The best Read AI alternatives depend on how you capture meetings. Otter, Fathom, Fireflies and Avoma can join calls as a bot like Read AI, and Granola and Krisp take notes with no bot. Plaud and Comu are recorders for rooms and phone calls. Read AI Pro costs $15 a month billed yearly and Read AI Free covers 5 meeting transcripts a month, while Fathom Free records without a limit at $0. Comu Note Pro costs $128.99 for a device with a plan that transcribes without a minute limit. Prices and plan details were checked between Nov 5 and Nov 6, 2026.
If you want the price comparison first, jump to the Read AI alternatives price table. If you record in person or on the phone and want to compare costs, skip to the Read AI alternative for in-person meetings and calls, Comu AI.
What Read AI includes before you compare
Read AI is a meeting assistant for Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. Free costs $0 and covers 5 meeting transcripts a month, with meetings of up to 1 hour and no file uploads. Pro costs $19.75 a month, or $15 billed yearly, and adds unlimited meeting transcripts, meetings of up to 4 hours, 100 upload minutes a month and premium integrations with Notion, Salesforce, HubSpot and Zapier. Every Read AI plan is broken down in Read AI pricing.
Enterprise costs $29.75 a month, or $22.50 billed yearly, and adds audio and video playback, video highlights and 200 upload minutes a month. Enterprise+ costs $39.75 a month, or $29.75 billed yearly, with a five-license minimum. It adds HIPAA compliance, SAML, SCIM, custom data retention, 300 upload minutes a month and meetings of up to 8 hours. Prices are per user. Every plan includes 30 meetings measured per month, and upload minutes are a separate meter.
Why people look for a Read AI alternative
People look for a Read AI alternative when the free cap runs out, playback costs more or the meeting has no call to join. Three details of the Read AI plans send people to compare tools:
- Free ends at 5 meeting transcripts. A weekly stand-up and a few calls use them up.
- Playback starts at $22.50. Audio and video playback and video highlights sit on Enterprise, $7.50 a month above Pro on yearly billing.
- Uploads are metered. Uploading a one-hour interview uses 60 of Pro's 100 upload minutes.
Read AI alternatives compared by price
The eight Read AI alternatives in the table start at $8 a month billed yearly for Krisp Core and reach $19 for Avoma Startup, and the two recorders add a device price.
| Tool | How it captures | Paid entry price |
|---|---|---|
| Comu | Recorder | Note Pro $128.99, Action Pro $179.99 |
| Read AI (baseline) | Joins calls | Pro $15 a month billed yearly |
| Otter | Joins calls, or desktop app | Pro $8.33 a month billed yearly |
| Fathom | Joins calls, or bot-free on Mac (beta) | Premium $16 a month billed yearly |
| Fireflies | Joins calls | Pro $10 per seat a month billed yearly |
| Krisp | Bot-free on your computer | Core $8 a month billed yearly |
| Granola | Bot-free on your computer | Business $14 per user a month |
| Avoma | Joins calls | Startup $19 a month billed yearly |
| Plaud | Recorder | Plaud Note $159, Pro plan $8.33 a month billed yearly |
Prices are in US dollars, checked Nov 5, 2026. Yearly prices are the yearly total divided by 12.
Read AI competitors by how they capture a meeting
Read AI competitors fall into three groups by how they capture a meeting: tools that join the call as a bot, tools that record your computer's audio, and recorders for rooms and phone calls. Read AI's assistant joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls, so it belongs to the first group.
- Joins the call as a bot. Otter's OtterPilot joins meetings from a connected calendar, Fireflies joins when you invite fred@fireflies.ai, Avoma records with a meeting bot, and Fathom offers a bot or a bot-free mode.
- Bot-free on your computer. Granola captures your computer's audio, and Krisp Core takes notes without a bot. Otter's desktop app and Fathom's Mac beta work the same way.
