
Rather keep it? Record a note instead and it’s saved to your AudioPen library, with the plain transcript next to the rewrite. Free recordings run up to 3 minutes, and up to 15 with Prime.
“ok so just finished with the councilwoman, um, she confirmed the vote is Thursday, which, that's new, and she says the budget gap is closer to two million, not the one point four we had, so I need to check that against the city's numbers, and she'll send the memo tonight, I think, yeah, that's the main stuff”
Just wrapped with the councilwoman. The vote is Thursday (new). She puts the budget gap near $2M, not the $1.4M we had. Checking it against the city's numbers. She's sending the memo tonight.
Works in any app, on every device: a hotkey on Mac and Windows, the AudioPen keyboard on iPhone and iPad, and a floating bubble on Android.
The other four
Here’s what changes if you move from Otter to Fathom, Fireflies.ai, Granola or TurboScribe. Notta is in the table above. For Otter and AudioPen feature by feature, read Otter vs AudioPen. Weighing a pocket recorder instead? See Plaud vs AudioPen. And if dictation is what you’re after, there are Wispr Flow alternatives and SuperWhisper alternatives.
A meeting recorder for Zoom, Google Meet and Teams that summarizes each call.
Coming from Otter: you give up imports, because Fathom doesn't support uploaded calls. It records on Mac and Windows, and in person with its iPhone app.
A meeting assistant whose bot joins your calls, with a desktop app that can take notes from your computer's audio instead.
Coming from Otter: you keep uploads, on the free plan too. Notes taken without the bot keep no audio and show Speaker 1, Speaker 2 instead of names.
Meeting notes without a bot, on Mac and Windows, and in the room with its iPhone and Android apps.
Coming from Otter: the bot goes, and so does the audio: Granola passes it to a transcription provider and doesn't save it.
A web app for transcribing files: upload a recording, paste a YouTube link or record from your mic.
Coming from Otter: there's no phone app, and no meeting bot is listed, so the recording has to come to it, as a file, a link or a mic recording in your browser. Paid plans take files up to 10 hours long.
Where AudioPen works
Voice type into any app on Mac and Windows, use the AudioPen keyboard on iPhone and iPad, tap the floating bubble on Android, or open your notes in the web app.
One Prime account covers all of them. Your notes sync across every device, so whatever you capture on one is waiting on the next.
Testimonials
Read what real users have to say about AudioPen.
I used to manually summarize my transcribed brainstorming sessions. Took hours. AudioPen automates everything to the point where I am almost done with my article after talking about a topic for 10min. Magic.
No product has fundamentally changed the way I work over the last 12 months more than Audiopen. Home Screen on iPhone.
I can now create 95% of my blog posts and have minimal editing. In my tone of voice. This saves so much time
I’ve been using AudioPen to talk through my ideas, have them summarized and then use the summarization as a draft for blog posts. 13 out of 10. Highly recommend for the “blank page” problem.
This is probably the best product I’ve come across in the past 18 months. So useful and it just keeps getting better.
Simple, but effective. The best tool to convert rambling into structured text, while keeping what you rambled intact.
I freakin love AudioPen.ai. If you are not using it yet, get on it.
Most helpful AI tool = audiopen. Been using it daily to do things like: turn voicenotes into action items, content ideas (magic for this), summarize calls, giving feedback. The UI is also so clean that it’s an absolute joy to use.
You speak to it as thoughts come in. It stitches a fine narrative from the rant. Writers can edit a ‘wrong’ page, not a ‘blank’ page. AudioPen gets you to 90% and then you do the rest.
OH MY GOSH. I just learned about AudioPen today, and it’s already a GAME CHANGER. If you write, create, or do any serious thinking, this tool is for you.
This is one tool that has dramatically changed the way I think. It has allowed me to get the thoughts out of my head and down on paper.
I can’t say enough good things about the AudioPen app. It’s been my go-to app for getting ideas down without having to type. Not only does it arrange even the most inarticulate nonsense into readable sentences, it’s the best dictation app I’ve ever used.
I’ve been writing online for over 10 years and tried virtually every writing app, productivity, note-taking, and idea-capture system out there. Nothing comes close to the amount of time AudioPen saves me.
This is by far the greatest and most useful tool I have ever had! I have severe ADHD and it’s able to translate my rambling into a well written and concise note. I feel more organized and less anxious!
Best buy in 2023: AudioPen from @louispereira. Hats off.
Switched from Superwhisper to Audiopen Mac App within 20 minutes of using the Mac App.
Tried it out, and paid for the prime version because it is SO good and simple to use. The product has made it so much easier to track my various thoughts throughout my day.
I am a natural speaker. My ideas flow faster when I speak. I record my voice notes and with my accent, it is perfect all the time.
AudioPen is able to clear my spoken thoughts into text in Estonian, one of the most complicated languages in the world! Shut Up And Take My Money!
Already not sure what I did before I had AudioPen. If you often have thoughts you want to capture in writing, check it out. Cost is super reasonable too.
Questions
Straight answers to the questions people ask before they start.
