Otter.ai vs Fireflies.ai 2026: Which AI Notetaker Is Cheaper?

Otter.ai is the cheaper notetaker for one person or a team of up to five: Otter Pro costs $8.33 per user a month billed annually, against $10 per seat for Fireflies Pro. Fireflies is the better pick past five people, for meetings in languages beyond Otter's six, or for heavy meeting weeks, because Fireflies Pro has no transcription cap while Otter Pro stops at 1,200 minutes a month.

Prices were read on Otter's pricing page and Fireflies' pricing page on October 19, 2026. The headline gap is small, but the limits behind it are not: Otter meters minutes and caps Pro at five billed users, while Fireflies meters storage and lets any number of seats buy Pro.

	Otter.ai	Fireflies.ai
Free plan	Basic: 300 transcription minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation	Free: unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team
Entry paid plan, annual	Pro, $8.33 per user a month	Pro, $10 per seat a month
Entry paid plan, monthly	$16.99 per user	$18 per seat
Mid tier, annual / monthly	Business, $19.99 / $30 per user	Business, $19 / $29 per seat
Enterprise	Demo, no list price	$39 per seat a month, annual only
Best for	Solo users and teams of up to five in English	Larger teams, multilingual calls, CRM-heavy sales teams

Toolradar data: on Toolradar, the software directory we run, Otter.ai is listed as an alternative to 88 other tools and Fireflies.ai to 81, which ranks them #2 and #3 of 171 transcription tools for how often buyers cross-shop them, as of October 2026. Its Fireflies vs Otter comparison holds the two tool records side by side.

What each team pays in a year

The totals below are our arithmetic on the printed per-user rates: seats times the monthly rate times 12. Otter Pro tops out at five billed users, so a ten-person Otter team has to buy Business.

Team	Otter, annual billing	Fireflies, annual billing	Otter, monthly billing	Fireflies, monthly billing
1 user, entry tier	$99.96 (Pro)	$120 (Pro)	$203.88 (Pro)	$216 (Pro)
5 users, entry tier	$499.80 (Pro)	$600 (Pro)	$1,019.40 (Pro)	$1,080 (Pro)
5 users, mid tier	$1,199.40 (Business)	$1,140 (Business)	$1,800 (Business)	$1,740 (Business)
10 users, cheapest plan allowed	$2,398.80 (Business)	$1,200 (Pro)	$3,600 (Business)	$2,160 (Pro)

Three patterns come out of that table. At the entry tier, Otter is cheaper at every size it allows, by about $20 a year per user on annual billing. At the mid tier, the order flips and Fireflies Business undercuts Otter Business by a dollar a month per seat on annual billing.

The ten-person row is where the comparison breaks. Because Otter Pro caps the workspace at five billed users, a team of ten pays $1,198.80 more a year on Otter than on Fireflies Pro. A team of six sits on the same cliff. Price the seat cap before the per-user rate.

Otter also runs a promotion on Business monthly billing: 20% off for the first three months, for first-time subscribers only. It lowers the first quarter of a monthly bill, not the yearly cost, so the table leaves it out.

Plan ladders and what each tier adds

Both vendors sell four tiers with a monthly or annual toggle. Otter says annual billing saves 51% on Pro and 33% on Business; Fireflies says up to 44%. Both discounts are steep enough that monthly billing only makes sense for a short trial or a seasonal project.

Otter.ai

• Basic (free): 300 transcription minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation, 3 lifetime file imports, and only the 25 most recent conversations kept.
• Pro: 1,200 minutes a month per user, 90 minutes per meeting, 10 file imports a month, unlimited storage, 2 concurrent meetings, and Salesforce and HubSpot sync for 1 user.
• Business: unlimited meetings and in-app recordings, up to 4 hours per meeting, 6,000 minutes of imported files a month, 3 concurrent meetings, admin logs and usage analytics, and CRM sync for 5 users.
• Enterprise: SSO, SCIM and domain capture with a 100-user minimum license, the Otter API and webhooks, and HIPAA as an add-on.

