Fireflies.ai Free Plan: What You Actually Get Before Paying
Fireflies.ai's free plan promises unlimited transcription, but storage stops at 400 minutes and summaries are limited. Here is exactly what you get.
By Galactic News Editorial · Published 2026-11-10T19:35:18+00:00 · Updated 2026-11-10T19:35:18+00:00
Fireflies.ai Free Plan: What You Actually Get Before Paying
Fireflies.ai is a meeting assistant that joins your calls, records them, writes a transcript and generates a summary. The free plan costs $0, needs no card and has no end date. It sounds generous. The pricing page lists unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team and 20 AI credits. The reality is narrower. Storage stops at 400 minutes for the whole team. Summaries are limited. Video capture and downloads need a paid plan. Here is exactly what the free plan includes, where it stops, and when paying $10 a seat a month for Pro makes sense.
What the Free Plan Includes
The free plan covers the core job. The Fireflies bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and more than 10 other meeting apps to record and transcribe. You can also capture without a bot. The Chrome extension records Google Meet in the browser. The desktop app for Mac and Windows records system audio. The mobile app records in-person meetings, even offline, and uploads them later. Transcription covers more than 100 languages. Real-time notes and live transcription work on the free plan. You can search within meetings, upload audio and video files, and use AskFred, the built-in assistant, within your credit limit. The mobile and desktop apps are included. API access is listed on the free plan too. Fireflies states that it does not use your meeting data to train models, and its vendors are contractually barred from training on it. The service is SOC 2 Type II certified and GDPR compliant.
Fireflies.ai Free Plan: The Three Limits That Matter
Storage is the first limit. The free plan gives the whole team 400 minutes of storage. That is a running total, not a monthly allowance. It counts live recordings, uploads and imports, and it never resets. Four hundred minutes is about 6.7 hours, or roughly six one-hour meetings for an entire team. Once the bucket is full, you delete old meetings or pay. Transcription is the second limit, and it hides behind an asterisk. The pricing page says unlimited transcription. The help center adds conditions. Accounts created on or after September 1, 2026 get only 3 transcribed meetings unless auto-join is switched on. Turn on auto-join for your calendar meetings and transcription has no cap. With auto-join off, the free plan covers 3 meetings. Accounts made before September 1, 2026 keep their earlier unlimited terms. AI summaries are the third limit. The free plan lists limited AI summaries, backed by the transcription credits given at sign-up. You get 3 credits signing up on the web, 5 through the Chrome extension, or 10 as a new mobile user. Each summary uses a credit. The pricing page also lists 20 AI credits for AskFred, AI Skills and soundbites. The page does not state whether those 20 credits reset monthly or are a one-time allotment, so do not budget on either assumption. Each recording also stops at 2 hours, so a three-hour workshop gets cut short on the free plan.
Fireflies.ai Free Plan vs Pro
| Feature | Free ($0) | Pro ($10 per seat a month, billed yearly) |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 forever | $10 billed yearly, or $18 billed monthly |
| Transcription | Unlimited with auto-join on; 3 meetings otherwise for new accounts | Unlimited |
| AI summaries | Limited, from sign-up credits | Unlimited |
| Storage | 400 minutes per team, running total | 8,000 minutes per seat, pooled |
| Longest recording | 2 hours | 2 hours |
| Video recording | No | Yes, 720p |
| Downloads | No | Transcripts, summaries and recordings |
| AI credits | 20 | 20 |
| Integrations | Limited | Unlimited, including CRM sync |
Business costs $19 per seat a month billed yearly, or $29 monthly. It adds unlimited storage, 30 AI credits, conversation intelligence, team analytics and user groups. Enterprise costs $39 per seat a month, annual billing only. It adds 50 AI credits, SSO and SCIM, audit logs, HIPAA readiness with a business associate agreement, private storage and a dedicated account manager.
How to Make the Free Plan Last
Turn on auto-join first. It is the switch that removes the transcription cap for new accounts. Without it, you get 3 transcribed meetings and then a paywall. Record only meetings you need. Storage is the binding limit at 400 minutes for the whole team. Delete recordings you no longer need, since the bucket never resets on its own. Use the desktop app or Chrome extension when a bot in the call is a problem. Both are on the free plan. Save your AI summaries for meetings that need them, since each one spends a sign-up credit. If you record weekly, you will hit the storage wall fast. Six one-hour meetings fill the free plan. At that point Pro at $10 a seat a month is the honest next step. It buys 8,000 minutes of storage per seat, unlimited summaries and downloads. Teams that need longer recordings should look at Business, where the cap rises to 3 hours.
Bottom Line
The Fireflies.ai free plan is a real test drive, not a free archive. You get the bot, transcription in over 100 languages, live notes and the mobile and desktop apps for $0. The limits are storage at 400 minutes per team, summaries tied to a handful of sign-up credits, and a 2-hour recording cap. Turn on auto-join to keep transcription unlimited. If you meet weekly or need downloads and video, Pro at $10 a seat a month billed yearly is the plan that makes Fireflies a daily tool. Check the pricing page before you sign up, since the free-plan conditions changed as recently as September 2026.