Otter, Fireflies, Granola and Fathom each send a tool into your video call. It listens to everyone, then hands back notes once the call ends.
Two of those four now answer to a federal judge. Otter and Granola face lawsuits over how little their bots tell the room before they start listening.
A small team picking one of these tools weighs more than price. Each one treats a coworker's voice differently once the meeting ends. Two of them are already defending that choice in court.
Four Bots, Four Price Tags
Pick the cheapest paid seat at each company, and the gap runs five dollars a month.
Granola's Cheapest Seat Costs $5 Less a Month Than Fathom's
Starting monthly price per seat on each tool's cheapest paid plan, checked Nov. 3, 2026
Each bar is one tool's cheapest paid seat, in dollars a month on standard monthly billing; Granola's bar is shortest, Fathom's is tallest.
Sources: Otter.ai [1]; Fireflies.ai [3]; Fathom [5]; Granola [7]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Granola Business | $14 |
| Otter Pro | $16.99 |
| Fireflies Pro | $18 |
| Fathom Team | $19 |
Granola's Business plan costs $14 a seat a month, the same price whether a team pays monthly or yearly7. Otter's Pro plan runs $16.99 a seat on month-to-month billing, or $8.33 with a yearly commitment1. Fireflies prices its own Pro plan at $18 a seat a month3. Fathom's Team plan needs at least two seats and costs $19 each, or $15 billed yearly5.
All four also give something away. Otter's free plan caps a user at 300 minutes a month1. Fathom's free plan keeps the recordings unlimited but caps AI summaries at five a month5. A team of five people could run most of a quarter on free tiers alone, before a single invoice arrives.
Who Has to Say Yes First
2 of 4 Notetakers Warn Every Attendee by Default
Of the four notetakers compared, whether a recording notice reaches every attendee automatically, checked Nov. 3, 2026
Each cube is one tool; magenta cubes notify every attendee by default, gray cubes leave that choice to the host or ship it off.
Sources: Otter.ai [1]; Otter.ai [2]; Fireflies.ai [4]; Fathom [5]; PPC Land [12]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Notify every attendee by default | 2 |
| Host must switch notice on | 2 |
| Whole | 4 |
The four tools split sharply on who gets asked, and when.
Otter's host grants the bot permission to join. Its own privacy page describes a pre-meeting email to other invitees as optional, a box the host checks by hand12.
Fireflies turns on three signals already. They are a chat message, an audible alert and an on-screen watermark. If even one person objects, Fireflies skips the meeting entirely4.
Fathom's bot shows itself on screen with a message that says continuing the call counts as agreeing to be recorded. Granola recommends asking before you transcribe someone. Its own chat notice ships switched off, and its marketing once called that quiet "a competitive advantage"12.
Two Lawsuits Test the Same Question
Four sets of plaintiffs sued Otter starting in August 2025. Their consolidated case argues the company's calendar bot joins meetings before every participant agrees to it. It then trains speech models on what the bot hears11.
Judge Eumi K. Lee let the core claims proceed on Aug. 13, 2026. They cover a federal wiretap claim, a California privacy claim and two Illinois biometric-privacy claims.
Granola faces a newer suit. Tarra Chamberlain sued the company on July 30, 2026. Her complaint says its tool "intercepts and records virtual conversations without the knowledge of most participants." Those recordings then feed Granola's own model training by default12.
Sam Liang runs Otter as its chief executive, and he answers the suits by widening the lens. "My view is that we are on the right side of history. We're building this new AI revolution. If you want AI to help, you need to put AI in the meetings," Liang told TechCrunch9.
Chris Pluymers reads the same facts differently. He is an associate attorney at The Dillon Law Group, and he studies how these tools collect voice data. "In the world of AI, the world of data and privacy, the world of biometric identification, I don't think you can have such a lax approach to it," Pluymers said10.
A Louder Warning, a Different Suit
Fireflies ships the loudest consent design of the four. Courts have yet to rule on whether that design holds up, and its own suits attack a separate feature.
Katelin Cruz attended as an ordinary guest, with Fireflies belonging only to the meeting's host. The tool still built a voiceprint from her speech, her complaint says13. Ethan Fricker filed a second suit in March 2026 on the same theory.
Both cite Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act. It asks for a written release before a company can fingerprint someone's voice. That bar sits higher than a chat notice saying recording is underway.
Thorin Klosowski studies privacy for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He told the Associated Press why text wins out over video for tools built this way. "Storing a bunch of video isn't easy, it's costly and hard to look through, but text is much easier to search and cheaper to store," Klosowski said10. He also named the plainest fix available to any host today: "Asking everyone for consent before doing a sensitive meeting would be the most polite approach to take".
