Fathom vs Fireflies.ai
 Fathom |  Fireflies.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Sentiment | ||
| Score | 57/100 | 58/100 |
| Rank in category | Unranked (under 8 rated comments) | #3 |
| Rated comments | 5 | 23 |
| Best for | Salespeople who want calls recorded and transcribed so they can stop taking notes; Small teams that want a free recorder they can pipe into a CRM or Zapier | People in back-to-back meetings who want transcripts, summaries and action items without taking notes; Teams that want meeting notes pushed into Drive, a CRM or a task tool; Individuals who want a free or low-cost recorder, including on a phone for in-person conversations |
| Skip it if | No pattern in user complaints | Teams that would share AI notes with clients without a human check; Calls where a visible bot participant is unwelcome |
| Starting price | $15/user/mo | $10/seat/mo |
| Pricing (vendor-stated) | Free plan with unlimited recordings and transcription (some AI features limited). Paid plans are listed per user per month with lower annual prices: Premium $20 or $16 annual; Team $19 or $15 annual (2-user minimum); Business $34 or $25 annual (2-user minimum); Enterprise is sales-led. Paid plans offer a free trial. | Free plan ($0; unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team). Pro is $10/seat/mo billed annually or $18 monthly; Business is $19/seat/mo billed annually or $29 monthly; Enterprise is $39/seat/mo, annual only. No free trial mentioned. |
Independent discussion is thin: most of the 100 matched comments use "fathom" as an ordinary verb or refer to the unrelated Fathom Analytics, and only 5 non-promotional comments give a first-hand view of the meeting recorder. All five are favourable, citing that it removes note-taking, lets users go back and ask questions about a call, shows talk-time ratio, is quick to move into a CRM, and is usable on the free plan. No independent user here reports a problem, which reflects how little was said rather than evidence that there are none.
Users like
- Removes note-taking on sales calls, and users can go back to a call and ask questions when they forget details[1]
- Transcripts move into the CRM quickly: one rep pastes each call into Salesforce in about 20 seconds[1]
- Shows how much of the call the rep spent talking versus the prospect, which one rep credits with fixing over-talking[1]
- Usable on the free plan: one team pays only for Zapier on top[1]
Independent users who name a preference mostly like Fireflies: 16 of 23 non-promotional opinions are favourable, chiefly from people with heavy meeting loads who say it replaces their own note-taking, lets them query past meetings, and pushes notes into Drive, CRMs or task tools, with some running happily on the free tier. The trade-off is reliability of the output and the app: users report AI notes that get details wrong or miss words, one calls it the buggiest software they have used, and others dislike a bot joining their calls. Over a quarter of the 100 matched comments were promotional, mostly rival notetakers naming Fireflies as the thing to switch from, and are discounted here.
Users like
- Heavy meeting users say it takes note-taking off their plate and catches actions and next steps they would otherwise lose[1][2][3][4][5]
- Past meetings become a searchable record: users ask it what was discussed, and one pulls answers from it through an MCP connection[1][2]
- Integrations push notes and to-dos into Google Drive, CRMs and planners, and one team gets a prep email before recurring meetings[1][2][3]
- Cheap enough to justify personally: one user says the free version does all they need, another pays about $25 a month out of pocket[1][2][3]
Users complain about
- AI notes can be wrong: a consultant says a client's Fireflies auto-posts incorrect notes after every call, and another user says it catches only about 80% of spoken words[1][2]
- Stability complaints: one user who wanted to like it calls it the buggiest web and production app they have used, crashing constantly despite a good UI[1]
- The bot joining calls is a reason users leave: one switched to a bot-free tool for that reason[1]
- CRM auto-posting can misfire: with Zoho it posted a call note to hundreds of deals[1]