- Hardware recorder for rooms and calls. A bot cannot attend a conference room, a client visit or a phone call. Plaud and Comu capture these from a device you carry, with no meeting link and no computer. Conference-room tools are compared in AI notetaker for in person meetings.
Otter: a Read AI alternative with live transcripts and a free plan
Otter is a Read AI alternative with live transcripts and a free plan: Basic costs $0 and gives 300 transcription minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation and the 25 most recent conversations. Otter Pro costs $8.33 a month billed yearly, against $15 for Read AI Pro, and gives 1,200 minutes a month and conversations of up to 90 minutes.
Otter transcribes in six languages and records in person through its iOS and Android apps. Choose Otter if you want a lower yearly price, a free plan to start on and live transcripts in online meetings.
Fathom: a free Read AI competitor with unlimited recording
Fathom Free costs $0 and includes unlimited recording, storage and transcription plus an instant AI summary of each call. It works with Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.
Premium costs $20 a month, or $16 billed yearly, and adds advanced summaries, AI action items and AI follow-up emails. Business costs $25 a seat billed yearly with a two-user minimum and adds CRM field sync, Deal View and coaching metrics. Choose Fathom if you want recording with no storage cap on a free plan.
Fireflies: 100+ languages and a searchable library
Fireflies transcribes in 100+ languages from its free plan and includes meeting search. Fireflies Free costs $0 and includes real-time notes, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team and 20 AI credits once.
Pro costs $18 a month, or $10 billed yearly, and adds unlimited AI summaries, 8,000 minutes of storage per seat and video recording. AI credits pay for advanced tools such as AI Skills and CRM autofill. Choose Fireflies if you need transcripts in 100+ languages or video recording.
Krisp: bot-free notes with noise cancellation
Krisp Meeting AI combines noise cancellation with an AI note taker that works without a bot. Core costs $16 a month, or $8 billed yearly, against $15 billed yearly for Read AI Pro. It includes unlimited noise cancellation, transcription, AI notes and action items, outbound call recording and 10 GB of storage. Every Krisp plan is broken down in Krisp pricing.
Krisp starts with a 7-day trial that includes all premium features and needs no credit card. Choose Krisp if you want notes without a bot and noise cancellation in the same app.
Granola: the bot-free Read AI alternative with your own notes
Granola captures your computer's audio, so no bot joins the call, and it combines the notes you type with the transcript. Granola Basic costs $0 and keeps 30 days of meeting history. Business costs $14 per user per month and adds unlimited history, pre-meeting briefs, follow-up emails and integrations with Notion, Zapier and HubSpot.
Its mobile apps take notes for meetings on the go and phone calls. Choose Granola if you want bot-free notes shaped around what you type.
Avoma: scorecards and CRM updates for sales teams
Avoma saves notes to CRM records on Startup and adds call scoring and scorecards through revenue add-ons. Startup costs $19 a seat a month billed yearly, or $29 billed monthly, and only the seats that record meetings are paid. Viewers and collaborators are free. Startup includes unlimited real-time transcription, unlimited AI summary notes and automatic video recording, for up to 25 paid seats.
Revenue add-ons cost $29 a seat billed yearly and cover AI coaching, automatic call scoring, scorecards for SPICED, Sandler and MEDDICC. Choose Avoma if you run a sales team and want scorecards.
Plaud: a recorder alternative to Read AI
Plaud is a recorder that captures in-person meetings and phone calls. Plaud Note costs $159 and Plaud Note Pro costs $189. Each comes with a free Starter plan of 300 transcription minutes a month. Pro costs $17.99 a month, or $8.33 billed yearly, with 1,200 minutes a month.
Ask Plaud work modes run on credits sold separately in the Plaud app, at $12.99 for 1,000 credits. Choose Plaud if you want a recorder and are fine with a monthly plan.
