Granola vs Otter.ai
 Granola |  Otter.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Sentiment | ||
| Score | 73/100 | 42/100 |
| Rank in category | #1 | #5 |
| Rated comments | 33 | 27 |
| Best for | People in back-to-back meetings who want notes without a bot joining the call; External or in-person meetings where you don't control the call platform; Users who want to steer notes with their own jottings or prompts and query them later | Individuals who want transcripts of their own meetings or in-person conversations recorded on a phone; Users who export transcripts into ChatGPT or other tools for their own summaries |
| Skip it if | Teams that need accurate who-said-what attribution in transcripts | Organisations that need tight control over who is recorded and who receives meeting notes; Meetings with strong accents or more than one language; Users who need to pause recording mid-call |
| Starting price | $14/user/mo | $8.33/user/mo |
| Pricing (vendor-stated) | 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. | Free Basic plan (300 transcription minutes per user per month, 30 minutes per conversation). Pro is $8.33/user/mo billed annually or $16.99 monthly; Business is $19.99/user/mo billed annually or $30 monthly; Enterprise is sales-led. No free trial mentioned. |
Independent users, mostly product managers and salespeople, are strongly positive: they like that no bot joins the call, that it frees them to listen instead of typing, and several rate its notes above the built-in Zoom, Teams, Copilot and Gong summaries, with some paying for it themselves. The recurring weakness is attribution and fidelity: users say it is poor at labelling who said what, one sales team calls its transcripts really bad, and one PM found its summaries compress away detail. Promotional comments were a small minority, mostly rival note-takers pitching their own product.
Users like
- No bot joins the meeting: it captures audio on your device, and users also use it for in-person meetings[1][2][3][4][5]
- Users rate its transcripts and notes above built-in options: better than Teams, Copilot, Zoom and Meet notes, and than Gong's AI summaries[1][2][3][4]
- Lets users listen instead of typing during calls; several call it a big time saver and one seller pays the $15 a month out of pocket[1][2][3][4][5]
- Merges the user's own typed notes with the transcript, lets them prompt how notes are reshaped, and answers questions across past meetings[1][2][3][4]
Independent opinion is split: of 27 non-promotional opinions, 15 are favourable, from individuals who say it saves note-taking time, records in-person conversations from a phone, and transcribes accurately once speakers are tagged. The criticism centres on how it behaves in other people's meetings: users and admins describe it auto-joining calendars, emailing invitees, being hard to remove and confusing permissions, and one cites a class action over recording without consent; others report weaker summaries, trouble with accents and mixed languages, and a price rise that cut transcription hours. About a sixth of the comments were promotional, including repeated tool-stack lists and three plugs for an unrelated "Vibe Otter" website builder, and are discounted here.
Users like
- Takes over note-taking so users can stay in the conversation; several call it a game changer or big time saver[1][2][3][4][5]
- Records in-person or from a phone without inviting a bot into the meeting[1][2][3]
- Transcripts are searchable or easy to export: users ask what a client said about a topic, or paste transcripts into ChatGPT for summaries[1][2][3]
- Accurate transcription once trained: long-time users praise accuracy after tagging speakers, building a dictionary or correcting words, which it then applies elsewhere[1][2][3][4]
Users complain about
- Intrusive defaults: it can auto-join every calendar meeting, email invitees to sign up, keep inviting itself after being blocked, and send notes to people who did not know they were signed up; one user cites a class action over recording without consent[1][2][3][4]
- Transcription struggles with accents and mixed languages and can split one speaker into two; one user moved to Grain for accuracy[1][2][3]
- Summaries are weaker than alternatives: users find them worse than Zoom's, so-so, or walls of text that need cleanup[1][2][3]
- Pricing: a paying user saw prices rise while transcription hours were cut, and another found the paid tier too expensive[1][2]