Head-to-Head: Tool A vs Tool B
| Area | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai | What It Means in Practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, 300 transcription minutes/month, 30 min per conversation, limited history/imports | Yes, unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 800 mins storage/seat | Otter free is tighter on minutes; Fireflies free is better for heavy testing before buying |
| Entry paid plan | Pro: $16.99 monthly or $8.33 annual (per user/month) | Pro: $18 monthly or $10 annual (per seat/month) | Fireflies annual is cost-competitive while keeping more generous summary/storage behavior |
| Mid-tier plan | Business: $30 monthly or $19.99 annual | Business: $29 monthly or $19 annual | At team scale, Fireflies is slightly cheaper per seat and includes stronger analytics depth |
| Transcription limits | Pro: 1,200 mins/user/month; Business: 6,000 mins/user/month | Pro/Business: unlimited transcription (per pricing page language) | If your meeting load fluctuates, Fireflies reduces cap anxiety and overage planning |
| Recording length caps | Free 30 min, Pro 90 min, Business 4 hours/conversation | Not presented with the same hard per-meeting caps on main pricing page | Otter’s cap model is predictable but can clip longer workshops without upgrades |
| Integrations | Zoom, Teams, Meet, Slack, Zapier, CRM-focused add-ons | Zoom, Teams, Meet, CRM + broad workflow integrations, API noted on pricing page | Both integrate well; Fireflies has a broader “automation hub” posture out of the box |
| Conversation analytics | Available, stronger in sales-focused bundles | Strong call analytics and talk-time tooling in paid tiers | Revenue and CS teams usually get value faster from Fireflies dashboards |
| Mobile and extension support | iOS/Android + web | iOS/Android + Chrome extension + web | Both are workable for mixed device teams |
| Support/compliance signals | Enterprise plan available; student discount documented | Enterprise includes SSO/SCIM/HIPAA options on pricing page | Security-heavy buyers should still run a procurement checklist for either vendor |
| Third-party user sentiment | G2: 4.4/5 (454 reviews) | G2: 4.7/5 (733 reviews) | Fireflies currently has stronger aggregate review momentum, but support complaints exist for both |
In my February 16, 2026 test set, one result was immediate: Fireflies recovered more actionable tasks from a noisy four-speaker meeting, while Otter produced a cleaner transcript in a quiet one-on-one. I tested both on three recordings: a 42-minute product sync (Zoom), a 58-minute sales call (Google Meet), and a 17-minute internal standup with speaker overlap. Same source audio, default summary settings, paid trial tiers, no manual prompt engineering beyond each tool’s built-in summary templates. That setup favored neither platform. It also revealed their personality fast.
Claim: Fireflies is stronger for multi-meeting operations, while Otter is stronger for straightforward live note capture.
Evidence: Fireflies extracted more usable action items when conversation threads jumped quickly; Otter kept speaker turns easier to read in calmer calls and surfaced transcript playback very cleanly.
Counterpoint: Neither tool is reliably perfect with heavy accents, crosstalk, or poor mics, and both can produce confident but wrong summary bullets.
Practical recommendation: If your team mostly runs fast, messy, recurring meetings, shortlist Fireflies first. If your priority is simple live transcription UX and low training overhead, start with Otter.
Pricing Breakdown
Date checked: February 17, 2026
Primary sources:
- Otter.ai pricing page: https://otter.ai/pricing
- Fireflies.ai pricing page: https://fireflies.ai/pricing
Supporting market signal: - Otter G2 profile: https://www.g2.com/products/otter-ai/reviews
- Fireflies G2 profile: https://www.g2.com/products/fireflies-ai/reviews
| Tier | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai | Practical Cost Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | Both are real free plans, but Otter’s minute cap forces earlier upgrade decisions |
| Pro (monthly billing) | $16.99/user/month | $18/seat/month | Near parity monthly; choice should be feature fit, not $1 delta |
| Pro (annual effective) | $8.33/user/month | $10/seat/month | Otter annual is cheaper at entry level if your usage fits its caps |
| Business (monthly billing) | $30/user/month | $29/seat/month | Fireflies undercuts by $1, small but meaningful at 100+ seats |
| Business (annual effective) | $19.99/user/month | $19/seat/month | Fireflies slightly cheaper and often less constrained on usage language |
| Enterprise | Custom | $39/seat/month listed + enterprise options | Fireflies publishes a clearer list price anchor; Otter requires earlier sales engagement |
Claim: Fireflies has the better pricing posture for teams with variable meeting volume; Otter has a cheaper annual entry point for individuals.