Read AI alternative for in-person meetings and calls: Comu AI
Comu is a Read AI alternative for in-person meetings and phone calls: a pocket recorder with an app that captures the room and the call without a meeting link, a calendar connection or a computer. Comu Note Pro is $128.99 and Comu Action Pro is $179.99 (Nov 5, 2026), against $540 over three years for Read AI Pro billed yearly and $810 for Read AI Enterprise.
The free plan that comes with the device includes unlimited transcription, unlimited real-time transcription, speaker identification, AI summaries, action items and Comu AI for questions across your recordings. It has 30+ built-in templates and unlimited custom templates, supports 113 languages, imports external audio files and records phone calls. Comu exports text as TXT, Markdown, Word and PDF and audio as MP3 and WAV, and it is GDPR, HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant.
| What you get | Comu (included with the device) | Read AI Free | Read AI Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $128.99 (Note Pro) or $179.99 (Action Pro) | $0 | $15 to $19.75 a month |
| Transcripts | Unlimited | 5 a month | Unlimited |
| File uploads | Import external audio files | Not included | 100 minutes a month |
| Where it records | A recorder you carry, in person and on the phone | Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls, plus the mobile apps | Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls, plus the mobile apps |
Read AI Pro billed monthly costs $19.75 and passes the price of Comu Note Pro in the seventh month and the price of Comu Action Pro in the tenth.
For a call, Comu has a bone conduction microphone, so you attach the device to the phone and it records. The transcript, speaker labels, summary and action items arrive in the app. Phone steps are in how to record a phone call. To see every feature in the included plan, read our guide to the features that come with Comu, or look at Comu Note Pro and Comu Action Pro.
Read.ai competitors by team size
One person should start on a free plan, a team of five should compare per-seat totals, and a larger team should compare admin features.
Two to five people. Five Read AI Pro licenses on yearly billing cost $900 a year, or $2,700 over three years, and five Enterprise licenses cost $1,350 a year, or $4,050 over three years. Five Krisp Core seats cost $480 a year, five Otter Pro seats cost $499.80 and five Fireflies Pro seats cost $600. Five Comu Note Pro devices with the included plan cost $644.95, and each person carries their own.
Ten or more people. Read AI Enterprise+, Krisp Enterprise, Fireflies Enterprise ($39 a seat billed yearly) and Fathom Enterprise include SSO or SAML and SCIM, and Avoma Enterprise includes a designated success manager.
Read.ai alternatives free: what each free plan includes
Fathom Free has unlimited recording, storage and transcription, and Comu's included plan has unlimited transcription with a device. Read AI Free covers 5 meeting transcripts a month, and Krisp and Avoma start with trials. The plans below were checked on Nov 5, 2026.
| Free plan | What it includes |
|---|---|
| Comu, included with the device | Unlimited transcription and real-time transcription, speaker identification, summaries, action items, 113 languages |
| Read AI Free | 5 meeting transcripts a month, meetings up to 1 hour, summaries, basic integrations, no file uploads |
| Fathom Free | Unlimited recording, storage and transcription, instant AI summary |
| Fireflies Free | 400 minutes of storage per team, 20 AI credits once, limited AI summaries, 100+ languages |
| Otter Basic | 300 transcription minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation, 25 most recent conversations |
| Granola Basic | 30 days of meeting history, AI meeting notes, speaker tagging |
| Krisp trial | 7 days with all premium features, no credit card |
| Avoma trial | 14 days of the Organization plan, no credit card |
| Plaud Starter | 300 transcription minutes a month |
Comu's included plan transcribes without a minute cap and imports external audio files, where Read AI Free has no uploads and Otter Basic stops at 300 minutes a month. It records the room and phone calls, and it transcribes in real time where Plaud does not.
Read AI competitors: what each costs over three years
Over three years, one Read AI Pro license costs $540 and one Enterprise license costs $810 on yearly billing, against $288 to $684 for the other paid plans in the table.