What the Transcript Actually Gets Right
Each company states its own accuracy, and the numbers disagree with each other once a reviewer checks.
Otter claims 95 percent or higher on clean audio1. Fireflies claims 99 percent for English and 95 percent or higher across its other languages3. Granola argues the whole contest misses the point. Its own blog says "the critical differentiator is not transcription accuracy" anymore, since every leading tool now clusters close together8.
Aron Kantor tested all four for his own review. "Fathom is among the more accurate AI note-takers," he wrote. "It offered a solid 85%-90% transcription accuracy, which was higher than I experienced with Fireflies AI or Otter AI"14. Otter's own marketing agrees with that range for Fathom, even while claiming a higher number for itself1.
What to do
Check each vendor's consent setting before you add a seat. Recheck it again the week the first invoice lands. Fireflies ships its warnings on; Otter and Granola need a host to turn theirs on by hand.
Put the training-data opt-out in writing. All four let an account holder switch it off, and the switch sits in your hands alone.
Weigh where your meetings happen. A team with Illinois attendees carries BIPA risk whichever bot it hires. That law targets the voiceprint as much as the recording itself.
By the numbers
- $14: Granola's Business plan, the cheapest seat of the four compared here7.
- $19: Fathom's Team plan per seat, the priciest of the four on month-to-month billing5.
- 2 of 4: tools that turn on a recording notice for every attendee automatically, Fireflies and Fathom45.
- Aug. 13, 2026: Judge Lee let Otter's core wiretap and biometric claims move to discovery11.
- July 30, 2026: Tarra Chamberlain filed her proposed class action against Granola12.
- Dec. 18, 2025: Katelin Cruz filed the first of two biometric suits against Fireflies13.
- 85 to 90 percent: Fathom's accuracy in one independent reviewer's test, ahead of Fireflies and Otter in that same test14.
What to watch
The next ruling in the Otter case is worth tracking, now that discovery has begun. Watch too whether Granola answers Chamberlain's complaint, or settles before a judge rules on its consent defaults. A loss for either company would reach every notetaker that still records a voice before that voice agrees to it.
Sources
- Otter.ai, "Pricing," Otter.ai, Nov. 3, 2026, https://otter.ai/pricing
- Otter.ai, "Privacy & Security," Otter.ai, Nov. 3, 2026, https://otter.ai/privacy-security
- Fireflies.ai, "Fireflies vs. Otter (2026): Honest AI Assistant Comparison," Fireflies.ai, Nov. 3, 2026, https://fireflies.ai/blog/fireflies-vs-otter
- Fireflies.ai, "Responsible and secure meeting notetaking with Fireflies," Fireflies.ai, Nov. 3, 2026, https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/7434774675-responsible-and-secure-meeting-notetaking-with-fireflies
- Fathom, "Pricing," Fathom, Nov. 3, 2026, https://fathom.ai/pricing
- Fathom, "Privacy Policy," Fathom, Nov. 3, 2026, https://fathom.ai/privacy
- Granola, "Pricing," Granola, Nov. 3, 2026, https://www.granola.ai/pricing
- Granola, "AI meeting transcription: How it works and which tools lead in 2026," Granola, Jul. 3, 2026, https://www.granola.ai/blog/ai-meeting-transcription-how-it-works-and-which-tools-lead-in-2026
- Rebecca Szkutak, "How Otter.ai's CEO is pushing the company to be more than just a meeting scribe," TechCrunch, Oct. 7, 2025, https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/07/how-otter-ais-ceo-is-pushing-the-company-to-be-more-than-just-a-meeting-scribe/
- Cathy Bussewitz, "AI notetakers promise easy meeting recaps, but some professionals question their use," Associated Press, Jul. 9, 2026, https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-ai-notetakers-easy-recaps-professionals.html
- U.S. District Court, N.D. Cal., "In re: Otter.ai Privacy Litigation," FindLaw, Aug. 13, 2026, https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-dis-crt-n-d-cal/322025.html
- Luis Rijo, "Granola sued for recording meetings without consent to train AI models," PPC Land, Aug. 1, 2026, https://ppc.land/granola-sued-for-recording-meetings-without-consent-to-train-ai-models/
- Kathryn Rattigan, "Lawsuit Alleges Fireflies.AI Corp. Illegally Collects Biometric Data from Virtual Meetings," Data Privacy & Security Insider, Dec. 24, 2025, https://www.dataprivacyandsecurityinsider.com/2025/12/lawsuit-alleges-fireflies-ai-corp-illegally-collects-biometric-data-from-virtual-meetings/
- Aron Kantor, "My Honest Fathom Review After Using It For +3 Months (2026)," The Business Dive, Sep. 29, 2026, https://thebusinessdive.com/fathom-review
