Fathom vs Otter (2026): Pricing, Free Plans and Features Compared

If you want to know which free plan lasts longer, jump to the Otter vs Fathom free plans or what you pay for each. If you record in person or on the phone and want to compare costs, skip to Fathom vs Otter vs Comu AI.

Fathom vs Otter at a glance

Fathom Free has no recording cap, and Otter has the lower paid price, a live transcript and a bot-free desktop app for both Mac and Windows.

Prices are per user per month in US dollars. Fathom Team and Business have a two-user minimum. Fathom here is the AI meeting assistant at fathom.ai, not Fathom Analytics or Fathom's financial software.

Fathom vs Otter AI: what you pay for each

Otter Pro at $8.33 a month billed yearly costs less than Fathom Premium at $16, and Fathom Team at $15 costs less than Otter Business at $19.99. Fathom has five plans and Otter has four.

Fathom Free costs $0. Premium costs $20 a month, or $16 billed yearly, for one person. Team costs $19 a month, or $15 billed yearly, and Business costs $34 a month, or $25 billed yearly. Team and Business have a two-user minimum, and Enterprise is priced through sales. Our Fathom AI pricing guide covers what each plan adds, row by row.

Otter Basic costs $0. Pro costs $16.99 a month, or $8.33 a month billed yearly ($99.96 a year). Business costs $30 a month, or $19.99 billed yearly, and new subscribers pay $24 a month for the first three months. Enterprise is priced through sales. Students and teachers with an .edu email get Pro at $6.67 a month billed yearly. Our Otter AI pricing guide covers what each plan adds, row by row.

At the entry level, Otter Pro is $92.04 a year cheaper than Fathom Premium on yearly billing and $36.12 a year cheaper on monthly billing. At the team level, Fathom Team is $59.88 a year cheaper per user than Otter Business on yearly billing and $132 cheaper on monthly billing. Fathom Business at $25 billed yearly costs $60.12 a year more per user than Otter Business.

Otter vs Fathom: free plans compared

Fathom Free has no cap on recording or transcription, and Otter Basic gives 300 transcription minutes a month with 30 minutes per conversation. Both cost $0.

Fathom Free is free forever. It includes unlimited recordings, call storage and transcription, an instant AI summary of every call, clips, playlists and search across your calls. You choose bot capture or bot-free capture, which is in beta for Mac. It connects to Claude, ChatGPT and Slack and includes the public API and MCP. Advanced summaries cover your first 5 calls each month, and Zapier and Make automations are limited use, and CRM sync is capped at three users per domain.

Otter Basic joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, writes a live transcript with speaker identification and plays the audio back. It includes AI Chat within and across meetings at 20 questions a month, multi-language support, the iOS, Android, Mac and Windows apps and an MCP server. Transcription is 300 minutes a month, a conversation can run up to 30 minutes, you can import 3 files over the life of the account, and the 25 most recent conversations stay in your history.

For a few short meetings a month, either free plan works. Fathom's free plan fits someone who wants every call recorded and summarized with no cap. Otter's free plan fits someone who wants a live transcript, keeps conversations under 30 minutes and stays under 300 minutes a month.

Otter AI vs Fathom: features row by row

Fathom writes an instant summary of every call, and AI action items are part of Premium, Team and Business, while Otter writes a live transcript and automated summaries with action items.