The Comu rows use only what the free plan that comes with the device includes: unlimited transcription, unlimited real-time transcription, speaker identification, summaries, action items and templates. Read AI Free covers 5 meeting transcripts a month and has no file uploads. Fathom Free has no AI action items, Fireflies Free limits AI summaries and stores 400 minutes per team, Otter Basic and Plaud Starter stop at 300 minutes a month and Granola Basic keeps 30 days of history. Krisp and Avoma have trials instead of free plans. The table therefore prices the paid plan of each tool.
| Cost for one person | Year 1 | Year 2 (total) | Year 3 (total) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Comu Note Pro, free plan | $128.99 | $128.99 | $128.99 |
| Comu Action Pro, free plan | $179.99 | $179.99 | $179.99 |
| Krisp Core, $8 a month billed yearly | $96.00 | $192.00 | $288.00 |
| Otter Pro, $8.33 a month billed yearly | $99.96 | $199.92 | $299.88 |
| Fireflies Pro, $10 a month billed yearly | $120.00 | $240.00 | $360.00 |
| Plaud Note with Pro billed yearly | $258.99 | $358.98 | $458.97 |
| Granola Business, $14 a month | $168.00 | $336.00 | $504.00 |
| Read AI Pro, $15 a month billed yearly | $180.00 | $360.00 | $540.00 |
| Fathom Premium, $16 a month billed yearly | $192.00 | $384.00 | $576.00 |
| Avoma Startup, $19 a month billed yearly | $228.00 | $456.00 | $684.00 |
| Read AI Enterprise, $22.50 a month billed yearly | $270.00 | $540.00 | $810.00 |
Over three years, Read AI Pro billed yearly costs $411.01 more than Comu Note Pro and $360.01 more than Comu Action Pro. Read AI Enterprise billed yearly costs $681.01 more than Comu Note Pro and $630.01 more than Comu Action Pro. Billed monthly, Read AI Pro costs $711 over three years and Enterprise costs $1,071.
Read AI alternatives for privacy: compliance and data location
For GDPR and data location, Krisp Enterprise lets you choose the data center location and Plaud Team includes workspace-level data residency, while Comu is GDPR, HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant.
| Tool | Compliance and data controls |
|---|---|
| Comu | GDPR, HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant |
| Read AI | SOC 2 Type 2 and GDPR compliant. Read states that it does not train on your data by default. Enterprise+ adds HIPAA, SAML, SCIM and custom data retention |
| Krisp | SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and HIPAA compliant. Krisp states that meeting data is not used to train its AI models. Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM and a choice of data center location |
| Fireflies | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 42001 and GDPR compliant. Enterprise adds HIPAA, private storage, SSO, SCIM and custom data retention |
| Fathom | SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and HIPAA compliant. Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM and a signed BAA |
| Granola | SOC 2 Type II. Granola states that audio is deleted after transcription. Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM and a HIPAA workspace |
| Otter | Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM, API access and HIPAA as an add-on |
| Plaud | The Team plan includes workspace-level data residency |
Read AI alternative checklist: what to compare before you switch
Compare where you meet, bot or bot-free capture, playback, CRM and coaching, and total cost before you switch from Read AI.
- Where you meet. Online meetings suit app-based tools. Rooms, client visits and calls suit a recorder.
- Bot or bot-free. Granola, Krisp Core, Otter's desktop app and Fathom's Mac beta capture without a bot.
- Playback and video. Read AI starts playback and video highlights on Enterprise. Fireflies Pro and Avoma Startup include video recording.
- CRM and coaching. Avoma and Fathom Business offer CRM sync, and Avoma adds call scoring and scorecards.
- Total cost. Compare the three-year total, not the monthly price.
To switch, export the Read AI transcripts and recordings you need, run the new tool on its free plan next to Read AI for a week, and tell the people you record that you are recording. Check the recording rules where you and they are located.
Which alternative to Read AI should you choose?