Fireflies.ai

• Free: unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage for the whole team, 2-hour recording limit and 20 AI credits.
• Pro: unlimited AI summaries, 8,000 minutes of storage per seat, 720p video recording, downloads, and unlimited integrations.
• Business: unlimited storage, 3-hour recordings, multi-language mode, conversation intelligence, team analytics and 30 AI credits.
• Enterprise: 4-hour recordings, 1080p video, SSO and SCIM, HIPAA, private storage, a rules engine and 50 AI credits.

The structural difference shows in the two Pro plans. Otter Pro sells a monthly minute allowance; Fireflies Pro sells a storage allowance with unlimited transcription. For a consultant on 20 hours of calls a month, Otter's 1,200 minutes is exactly enough. For a sales rep on 30 hours, Otter Pro runs out and Fireflies Pro does not.

Round 1: free plans. Fireflies wins for volume, Otter for retention

Fireflies Free transcribes without a monthly minute cap and records up to two hours per meeting. Its limit is storage: 400 minutes for the whole team, so a free account fills quickly and older recordings become the constraint.

Otter Basic caps you at 300 minutes a month and 30 minutes per conversation, which cuts most real meetings short. It also keeps only the 25 most recent conversations. Neither free plan runs a working week of meetings; Fireflies Free is the better trial for long calls, and Otter Basic suits a student recording short sessions.

Round 2: entry paid tier. Otter wins on price, Fireflies on headroom

Otter Pro is the lowest-priced paid plan in this comparison on both annual and monthly billing. It includes unlimited storage, advanced search and export, and a custom vocabulary of 100 names and 100 other terms per user, which helps with product names and jargon.

Fireflies Pro costs more per seat and removes the minute meter. It also allows two hours per meeting against Otter Pro's 90 minutes, records video, and connects every integration on the list. A solo user under 20 hours of meetings a month saves money on Otter; anyone above that, or on longer calls, gets more from Fireflies.

Round 3: team size. Fireflies wins past five people

Otter's comparison table caps Pro at 5 billed users and Business at 25. Fireflies prints no seat cap on Pro or Business. For a growing team, that means Otter forces an upgrade at the sixth hire, while Fireflies lets the team stay on its entry tier. Our AI meeting assistants ranking covers alternatives for teams that outgrow both.

Round 4: languages and long meetings. Fireflies wins

Otter transcribes in six languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese. Fireflies transcribes in more than 100, and Business adds a multi-language mode for calls that switch language mid-meeting. A team with clients in Brazil, Italy or the Netherlands should rule out Otter on this alone.

On meeting length, Otter Business and Enterprise reach 4 hours per meeting, while Fireflies stops at 3 hours on Business and reaches 4 only on Enterprise. A team that records half-day workshops gets more length per dollar on Otter Business.

Round 5: sales workflows and integrations. Fireflies wins on breadth

Otter syncs notes to Salesforce or HubSpot, but its table limits that sync to 1 user on Pro and 5 on Business; only Enterprise is unlimited. Fireflies opens all integrations from Pro and adds conversation intelligence and team analytics on Business. For a sales team that wants every rep's calls in the CRM, that seat limit decides the round, whichever side of HubSpot vs Salesforce the team runs on.

Otter answers with Business features of its own: three concurrent meetings, 200 AI Chat queries per user a month and video replay on Enterprise. It also offers a 20% student and teacher discount on Pro for .edu addresses.

Round 6: security and admin. Tie, with different minimums

Both put SSO and SCIM on Enterprise. Otter requires a 100-user minimum license for SSO and SCIM and sells Enterprise by demo only, with HIPAA as an add-on. Fireflies lists Enterprise at a fixed per-seat price, annual only, with HIPAA, private storage and custom data retention included. A 30-person company that needs SSO can buy it from Fireflies at a list price; Otter's minimum puts SSO out of reach below 100 users.