• Capture. Fathom joins with a bot or captures bot-free on Mac in beta. Otter joins with Otter Notetaker or records without a bot in its desktop app.
• Live transcript. Otter writes a live transcript in the Otter app and live notes and captions in Google Meet. Fathom's bot experience writes the transcript and summary after the meeting ends, and the new Mac app updates a live summary during the call.
• Summaries. Every Fathom plan gives an instant summary of each call. Advanced summaries cover 5 calls a month on Free and every call from Premium, and the 15+ expert templates such as BANT and Sandler are limited on Free and complete from Premium. Otter writes automated summaries with outlines, with standard meeting templates on Basic and advanced templates from Pro. Custom AI meeting templates are limited to 5 meetings per user on Basic, 15 on Pro and 30 on Business.
• Action items. Fathom's AI action items and AI follow-up emails are in Premium, Team and Business. Otter's automated summaries include action items, and its Takeaways panel assigns them.
• AI chat. Ask Fathom is unlimited inside a call from Premium, and account-wide Ask Fathom across your calls is unlimited for My Calls on Premium and Team. Otter AI Chat allows 20 questions a month on Basic, 50 on Pro and 200 on Business.
• Integrations. Fathom includes Claude, ChatGPT, Slack, the public API and MCP on every plan, and unlimited Zapier and Make from Team. Otter has an MCP server on every plan, Zapier and Salesforce and HubSpot sync with user limits from Pro, and API and webhooks on Enterprise.
• Export. Otter exports mp3 and txt on Basic, adds pdf, docx and srt on Pro, and adds bulk export on Business. Fathom downloads a recording as an MP4 and copies a transcript to the clipboard.
• Team features. Fathom Team adds search across all team meetings, comments, mentions, folders, Trackers and Customer view, and Business adds Deal View, CRM field sync, coaching metrics and AI scorecards. Otter Business adds activity logs, usage analytics, 3 concurrent meetings and prioritized support, and Enterprise adds SSO and SCIM.

Fathom vs Otter: bot-free capture, live transcripts and phone calls

Otter records without a bot on Mac and Windows, Fathom does it in a beta for Mac, and neither records a call placed from your phone's dialer.

Fathom's bot-free capture works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Slack Huddles. Transcript Only mode keeps no recording and produces a transcript and summary. Audio Only mode records audio on your computer with no video. Audio & Video mode uses the bot. Fathom's desktop app also runs on Windows with the bot experience. The bot needs a connected Google or Outlook calendar, records only when you are in the call and leaves when the meeting ends.

Otter Notetaker joins calendar events that have a Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams link, and it appears in the participant list. The Otter desktop app for Mac and Windows records without Notetaker and works while you wear headphones. It captures Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack huddles, other video apps, dialer apps such as RingCentral and Dialpad, and messaging apps such as WhatsApp and FaceTime. The Otter Chrome extension captures impromptu Google Meet calls without a bot.

On phones, Fathom's free iPhone app records in-person meetings, one-on-one conversations and ad hoc chats, with a summary, a transcript and speaker identification. Otter's iOS and Android apps record in person from the built-in microphone, Bluetooth or AirPods.

Fathom does not record phone calls, including Zoom Phone calls. Otter does not record a call from your phone's dialer either, because Apple and Google restrict third-party apps from recording phone calls directly. You record the call with Apple's built-in call recording or Google's on supported Android phones, then share the file to Otter and import it. Otter also imports Zoom Phone calls that were recorded in Zoom.

Fathom vs Otter: limits and requirements

Otter limits transcription minutes, conversation length, imports and history by plan, and Fathom limits advanced features and not recording.

A person with five one-hour meetings a week records about 1,300 minutes a month, which is more than the 1,200 minutes in Otter Pro. On Basic, 300 minutes cover ten conversations of 30 minutes, and a one-hour meeting hits the conversation cap. Otter Business has unlimited transcription minutes and conversations of up to 4 hours.

Fathom gives unlimited recordings, storage and transcription on every plan and keeps recordings until you delete them. Its limits are on features: Free covers advanced summaries on your first 5 calls each month, and Premium covers every call. Fathom does not support Zoom for Government, Teams for Government or webinars, and in breakout rooms it captures the main room's audio. Fathom does not import external recordings.

Fathom vs Otter: which one fits you

Choose Fathom for unlimited recording on a free plan or the lower team-plan price. Choose Otter for the lowest paid price, a live transcript or a bot-free desktop app on Windows.

Start on both free plans and note the limit you reach first. For Otter it is the 300 minutes and the 30-minute conversation cap. For Fathom it is the 5 calls a month with advanced summaries. Each product has its own review: Fathom AI review and Otter AI review.

Fathom vs Otter: privacy and data handling

Both companies state that their third-party AI providers may not train on your data, and each states that it uses de-identified data to train its own models.

Fathom states that it is SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA and GDPR compliant, stores all data in the United States and encrypts data in transit and at rest. Fathom states that it may use de-identified data from meeting content to train, improve and customize its own AI models, and you can opt out in My Settings. Admins on a team account can opt out for every user in Organization Settings. Fathom states that it does not sell your data and that Anthropic, OpenAI and Google are not permitted to train on it.

