Otter vs Fathom: Free AI Meeting Notes Limits Compared

Free AI note takers are not equally free. Otter's Basic plan meters transcription at 300 minutes a month and cuts each conversation off at 30 minutes. Fathom's Free plan lists unlimited recordings and transcriptions and limits the AI features around them instead. This guide reads the Otter and Fathom pricing pages as checked on October 10, 2026, lists every free-tier cap each one publishes, compares the first paid tiers and notes where Fireflies' page did not render numbers. Each figure below comes from the vendor's own page on that date.

Count minutes per month and minutes per meeting separately

Otter's free tier has two clocks. Per the Otter pricing page, Basic includes 300 transcription minutes per user per month, shared across all transcription types, and a 30-minute cap per conversation. A 45-minute standup is cut at 30 minutes regardless of the monthly balance left.

Pro raises both: 1,200 minutes per month and a 90-minute cap per conversation. Business removes the monthly meter for meetings and recordings and lifts the per-conversation cap to 4 hours, with file imports metered at 6,000 minutes per user instead.

Fathom publishes no minute meter. The Fathom pricing page describes the Free plan as "Unlimited recordings + transcriptions" and "Free forever," with recording storage and transcription listed as unlimited across tiers. The limits sit on AI features, several of which are tagged "Limited use" without a number.

For a team that holds long calls, the per-meeting cap matters more than the monthly total. Thirty minutes covers a status check, not a client workshop. Read the cap row before the total row, the same way per-credit rules matter more than headline credits on AI writing tools.

Check the import and AI query caps on the free plans

Otter Basic's smaller limits add up quickly. The page lists 3 file imports per user for the lifetime of the account, not per month, plus 20 AI Chat queries per month with a 3-per-conversation cap, 1 concurrent meeting, 5 custom vocabulary terms and history limited to the 25 most recent conversations.

That 25-conversation history limit is the one most users miss. A daily meeting schedule pushes older transcripts out of reach within five weeks. Otter Pro expands imports to 10 per month and AI Chat to 50 queries; Business goes to 200 queries and unlimited imports.

Fathom's Free plan lists instant AI call summaries, clips, playlists and search across calls, with a choice of bot or bot-free capture, the latter marked as beta. Items such as AI action items carry a "Limited use" tag, and the page does not state how many uses that means.

• Otter Basic: 300 minutes per month, 30-minute cap, 3 lifetime imports, 20 AI queries, 25-conversation history, 1 concurrent meeting.
• Fathom Free: unlimited recordings and transcriptions, instant summaries, clips and search; action items and some AI features tagged "Limited use" with no number.
• Fireflies Free: the pricing page's table rendered feature labels without values on October 10, 2026, so its free caps could not be read.

Compare the first paid tier before assuming upgrade prices match

Otter Pro lists at $16.99 per month billed monthly or $8.33 per month billed annually. On October 10, 2026, the page also displayed promotional prices of $8.49 and $4.17 beside the list prices. Students and teachers with a .edu address get a further 20% off Pro per the FAQ.

Fathom Premium, the individual paid tier, is $20 per user per month billed monthly or $16 billed annually. Fathom Team is $19 or $15 but requires at least two users; Business is $34 or $25, also with a two-user minimum. All paid plans carry a 90-day guarantee per the page.

By editorial calculation from those figures, a solo user paying annually spends about $100 a year on Otter Pro at list price and $192 on Fathom Premium. The gap narrows if Otter's promotional pricing applies, and reverses for a two-person team, where Fathom Team is $15 per seat.

Otter Business is $30 per user monthly or $19.99 annually. Enterprise features such as SSO and SCIM require a minimum 100-user license on Otter. Fathom's Enterprise tier is quoted through sales and adds SSO, SCIM and custom retention.

Note what Fireflies does not publish on its pricing page

The Fireflies pricing page was readable on October 10, 2026, but its comparison table showed labels such as "Transcript," "Storage" and "AI summaries" without values. No prices, minute allowances or storage figures were present in the page text.

What the page does state: paid plans are billed per seat, volume discounts apply above 50 members through sales, and Pro and Business have no monthly rate limit for the meeting bot or Chrome extension. Rate limits apply to the API, dialers and bulk uploads, documented elsewhere.

The page's only description of the free tier is that paid plans have "more transcription credits" and "unlimited transcripts, summaries, and video recordings." That is a comparison, not a number. Until Fireflies publishes the free allowance in readable text, budget on Otter's or Fathom's published terms instead.

Match the free plan to the way you actually meet

Choose Otter Basic when meetings are short, infrequent and few enough that 300 minutes and 25 saved conversations cover them. Its strength is the written transcript and the editor around it. Its weakness is the 30-minute cut-off and the lifetime import cap.

Choose Fathom Free when calls run long and the priority is a recording with a quick summary. Its strength is the absence of a minute meter. Its weakness is that the AI features which make the recording useful are limited by an unpublished number.

Teams that need the AI layer at volume will land on a paid tier either way. At that point the per-seat math above decides, and the comparison starts to resemble choosing between Claude Pro and Max: the question is how much usage a flat fee buys, not whether the feature exists.

For producers who also narrate or edit audio, the recording meter here and the media-hour meter in ElevenLabs versus Descript are separate budgets. Neither tool's allowance covers the other's work.

Frequently asked questions

How many free minutes does Otter give per month?

300 transcription minutes per user per month on the Basic plan, shared across all transcription types, with a 30-minute cap per conversation and 3 file imports for the lifetime of the account, per the pricing page checked October 10, 2026.

Is Fathom really unlimited on the free plan?

Recordings and transcriptions are listed as unlimited and "Free forever" on the pricing page as of October 2026. Several AI features, including action items, are tagged "Limited use" without a published number, so the limit sits on AI features rather than on recording.

How much does Otter Pro cost per year?

At list price, $8.33 per month billed annually, which is about $100 per year by editorial calculation. On October 10, 2026, the page also showed a promotional $4.17 per month annual rate. Monthly billing lists at $16.99.

Does Fathom have a minimum number of seats?

Premium has no minimum. Team and Business each state a two-user minimum, at $15 and $25 per user per month billed annually, or $19 and $34 billed monthly, per the pricing page as of October 2026.

Bottom line

Otter's free plan is precise and small: 300 minutes, 30 per meeting, 3 imports, 25 saved conversations. Fathom's free plan is large on recording and vague on AI. Fireflies publishes neither in readable form. For short meetings pick Otter Basic; for long calls pick Fathom Free.

Before upgrading, price a full year per seat and confirm the per-meeting cap on the tier you choose. Every number above reflects the pricing pages on October 10, 2026, and all three vendors change plans without notice.