Fathom is the best free alternative to Fireflies. If you are paying for Fireflies and routinely hitting AI credit limits or getting pushback from clients about the meeting bot joining calls, Otter.ai at $8.33 per month is the closest like-for-like substitute at a lower base price.
The main reasons people leave Fireflies are not the base subscription — $10 per month is reasonable for what the tool does. The problems are the AI credits charged on top of standard transcription, meeting bots that participants can see joining calls (Google Meet started flagging third-party bots in 2025), and video recording locked behind the $19-per-month Business plan. Six alternatives that fix one or more of those problems are below.
What Fireflies does — and where it falls short
Fireflies.ai is an AI meeting assistant that joins your Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams calls as a participant, records the audio, generates a transcript, and creates a summary with action items. The transcript lands in a searchable dashboard. It connects with Slack, Notion, HubSpot, Salesforce, and around 50 other tools.
The base tool works. The frustrations are structural.
First, AI credits. Fireflies' Pro plan at $10 per month includes a monthly credit allocation for AI-powered tasks — summaries, action item extraction, conversation analytics. Basic transcription does not cost credits. But once your allocation runs out, you either buy credit add-ons or wait for the next billing cycle. Users report total monthly spend of $99 to $200 once credit purchases are included. That is not what a $10 plan feels like.
Second, the meeting bot. Fireflies joins your calls as a visible participant named "Fireflies Notetaker." That is fine for internal team standups. It is less fine when a client or candidate sees it appear in the attendee list. Google Meet began flagging unverified third-party bots as security risks in early 2025 — some users report Fireflies failing to join Google Meet calls entirely as a result.
Third, video is paywalled. You cannot watch a recording of the meeting on a Pro plan. Video access requires Business at $19 per month. Several alternatives include video on their free tiers.
For most users frustrated with Fireflies, one of the six tools below addresses their specific problem.
| Tool | Free plan | Paid from | Bot-free | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fireflies | Yes (800 min) | $10/mo | No | Heavy integrations, CRM workflows |
| Fathom | Yes (unlimited) | $19/user/mo (teams) | No | Individuals wanting free unlimited transcription |
| Otter.ai | Yes (300 min/mo) | $8.33/mo | No | Small teams, Google Workspace users |
| tl;dv | Yes (unlimited video) | $18/mo | No | Sales teams, video clips, CRM sync |
| MeetGeek | Yes (5 hrs/mo) | $9.99/mo | No | Analytics, coaching, detailed summaries |
| Krisp | Yes (60 min/day) | $8/mo | Yes | Privacy-sensitive calls, noise cancellation |
| Fellow | Yes (limited) | $7/user/mo | No | Structured agendas, team collaboration |
Fathom: the best free option
Fathom is the clearest answer to the "I just want unlimited free transcription" problem. Its individual plan is free with no credit system: unlimited recordings, unlimited storage, AI-generated summaries, and action items. That is the entire pitch.
Setup takes about five minutes. Fathom connects to your calendar, joins meetings automatically as a bot, and delivers a transcript and summary within a few minutes of the call ending. The summaries are structured by topic rather than a wall of timestamped text, which makes them more useful than most competitors at any price.
Where Fathom falls short is breadth. The free plan does not include integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, or Notion. There is no conversation analytics, no speaker coaching, and no keyword tracking across calls. If you use Fireflies primarily for its Slack posting or CRM updates, Fathom's free tier will not replicate that without upgrading.
The team plan starts at $19 per user per month. At that price you are comparing it directly against Fireflies Business at $19 per month — and Fireflies has more integrations at the same price.
Fathom is the right switch for a freelancer or individual contributor who wants solid transcription and summaries at no cost. It is a harder case to make as a paid team tool where integration depth matters.
Otter.ai: the closest paid substitute
Otter.ai is the most direct Fireflies competitor. Both tools join meetings as bots, generate transcripts in real time, surface action items, and sync with Google Calendar. The functional difference between them is smaller than the marketing suggests.
Otter's free plan caps at 300 minutes of transcription per month — less generous than Fathom, but enough for a few calls per week. The Pro plan at $8.33 per user per month (billed annually) includes 1,200 minutes per month, AI action items, and Google Drive export. Monthly billing runs $16.99 per month.