Otter states SOC 2 Type 2 and GDPR compliance, CCPA compliance and that it does not sell personal information. HIPAA compliance is an add-on on Enterprise. Otter states that it de-identifies user data before training its own models. The training is automatic, and humans do not manually review the recordings and transcripts. Otter also states that its AI service providers do not train on customer data. Otter requires explicit consent before its staff access a transcript or recording to troubleshoot. Two-factor authentication is available on every plan, and deleted conversations leave the trash after 30 days.

Fathom's bot is visible to participants, and Zoom notifies them. With bot-free capture, a Recording Notice posts a message in the meeting chat when you turn it on. Otter Notetaker appears in the participant list, and an Otter setting emails calendar guests 5 to 10 minutes before the meeting to say Notetaker is joining. Fathom became part of Superhuman on Sept 14, 2026, and Fathom states that the app, login and product experience stay the same.

Tell the other person you are recording. Laws on recording calls differ by country, and you are responsible for following them.

Fathom vs Otter for a small team

Both charge per user, so five people pay $900 a year on Fathom Team billed yearly, $1,500 on Fathom Business, $499.80 on Otter Pro and $1,199.40 on Otter Business.

The workspace sizes differ. An Otter Pro workspace holds 5 billed users and Business holds 25, so a five-person team sits at the Pro ceiling. Fathom Team and Business start at two users, and two users on Team billed yearly cost $360 a year. On the free plans, every Fathom seat records without a cap, and every Otter Basic user gets 300 minutes. To compare more tools at team prices, read our Fathom alternatives compared by price.

Fathom vs Otter: setting up in your first week

Run both free plans side by side on real meetings for one week.

1. Sign up for both free plans. Connect your calendar in each. Fathom needs a connected Google or Outlook calendar.
2. Run three real meetings and keep both tools on for each one.
3. Compare the output. Otter's live transcript appears while people talk. Fathom's summary arrives when each call ends.
4. Check the limits. Note how many of Otter's 300 minutes the three meetings used, and whether the advanced summaries on 5 Fathom calls a month cover what you need before you pay for Premium.
5. Try the bot-free route. Record one meeting with the Otter desktop app and one with Fathom's bot-free capture on a Mac.
6. Try an in-person conversation with the iPhone app of Fathom and the mobile app of Otter.
7. Decide on seats. Give a paid seat to the people who run the most meetings.

Fathom vs Otter: cost over three years

Over three years, one person pays $299.88 on Otter Pro billed yearly, $576 on Fathom Premium billed yearly and $719.64 on Otter Business billed yearly. The free plans cost $0.

Fathom vs Otter vs Comu AI: usage cost compared

Comu Note Pro is $128.99 and Comu Action Pro is $179.99 (Nov 9, 2026), against $299.88 over three years for Otter Pro billed yearly and $576 for Fathom Premium billed yearly. Comu is a recorder with an app. The free plan that comes with a Comu device includes unlimited transcription, unlimited real-time transcription, speaker identification, summaries, action items, 30+ built-in templates with unlimited custom templates, and Comu AI for questions across your recordings.

Comu has a bone-conduction microphone, so you attach the device to a phone to record a call. It supports 113 languages, imports external audio files, exports TXT, Markdown, Word and PDF and MP3 and WAV, and is GDPR, HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant.

The Comu rows use only that free plan. Fathom Free covers advanced summaries on your first 5 calls each month, and Otter Basic stops at 300 transcription minutes a month and 30 minutes per conversation and keeps the 25 most recent conversations. The table therefore compares Comu with Fathom Premium, Team and Business and with Otter Pro and Business, and lists the two free plans at $0 for reference.

Over three years, Otter Pro billed yearly costs $170.89 more than Comu Note Pro and $119.89 more than Comu Action Pro. Fathom Premium billed yearly costs $447.01 more than Comu Note Pro and $396.01 more than Comu Action Pro. Otter Business billed yearly costs $590.65 more than Comu Note Pro, and Fathom Business billed yearly costs $771.01 more.

