Ranked, with our bias declared
The best AI note taking tools
There is no single best AI note-taking tool, because they do not all do the same job. The honest split is by where your conversations happen. If they are scheduled video calls, a meeting assistant like Fireflies, Otter or Fathom is what you want. If they happen in rooms, a device that captures without anything switched on — an AI pen or recorder — is the only category that reaches them. If price is the deciding factor, Fathom’s free plan and Notta’s $97.99 a year are the two to look at.
§Our bias, stated. We make one of the things on this page. Scriben is an AI pen, and we have put it where it belongs rather than at the top: it is not a meeting assistant, and if your work is video calls it is the wrong purchase. The prices are the vendors’ own and are dated, so you can check every one of them. Every price below was read off the vendor’s own pricing page on 15 September 2026. Prices change — check theirs before you buy, and tell us if anything here has gone out of date.
The ranking
9 tools, in order, and why.
01 / Fireflies.ai
Meeting assistant · Free tier · Pro $18/mo ($10 annual); Business $29 ($19 annual); Enterprise $39
- Best for — Calls. It joins as a participant, and the free tier transcribes without a minute cap.
- Captures — Joins the call as a notetaker. Needs: a signed-in device.
- Limits — Unlimited transcription on every tier; free storage 400 min per team
- Against it — The notetaker is visible in the participant list, which changes how some rooms talk, and some organisations block bots outright.
02 / Otter.ai
Meeting assistant · Free tier · Pro $16.99/mo ($8.33 annual); Business $30 ($19.99 annual)
- Best for — Calls, with a live transcript you can read while the other person is still talking.
- Captures — Joins the call. Needs: a signed-in device.
- Limits — Free 300 min/mo, 30 min per conversation; Business unlimited
- Against it — Metered on every tier below Business, and the free tier’s 30-minute conversation cap is shorter than most real meetings.
03 / Fathom
Meeting assistant · Free tier · Team $19/mo ($15 annual); Business $34 ($25 annual). Two-seat minimum
- Best for — Calls, at no cost. The most generous free plan of the nine, if a two-seat minimum to upgrade is acceptable.
- Captures — Joins the call. Needs: a signed-in device.
- Limits — Free plan covers unlimited recordings and summaries
- Against it — Both paid tiers state a two-user minimum, so one person cannot buy one seat.
04 / Granola
Meeting notepad · Free tier · Business $14/user/mo; Enterprise $35
- Best for — Calls taken at a desk, without a bot appearing in the participant list.
- Captures — Your computer’s own audio. Needs: the app open on the machine.
- Limits — Basic limits how far back history goes
- Against it — Something has to be running in the conversation, and unlimited history is a paid tier.
05 / Scriben — ours
AI pen · $129 once · $0/mo Free plan; Pro $12.99/mo
- Best for — Rooms. It records with nothing switched on, which is the only way to reach a conversation that has no call attached.
- Captures — The room, offline. Needs: nothing running.
- Limits — No minute limits; 64GB, ~400 hours
- Against it — iOS app only today, so an Android-only user is not served yet. It does not join video calls and has no live-transcription view while you talk.
06 / Plaud Note
AI recorder · $159 once · Starter free; Pro $17.99/mo; Unlimited $29.99/mo
- Best for — Rooms, when a single long recording matters more than avoiding a metered plan.
- Captures — The room, offline. Needs: nothing running.
- Limits — AI metered in transcription minutes; Starter 300/mo
- Against it — The AI is metered on a monthly plan, and unused minutes do not carry over.
07 / Notta
Transcription app · Free tier · Pro $97.99/yr; Business $199.99/yr
- Best for — Files you already have, plus calls, at the lowest paid price on this page.
- Captures — Web meetings and uploads. Needs: a signed-in device.
- Limits — Free 120 min/mo with a 3-minute cap per conversation; Pro 1,800 min/mo
- Against it — Metered on every tier, and the free tier’s three-minute cap excludes most real meetings.
08 / Livescribe Echo 2
Smart pen · $119.95 once · Free software; no subscription listed
- Best for — Handwriting. Tap a written word and hear that moment — nothing else here does it.
- Captures — The room, while you write. Needs: its dot-pattern paper.
- Limits — 4GB of memory in the pen
- Against it — It needs Livescribe’s dot-patterned paper, and its output is synced notes and audio rather than a structured summary and action items.
09 / Zoom AI Companion / ZoomMate
Built-in assistant · Bundled with Zoom · Free tier limited; full suite is a paid subscription
- Best for — Zoom, and only Zoom, if you are already paying for it.
- Captures — Inside Zoom. Needs: a zoom meeting.
- Limits — Free tier lists 3 hosted meeting summaries a month
- Against it — Bounded by Zoom. Conversations that never become a Zoom meeting are invisible to it.
Side by side
The same facts, in a table.
- Fireflies.ai
- Free tier — Pro $18/mo ($10 annual); Business $29 ($19 annual); Enterprise $39. Calls. It joins as a participant, and the free tier transcribes without a minute cap. Source: fireflies.ai/pricing
- Otter.ai
- Free tier — Pro $16.99/mo ($8.33 annual); Business $30 ($19.99 annual). Calls, with a live transcript you can read while the other person is still talking. Source: otter.ai/pricing
- Fathom
- Free tier — Team $19/mo ($15 annual); Business $34 ($25 annual). Two-seat minimum. Calls, at no cost. The most generous free plan of the nine, if a two-seat minimum to upgrade is acceptable. Source: fathom.video/pricing
- Granola
- Free tier — Business $14/user/mo; Enterprise $35. Calls taken at a desk, without a bot appearing in the participant list. Source: granola.ai
- Scriben
- $129 once — $0/mo Free plan; Pro $12.99/mo. Rooms. It records with nothing switched on, which is the only way to reach a conversation that has no call attached. Source: scriben.ai
- Plaud Note
- $159 once — Starter free; Pro $17.99/mo; Unlimited $29.99/mo. Rooms, when a single long recording matters more than avoiding a metered plan. Source: plaud.ai
- Notta
- Free tier — Pro $97.99/yr; Business $199.99/yr. Files you already have, plus calls, at the lowest paid price on this page. Source: notta.ai/en/pricing
- Livescribe Echo 2
- $119.95 once — Free software; no subscription listed. Handwriting. Tap a written word and hear that moment — nothing else here does it. Source: us.livescribe.com
- Zoom AI Companion / ZoomMate
- Bundled with Zoom — Free tier limited; full suite is a paid subscription. Zoom, and only Zoom, if you are already paying for it. Source: zoom.com
All figures checked on 15 September 2026 against each vendor’s own published pricing page, in a browser — several of these pages render their prices in JavaScript and return nothing to a plain fetch. Third-party pricing round-ups were not used as sources; two of the ones we looked at disagreed with the vendor by $10 a seat.
Where this comes from
We make one of these.
Scriben is a real ballpoint pen that records the room to its own storage for up to 18 hours, with no phone and no network, then turns the conversation into a transcript, a summary and the work that follows. $129 once, with a $0 software plan. We have tried to rank this page as if we did not make it.