Otter's transcription accuracy on clean audio is comparable to Fireflies — both hover around 90 to 95 percent on clear American English. Where both tools historically struggle is accents, overlapping speakers, and noisy call environments. If audio quality is your main complaint about Fireflies, switching to Otter may not solve it.
Otter's Business plan at $20 per user per month adds Salesforce sync and advanced analytics. If Salesforce integration is the reason you are paying for Fireflies, Otter Business is worth a direct comparison.
The one area where Otter pulls ahead of most alternatives: its mobile app handles in-person recording better. If you record face-to-face interviews, field work, or in-room meetings — not just video calls — Otter is a more practical choice than Fireflies or any bot-based alternative.
tl;dv: best for sales teams and video clips
tl;dv ("too long; didn't view") is built for people who need to clip and share specific moments from a recorded call. The free plan is unusually generous: unlimited video recordings, unlimited transcripts, and AI moment summaries — no credit system, no storage limits. Video storage is included, which Fireflies charges extra for.
Where tl;dv earns its paid tier is CRM automation. The Pro plan at $18 per month and Business plan at $59 per month add direct HubSpot and Salesforce syncing that pushes call notes, timestamps, and action items directly into deal records. For sales teams that live in their CRM, this is worth more than generic meeting transcription.
tl;dv only works with Zoom and Google Meet. If your team runs meetings on Microsoft Teams, it is not a viable option — Fireflies' Teams support remains one of its genuine advantages over most alternatives.
The free plan is worth trying if you are frustrated with Fireflies' video paywall. If your primary use case is clipping a moment from a client call or marking a key exchange for follow-up, tl;dv handles that better than any tool on this list. For a broader look at the category, Zapier's AI meeting assistant roundup covers several more options with hands-on comparisons.
Three more solid picks: MeetGeek, Krisp, and Fellow
**MeetGeek** ($9.99 to $17 per month) is worth considering if analytics drive your decision. It tracks talk-to-listen ratios, questions asked per call, sentiment patterns, and topic frequency over time. The free plan covers 5 hours of recording per month — enough to evaluate whether the analytics actually change how you run meetings. Sales managers who review team calls regularly will find MeetGeek's coaching dashboards more developed than Fireflies' equivalent features.
**Krisp** ($8 per month) is the only tool here that does not require a meeting bot. It runs locally on your device, picks up audio directly from your microphone, and transcribes without joining your meeting as a participant. Nobody sees it in the attendee list. It also does background noise cancellation before audio reaches the meeting — filtering keyboards, ambient sound, dogs. If bot visibility is your primary reason for leaving Fireflies, Krisp solves it cleanly. The trade-off: meeting summaries and integrations are lighter than Fireflies at the same price point.
**Fellow** ($7 to $25 per user per month) is less of a transcription tool and more of a full meeting management system — structured agendas built before the call, collaborative notes during it, and action items tracked after. Transcription is part of the product, not the main feature. If your goal is improving how your team runs meetings rather than just recording them, Fellow is the most differentiated option on this list. For a fuller comparison of AI tools in this category, the AI transcription tools roundup has pricing breakdowns across more options.
When you should stay on Fireflies
Fireflies is not a bad product. It is the right tool for a specific profile: teams that rely heavily on its 50-plus integrations, primarily run meetings on Zoom or Teams, and do not have objections to the bot appearing in calls.
If you are on Business at $19 per month and getting genuine use from the Salesforce sync, HubSpot pipeline updates, and Notion workspace posting, the credit system is an inconvenience rather than a deal-breaker. The integration depth at that price is hard to match among the alternatives above.
Fireflies also has one of the stronger mobile apps in this category. If you frequently review call recordings from your phone and need a stable experience, it holds up better than most competitors.
Do not switch if you have already built automations around Fireflies' integrations, your team has established Slack or CRM workflows, or your credit usage is predictable and stays within your plan allocation. The switching cost — rebuilding automations, retraining your team, re-integrating your CRM — is real. It is only worth it if one of the three structural problems (AI credit overages, bot visibility, video paywall) is actually affecting your work on a regular basis.
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Free plan (800 minutes of storage). Pro at $10/month (billed annually). Business and Enterprise tiers available.
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July 14, 2026