Who should pick which

Pick Otter.ai if you work alone or in a team of up to five, meet in English or one of its five other languages, and stay under 20 hours of meetings per person a month. It is the cheaper notetaker in that range on both billing terms, and Business suits teams that record long workshops.

Pick Fireflies.ai if your team has six or more people, works in several languages, records more than 20 hours a month per person, or wants every rep's calls synced to a CRM. Our Fireflies review covers its AI credits and Business features in detail, and AI for productivity shows where a notetaker fits in a wider workflow.

Consider neither if you only need transcripts of recorded files. The guide to transcribing a meeting automatically covers lighter options, IT consultants should see AI meeting notes tools for IT consultants, and the best AI note-taking apps ranking covers notetakers built into note apps, with the wider note-taking apps ranking beside it. If your meetings already run on Zoom, read the Zoom review before adding a separate notetaker.

Techpresso readers get price changes like these in the newsletter before the next renewal. Subscribe to Techpresso.

Strengths and weaknesses

Otter.ai strengths: lowest entry price at $8.33 per user on annual billing; unlimited storage from Pro; up to 4 hours per meeting on Business; 20% off Pro for students and teachers.

Otter.ai weaknesses: Pro capped at 1,200 minutes a month and 5 billed users; six transcription languages; CRM sync limited to 1 user on Pro; SSO needs a 100-user license.

Fireflies.ai strengths: unlimited transcription even on Free; 100+ languages; no seat cap on Pro; Enterprise has a list price.

Fireflies.ai weaknesses: costs more per seat at the entry tier; storage capped at 8,000 minutes per seat on Pro; 2-hour meeting limit on Free and Pro; Enterprise is annual only.

How we compared them

Plan prices, limits and features were read on October 19, 2026, on Otter's pricing page, including its plan comparison table and FAQ, and on Fireflies' pricing page, including its feature table. Yearly totals multiply each printed per-user monthly rate by the seats and 12 months; they are our arithmetic, before taxes and volume discounts. The cross-shopping counts come from Toolradar's tool records, as of October 2026. Techpresso did not run either notetaker for this page.

Cite this: Techpresso, "Otter.ai vs Fireflies.ai 2026: Which AI Notetaker Is Cheaper?", November 2026.

FAQ

Is Otter.ai or Fireflies.ai cheaper in 2026?

Otter.ai, at the entry tier and for up to five users. Otter Pro costs $8.33 per user a month billed annually against $10 for Fireflies Pro. Past five users Otter requires Business, so a ten-person team pays $2,398.80 a year on Otter against $1,200 on Fireflies Pro, on our arithmetic from October 2026 prices.

Does Otter.ai have a minute limit?

Yes. Otter Basic includes 300 transcription minutes a month and Pro 1,200 minutes per user, with no rollover. Business removes the limit on meetings and in-app recordings and allows 6,000 minutes of imported files a month.

Is Fireflies.ai free?

Fireflies has a free plan with unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage for the team and a 2-hour recording limit. Paid plans start with Pro at $10 per seat a month billed annually, or $18 billed monthly.

Which is better for teams, Otter or Fireflies?

Fireflies, for any team larger than five. Otter Pro allows at most 5 billed users and Business 25, while Fireflies prints no seat cap on Pro or Business and adds team analytics and conversation intelligence on Business.

Which supports more languages?

Fireflies, with transcription in more than 100 languages and a multi-language mode on Business. Otter transcribes in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese.

Do Otter and Fireflies offer SSO?

Both do, on Enterprise only. Otter requires a 100-user minimum license for SSO and SCIM and prices Enterprise by demo. Fireflies Enterprise costs $39 per seat a month, billed annually, with SSO, SCIM and HIPAA included.

Some offers on this page may be paid placements or contain affiliate links.