Choose Otter for a lower yearly price with a free plan, Fathom for unlimited free recording, Krisp or Granola for notes without a bot, Avoma for scorecards, and Comu or Plaud for in-person meetings and calls.
| If you | Choose |
|---|---|
| Record in person or on the phone and want unlimited transcription with the device | Comu |
| Want a lower yearly price and a free plan to start on | Otter |
| Want unlimited free recording for online meetings | Fathom |
| Transcribe in 100+ languages | Fireflies |
| Want bot-free notes with noise cancellation | Krisp |
| Want bot-free notes in your own structure | Granola |
| Run a sales team and want scorecards and CRM updates | Avoma |
| Want audio and video playback with highlights | Read AI |
| Want a recorder and are fine with a monthly plan | Plaud |
Common questions about Read AI alternatives
What is the best alternative to Read AI?
Choose Otter for a lower yearly price with a free plan, Fathom for unlimited free recording, Granola or Krisp for notes without a bot, Avoma for scorecards, and Comu for in-person and phone conversations. Comu's included plan has unlimited transcription.
Is there a free alternative to Read AI?
Yes. Fathom Free costs $0 with unlimited recording, storage and transcription. Otter Basic, Fireflies Free and Granola Basic also cost $0, and Comu's included plan has unlimited transcription with a device.
What are the best Read.ai competitors for small teams?
Small teams can start on Otter Pro at $8.33 a month billed yearly, Fireflies Pro at $10 or Granola Business at $14, against Read AI Pro at $15. Avoma Startup at $19 a seat covers up to 25 paid seats, and viewers are free.
Is there a Read AI alternative that does not join the call as a bot?
Yes. Granola captures your computer's audio and Krisp Core takes notes without a bot. Fathom offers a bot-free capture mode in beta for Mac, and recorders such as Comu record the room and need no bot at all.
Is there a Read AI alternative for in-person meetings and phone calls?
Yes. Plaud and Comu are recorders that capture in-person conversations and phone calls without a computer. Comu Note Pro is $128.99 and its included plan has unlimited transcription, speaker identification and AI summaries.
What is the cheapest Read AI alternative?
Fathom Free costs $0 with unlimited recording and transcription, and Otter Basic, Fireflies Free and Granola Basic cost $0 too. Among paid plans, Krisp Core costs $8 a month billed yearly and Otter Pro costs $8.33, against $15 for Read AI Pro. Comu Note Pro costs $128.99 with the free plan that comes with it, less than the three-year total of every paid plan in the cost table.
Is there a GDPR compliant alternative to Read AI?
Yes. Fathom, Fireflies and Krisp are GDPR compliant, and Comu is GDPR, HIPAA and SOC 2 compliant. Krisp Enterprise lets you choose the data center location, and Plaud Team includes workspace-level data residency.
How much does Read AI cost?
Read AI Free costs $0. Pro costs $19.75 per user per month, or $15 billed yearly. Enterprise costs $29.75 per user per month, or $22.50 billed yearly. Enterprise+ costs $39.75 per user per month, or $29.75 billed yearly, with a five-license minimum. Prices were checked on Nov 5, 2026.
Related reading
- Read AI Pricing (2026): Free Plan, Pro at $15 and Enterprise at $22.50
- Krisp Alternatives (2026): 8 Tools Compared by Price and Use Case
- Otter AI Alternatives (2026): 8 Tools Compared by Price and Use Case
- Fathom AI Alternatives (2026): 8 Tools Compared by Price and Use Case
- Fireflies Alternatives (2026): 8 Tools Compared by Price and Use Case
- Best AI Note Taker in 2026: Five Types Compared by Use Case
Sources
Pages were checked between Nov 5 and Nov 6, 2026.
- Read AI, Plans and pricing and Home
- Krisp, Pricing
- Otter, Pricing; Fathom, Pricing; Fireflies, Pricing and Home; Avoma, Pricing; Granola, Pricing
- Plaud, plans and pricing
- Plaud, plan comparison and real-time transcription
- Comu, Comu Action Pro, Comu Note Pro, and app downloads
