# Best Call Recording & Notetakers Tools (October 2026)

Updated 2026-10-14. Ranked from 68 independent Reddit comments; vendor content, review platforms, affiliates and interested parties excluded. Methodology: https://gtmranked.com/methodology/

| Rank | Tool | Score | Rated comments | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gong | 36 | 15 | Sales teams that want calls recorded, transcribed and summarized automatically |
| 2 | Granola | 35 | 10 | People in back-to-back meetings who want notes without a bot joining the call |

## #1 Gong

Gong is a revenue AI platform that records and analyzes customer calls and other interactions, with add-on products for sales engagement (Gong Engage), forecasting and enablement. Website: gong.io. Category: [Call Recording & Notetakers](https://gtmranked.com/best/conversation-intelligence/). Score 36/100 (7 positive, 4 mixed, 4 negative of 15 independent comments).

**Verdict:** Independent discussion is thin and comes mostly from r/salesdevelopment and r/revops: about 15 non-promotional comments carry a real opinion, and much of the rest is Gong as an employer or a name in a tech-stack list. Users split the product in two: call recording, transcripts, AI summaries and CRM sync are well liked, even by critics, while Gong Engage, the sequencing add-on, is contested, with one team praising it as a cheaper Salesloft replacement but several others reporting missing basics like A/B testing, weekly bugs and slowdowns and moving back to Salesloft or Outreach. Ten of 45 comments were promotional, mostly pitching alternative call-coaching, sequencing or RevOps tools.

**What users like:**
- Call recording, transcripts, AI call notes and post-call summaries are rated well, including by users who dislike the rest of the platform; one user's org makes the summaries and templated follow-up emails a required part of every meeting [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1pip6rj/_/nt81k95/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1pip6rj/_/ntglz16/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1jcp8h0/_/mkwbx03/) [4](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1ulptoz/_/ov6zj8g/) [5](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1ulptoz/_/ov6ff4d/) [6](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1ql3er0/_/o1ciskf/)
- Syncs call notes into the CRM (Salesforce contacts, accounts and opportunities, or HubSpot), which users say saves manual logging when configured properly [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1ql3er0/_/o1ciskf/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1pip6rj/_/ntglz16/)
- Can be set up to flag BANT questions, call length and rep-to-customer talk ratio and score each call for coaching [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1pip6rj/_/ntglz16/)
- Gong Engage has defenders: one team says it cost about a third of Salesloft and its reps prefer it because it draws on recorded-call content, and another user credits its AI search across an account's past calls, emails and contacts with saving significant time [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/revops/comments/1kzd9l9/_/mv5e3jq/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1jcp8h0/_/mkwbx03/)
- Used as a forecasting replacement for Clari: one RevOps user near $500M ARR says their company just dropped Clari for Gong [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/revops/comments/1kzd9l9/_/mv5cqsi/)

**What users complain about:**
- Gong Engage's sequencer lacks basics such as A/B testing of emails, with requested features long described as "in the pipeline" [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1ulptoz/_/ov6pssn/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1ulptoz/_/ov6ivwk/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1ojicxg/_/nm3br8b/)
- Engage is buggy and slow: one year-long user reports a new bug most weeks, freezing email windows, an email-deleting bug and random multi-hour slowdowns [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1jcp8h0/_/mkwbx03/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1jcp8h0/_/mtuzde5/)
- Several teams that consolidated onto Engage say they regret it or are moving back to Salesloft or Outreach for sequencing [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1ulptoz/_/ov6ff4d/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1ulptoz/_/ov6zj8g/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1jcp8h0/_/mtuzde5/)

**Best for:** Sales teams that want calls recorded, transcribed and summarized automatically; Managers coaching reps from recorded calls; Teams that want call notes synced into Salesforce or HubSpot.
**Skip it if:** SDR teams that need a mature email sequencer with A/B testing; Small teams that want self-serve, published pricing.
**Pricing (vendor-stated, checked 2026-10-14):** Sales-led pricing; no public plans or prices. Licenses are priced per user plus a platform fee based on the number of users; quotes via a proposal form or demo. No free plan or free trial listed.

Full review: https://gtmranked.com/tools/gong/

## #2 Granola

Granola is an AI notepad for meetings that transcribes calls and turns them, together with the user's own notes, into meeting notes that can be searched and queried later. Website: granola.ai. Category: [Call Recording & Notetakers](https://gtmranked.com/best/conversation-intelligence/). Score 35/100 (5 positive, 3 mixed, 2 negative of 10 independent comments).

**Verdict:** Independent discussion is thin and comes mostly from product managers in r/ProductManagement: only 10 non-promotional comments carry a real opinion, and few come from sales teams. Most of those users like it, citing that no bot joins the call, that it produces structured summaries from templates or custom prompts, and that past meetings can be queried later, and several pay for it themselves. The main trade-off is that the output still needs a human check: users say they double-check action items and clean up notes before sharing, and two found it unremarkable.

**What users like:**
- No bot joins the meeting: it captures the computer's audio, so users can type sparse notes and let it fill the gaps [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1klffng/_/ms2zlhy/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1pip6rj/_/nt7sf9g/)
- Produces structured summaries, and templates or custom prompts help shape the notes and pull out action items [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1klffng/_/ms2qqlc/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1klffng/_/ms2zlhy/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1tzjsbr/_/oqd3el1/)
- Meeting context can be queried, during the call or afterwards across internal and external meetings [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1v9lv43/_/p0eojch/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1klffng/_/ms2zlhy/)
- Several users pay for it themselves and recommend it strongly for transcript-only needs, one saying it changed their ability to do work [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1swaly2/_/oiea6jj/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/salesdevelopment/comments/1v9lv43/_/p0eojch/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1lzzwps/_/n3kh9dv/)

**What users complain about:**
- Summaries and action items still need a human check: users double-check action items and edit notes before reusing them [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1klffng/_/ms2qqlc/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1kook5r/_/nsaj9pw/) [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1tzjsbr/_/oqd3el1/)
- Some users find it unremarkable, calling it "so far meh" while testing or "just another note taker" whose value depends on what you do with the transcripts [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1lfuhas/_/myvkrm7/) [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1rzp98y/_/obnt9vm/)

**Best for:** People in back-to-back meetings who want notes without a bot joining the call; Product managers who feed meeting notes into docs, Notion or an AI knowledge base; Users who want to search or ask questions across past meetings.
**Skip it if:** Teams that want AI action items they can trust without reviewing them.
**Pricing (vendor-stated, checked 2026-10-14):** Free Basic plan ($0, 30-day meeting history, limited AI chat and integrations). Business is $14/user/mo with unlimited history, API and integrations; Enterprise is $35/user/mo with SSO, SCIM and admin controls. The page does not state monthly vs annual billing.

Full review: https://gtmranked.com/tools/granola/