AI Transcription Software Compared: Otter, Whisper Workflows and Fireflies
Otter, Whisper workflows and Fireflies compared on free allowances, minute limits and pricing, verified against official vendor pages and docs.
By Galactic News Editorial · Published 2026-11-06T22:46:51+00:00 · Updated 2026-11-06T22:46:51+00:00
AI transcription software comes in two forms. Otter and Fireflies are meeting assistants. They join your calls, transcribe live, and write summaries. Whisper is different. It is a free, open-source model from OpenAI that you run yourself. It produces raw transcripts, and nothing else. Your choice depends on one question. Do you want a finished meeting product, or a transcription engine? Prices and limits below come from official vendor pages, checked on 7 November 2026.
AI transcription software at a glance
| Tool | Free option | Entry paid plan | Standout feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Otter | Basic free: 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation | Pro, $16.99 per user per month or $8.33 billed annually | Polished live meeting notes with summaries and action items |
| Whisper workflows | Free and open-source under the MIT License | No subscription; you pay only for your own hardware or hosting | Private, local transcription in many languages, with translation |
| Fireflies | Free forever: unlimited transcription listed, 400 minutes of storage per team | Pro, $18 per seat per month or $10 billed annually | Conversation intelligence and an AI assistant, AskFred |
Minute limits decide real-world value here. Otter meters minutes tightly on lower plans. Fireflies meters storage and AI credits instead. Whisper has no minutes at all. It has setup time instead.
Otter: the meeting assistant benchmark
Otter joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet calls. It transcribes them live. It identifies speakers by name. Afterward, it writes an automated summary with action items and an outline. You can also record in the app, or import audio and video files.
The free Basic plan is a real starting point. It includes 300 transcription minutes per user each month. One pool covers meetings, recordings, and imports. Each conversation is capped at 30 minutes. You get three file imports for the life of the account. Only your 25 most recent conversations stay visible.
Pro costs $16.99 per user per month. Billed annually, it drops to $8.33 per user per month. Pro raises the pool to 1,200 minutes a month. Conversations can run 90 minutes. Imports rise to 10 files a month. Business costs $30 per user per month, or $19.99 billed annually. It removes the meeting minute cap. Imported files get up to 6,000 minutes a month. Conversations can run four hours.
Otter transcribes in six languages. Its pricing page lists English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese. AI Chat answers questions about your meetings. Query limits rise from 20 a month on Basic to 200 on Business. Otter suits individuals and small teams who live in meetings. Watch the shared minute pool. Heavy importers can drain it fast. Export options also grow with the plan. Basic exports audio and text files. Pro adds PDF, DOCX, and SRT caption files. Business adds bulk export on top. Custom vocabulary helps with names and jargon. Basic allows five terms. Paid plans raise that to hundreds of terms per user and team.
Whisper workflows: the free engine you run yourself
Whisper is not an app. OpenAI released it as open-source software in 2022. Its code and model weights carry the MIT License. Anyone can download and run it. There is no account, no subscription, and no per-minute fee.
The official repository describes what it does. Whisper performs multilingual speech recognition. It also handles speech translation into English. And it identifies the language being spoken. Six model sizes trade speed for accuracy. Tiny uses about 1 GB of video memory. Large uses about 10 GB. A turbo model offers a faster middle ground.
Setup is a developer task. You install it with a single pip command. It also needs the ffmpeg tool on your system. You then run it from the command line or from Python. The model processes audio in 30-second windows. Python users can call it directly inside their own scripts. That makes batch archives easy to automate. Community projects wrap it in friendlier interfaces. Names like whisper.cpp and faster-whisper appear in most workflow guides.
What you do not get matters. Whisper outputs text and timestamps. It has no meeting bot, no summaries, and no speaker labels by itself. Your audio also never leaves your machine. That privacy is the point. Journalists with sensitive interviews choose this route. So do podcasters transcribing archives in bulk. The cost is your time and your hardware.
Fireflies: transcription built for teams
Fireflies records and transcribes meetings across Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and more. Its pricing page claims transcription in over 100 languages. That is far beyond Otter's six. It adds real-time notes and live transcription. An AI assistant called AskFred answers questions across your meetings.
The free plan is generous on transcription. Fireflies lists unlimited transcription on the free tier. The real limits sit elsewhere. AI summaries are limited on free accounts. Storage caps at 400 minutes per team. The plan includes 20 AI credits. Downloads and video recording need a paid plan.
Pro costs $18 per seat per month. Annual billing lowers it to $10 per seat per month. Pro adds unlimited AI summaries. Storage jumps to 8,000 minutes per seat. Video recording and downloads switch on. Business costs $29 per seat monthly, or $19 billed annually. It adds unlimited storage and conversation intelligence. Team analytics arrive at this tier too. The conversation intelligence toolkit is broad. Fireflies lists sentiment analysis and question detection. It tracks speaker talk time. It lets teams build topic trackers across calls. You can also cut short soundbite clips from recordings. Those features target sales and support reviews, not simple note-taking. Enterprise costs $39 per seat per month, billed annually only. It adds SSO, SCIM, HIPAA compliance, and private storage.
Fireflies suits teams that review calls together. Sales teams use its conversation intelligence heavily. Its free tier also suits anyone burned by minute caps. Just watch the storage ceiling. It fills quietly in the background. Capture is flexible, too. A Chrome extension can record without the Fireflies bot joining. Desktop and mobile apps cover in-person recording. Uploads handle files recorded elsewhere. Those options matter when a guest refuses a visible meeting bot.
How to choose your ai transcription software
- You want notes without thinking about tooling. Otter Pro is the smooth default for individuals and small teams.
- Your recordings cannot leave your control. Whisper runs locally and costs nothing per minute. Budget an afternoon for setup.
- Your team records many calls in many languages. Fireflies pairs unlimited transcription with team analytics.
- You transcribe long archives, not meetings. Whisper wins again. Hosted minute pools punish bulk work.
One more check applies to the hosted tools. Meeting bots announce themselves to other participants. Some calls, and some clients, will not accept a bot. In those cases, record locally and transcribe afterward. Both Otter and Fireflies accept uploaded files, and Whisper never joins anything.
Bottom line
Otter is the safest all-round pick. Its free plan is usable, and Pro is fairly priced. Fireflies is the team pick. Its free tier and language coverage beat Otter for call-heavy groups. Whisper is the control pick. It is free forever, private by design, and demands technical effort in return. Match the tool to your constraint: convenience, collaboration, or control.