On monthly billing, Fathom Premium at $20 adds up to more than Comu Note Pro in the seventh month and more than Comu Action Pro in the ninth. Otter Pro at $16.99 does so in the eighth month and the eleventh. Billed yearly, Fathom Premium costs $192 in year 1, more than either Comu device. Otter Pro costs $99.96 in year 1 and $199.92 by the end of year 2, more than either device. For a team of five over three years, Fathom Team seats billed yearly cost $2,700, Otter Business seats billed yearly cost $3,598.20 and five Comu Note Pro devices cost $644.95.

Fathom Free costs $0 and covers online meetings with unlimited recording, transcription and instant summaries. Fathom does not record phone calls and does not import external audio, and Comu does both. Otter Basic costs $0 and joins online meetings and records on the desktop and in its mobile apps, with a live transcript and 300 transcription minutes a month. The free plan that comes with a Comu device has unlimited transcription and exports text as TXT, Markdown, Word or PDF and audio as MP3 or WAV, where Otter Basic exports mp3 and txt.

Comu records the room and the phone from a device you carry, so it works for an in-person interview, a client visit, a lecture or a call without a laptop or a meeting link. Every feature that comes with a Comu device is in our guide to the features that come with Comu, and the devices are Comu Note Pro and Comu Action Pro.

Common questions about Fathom vs Otter

Is Fathom better than Otter?

Fathom is the better fit if you want every call recorded and summarized with no cap on a free plan. Otter is the better fit if you want a live transcript, a bot-free desktop app on Windows and the lowest paid price.

Which is cheaper, Fathom or Otter?

Otter on individual plans. Otter Pro at $8.33 a month billed yearly costs less than Fathom Premium at $16, and at $16.99 a month it costs less than Fathom Premium at $20. At the team level, Fathom Team at $15 billed yearly costs less than Otter Business at $19.99.

Do Fathom and Otter have free plans?

Yes. Fathom Free costs $0 with unlimited recording, storage and transcription and is free forever. Otter Basic costs $0 with 300 transcription minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation and 3 file imports over the life of the account.

Does Fathom or Otter join the call as a bot?

Both can. Fathom joins as a bot and also offers bot-free capture that is in beta for Mac. Otter Notetaker joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet calendar events, and the Otter desktop app for Mac and Windows records without a bot.

Which is better for live transcription, Otter or Fathom?

Otter. It writes a live transcript in the Otter app and live notes and captions in Google Meet. Fathom's bot experience writes the transcript after the meeting ends, and the new Mac app updates a live summary during the call.

Can Fathom or Otter record phone calls?

No. Neither records a call placed from your phone's dialer. Fathom does not support phone calls, and Otter works from a recording you import. A recorder such as Comu records phone calls with a bone-conduction microphone attached to the phone.

Do Fathom and Otter train AI on my meetings?

Yes, each company states that it uses de-identified data to train its own models, and each states that its third-party AI providers do not train on your data. Fathom's opt-out is in My Settings, and team admins can opt out every user in Organization Settings.

Is there a recorder alternative to both?

Yes. Comu Note Pro is $128.99 and Comu Action Pro is $179.99. Both record phone calls and in-person conversations, and the free plan includes unlimited transcription, speaker identification and AI summaries.

Related reading

• Fathom AI Pricing (2026): Free Plan, Premium at $16, Team at $15 and Business at $25
• Otter AI Pricing (2026): Free Plan, Paid Plans and What Each Includes
• Fathom Reviews (2026): Features, Pricing, Pros and Cons by Plan
• Otter AI Review (2026): Features, Pricing, Pros and Cons by Plan
• Fathom AI Alternatives (2026): 8 Tools Compared by Price and Use Case
• Otter AI Alternatives (2026): 8 Tools Compared by Price and Use Case

Sources

Pages were checked on Nov 9, 2026.

1. Fathom, Pricing, Overview, iPhone app, Superhuman announcement, Privacy Policy, Trust Center, What does Fathom cost?, Free vs. Premium for Individuals, Release Notes, device and platform compatibility, Fathom 3.0+ upgrade, real-time transcription, Is Fathom secure?, uploading external recordings, downloading recordings and copying a transcript
2. Otter, Pricing, Privacy & Security, Basic plan limits, Otter Desktop App, Record and transcribe a phone call, Zoom Phone Integration, Automatically add Otter Notetaker to your meetings, Manage your Otter Notetaker settings and integrations
3. Comu, Comu Action Pro, Comu Note Pro, and app downloads