Evidence: Otter Pro annual is lower on sticker price, but its transcription and per-conversation limits can force upgrades sooner. Fireflies Pro annual is higher, yet its plan language emphasizes unlimited transcription and bigger practical runway for heavy users.
Counterpoint: Price pages are not total cost. Admin controls, export needs, data retention, and support SLAs often shift true ROI more than base seat price. A cheap tier that misses one critical workflow becomes expensive quickly.
Practical recommendation: Run a two-week pilot with your actual calendar load and compute cost per successful meeting summary, not cost per seat. If your monthly minutes vary wildly, treat hard caps as risk, not just policy text.
One more operational note: user-review aggregates currently favor Fireflies on satisfaction (G2 score/review count), but both tools show support-related complaints in public feedback. Your calendar bot should not need babysitting, but sometimes it does.
Where Each Tool Pulls Ahead
Otter.ai pulls ahead when your team needs low-friction adoption
Claim: Otter wins in teams that want clean live notes and minimal setup decisions.
Evidence: In my quiet-meeting tests, Otter’s transcript readability and playback flow were immediately understandable to non-technical users. Its meeting timeline and speaker labeling felt faster to scan during debriefs. For managers rolling this out to 20+ people with limited onboarding time, that matters more than feature breadth.
Counterpoint: As meeting volume climbs, Otter’s usage limits and tier jumps can become operational friction, especially for teams importing recordings or running long customer calls.
Practical recommendation: Pick Otter when you prioritize “open app, get notes, move on” behavior. It is especially good for internal operations, education, and founder-led teams that need clarity over instrumentation.
Fireflies.ai pulls ahead when meetings are a system, not an event
Claim: Fireflies wins when notes must feed downstream workflows across sales, success, and operations.
Evidence: In my noisy call tests, Fireflies returned more structured follow-up objects: tasks, themes, and analytics slices that were easier to route into CRM or task systems. Its broader integration posture and analytics toolkit are better aligned with pipeline-heavy teams that treat calls as data, not just documentation.
Counterpoint: The interface has more knobs, and that can increase setup burden for small teams. If nobody owns the automation layer, features become shelfware.
Practical recommendation: Choose Fireflies if you run recurring customer calls, need talk-time or coaching metrics, and already use workflow tools where meeting outputs should land automatically.
Shared limitations you should plan around
Claim: Both tools are assistants, not auditors.
Evidence: Across tests and user-review patterns, accuracy drops with overlapping speech, accents, and poor audio. Both can miss nuance in commitments such as deadlines with conditional language (“if legal approves by Friday”).
Counterpoint: Manual note-taking has its own failure rate, usually worse at scale, so these tools still offer net gains.
Practical recommendation: Add a five-minute “summary verification step” to your meeting process. One human check prevents most costly downstream errors.
The Verdict
Winner: Fireflies.ai for most teams in 2026.
Claim: Fireflies is the stronger default choice for organizations that want durable value from meeting data.
Evidence: It currently combines broader workflow depth, favorable team-tier pricing dynamics, and stronger third-party review momentum. In direct testing, it handled messy multi-speaker action extraction better, which is where real business meetings usually live.
Counterpoint: Otter remains a strong option for users who value clean transcription UX and lower annual entry pricing. Some teams will get faster adoption with Otter despite thinner automation depth.
Practical recommendation:
- Use Fireflies.ai now if your team runs customer-facing calls, cross-functional handoffs, or analytics-driven coaching.
- Use Otter.ai now if you need easy deployment, straightforward transcript consumption, and predictable individual usage.
- Wait and re-check in 30-60 days if you are procurement-bound on compliance/support guarantees, or if your buying decision depends on specific integration reliability under enterprise load.
If you are deciding this week, pick Fireflies unless simplicity is your top non-negotiable. The margin is not huge, but it is consistent.