Fathom
from $15/mo
Free AI notetaker that records, transcribes, and summarizes your calls.
Visit FathomFathom vs Otter.ai
A side-by-side of Fathom and Otter.ai on pricing and our methodology scores, drawn from each tool's category Listings. They compete in Best AI Meeting Notes.
Otter.ai
from $17/mo
Real-time transcription and AI meeting notes, built for live capture.
Visit Otter.aiThe verdict
Fathom is the stronger overall pick. In the Best AI Meeting Notes ranking it scores 3.85 to Otter.ai's 3.45 out of 5. That said, Otter.ai wins on individual criteria below, so read the breakdown against your own priorities.
At a glance
| Fathom | Otter.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $15/mo | $17/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Best AI Meeting Notes score | 3.85 (#1) | 3.45 (#3) |
Head to head: Best AI Meeting Notes
scored / 5 Transcription Accuracy 25% weight
Fathom 3.5
Hands-on testing puts clean-audio accuracy around 85-90% — solid and resistant to room noise, but in line with rather than ahead of category peers, and it slips with heavy accents, jargon, and crowded multi-speaker calls.
Otter.ai 3.5
Hits up to ~93–95% on clean recordings, but real-world accuracy drops toward 85% with background noise, overlapping speakers, and strong accents, and multi-person calls suffer from speaker mislabeling.
AI Summary Quality 25% weight
Fathom 4.0
Summaries land in under 30 seconds and slash post-call note work, with strong sales-methodology templates, but they run concise and prioritize what the model picks over what you might want.
Otter.ai 3.0
The jump-from-bullet-to-transcript feature is genuinely useful, but reviewers report summaries that miss the real next steps and read as disorganized or generalized, leaving teams to review meetings manually.
Integrations 20% weight
Fathom 3.5
Native Zoom, Teams, HubSpot, and Salesforce syncs are clean and CRM field sync is a real differentiator, but the catalogue is shallow next to rivals and deeper coverage leans on Zapier and the top tier.
Otter.ai 3.5
The core meeting stack — Zoom, Teams, Meet — connects seamlessly on every plan, but the wider app catalog is described as limited and CRM connectors are gated above the free tier.
Privacy and Security 15% weight
Fathom 4.0
SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA compliant, doesn't train on user data, and offers bot-free capture; recording stays visible rather than silent, and one reviewer reported losing data to slow account-transfer support.
Otter.ai 4.0
Independent reviewers confirm AES-256 encryption, available two-factor auth, and a general sense that transcripts stay confidential, backed by SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA on the vendor side.
Value for Money 15% weight
Fathom 4.5
The unlimited-recording free tier is widely called the best value in the category; short of a perfect score only because CRM field sync and a few power features sit behind the Business tier and there's no mobile app.
Otter.ai 3.5
Annual pricing around $100/year is a fair accuracy-to-price balance, but reviewers find it pricey unless heavily used, and the free tier's 300-minute cap frustrates heavier users fast.
Fathom
Pros
- Free plan records and transcribes unlimited calls with no per-month cap, which is rare in this category
- Transcription holds up well, landing around 85-90% accuracy even with background noise
- Summaries arrive in under 30 seconds and cut post-call note cleanup from ~15 minutes to ~3
- Sales-methodology templates (BANT, Sandler, MEDDIC) make the summaries genuinely useful for revenue teams
- Clean native syncs to Zoom, Teams, HubSpot, and Salesforce, with CRM field sync on the Business tier
- Offers a bot-free capture mode and doesn't train AI models on your data
Cons
- Summaries run concise and surface what the model thinks matters, which feels thin if you need detailed notes
- Native integration catalogue is shallow (~30) next to rivals' 200+, so deeper plumbing leans on Zapier
- Accuracy drops with heavy accents, technical jargon, and crowded multi-speaker calls
- No mobile app, so in-person meetings are a gap
- CRM field sync is locked behind the Business tier
Otter.ai
Pros
- Otter Assistant transcribes Zoom, Teams, and Meet live, with on-screen captions as the meeting runs
- Near-95% accuracy on clean recordings in independent testing
- Click "View in transcript" jumps from any summary bullet straight to the passage it came from
- Zoom/Teams/Meet integration works on every plan, free tier included
- The 300-minute free plan and ~$100/year annual pricing make it cheap to start
Cons
- AI summaries often miss the real next steps, so teams still review meetings by hand
- Accuracy slides on background noise, overlapping speakers, and strong accents — real-world ~85%
- Speaker labels get muddled in multi-person calls, sometimes splitting one person into two
- The broader app catalog beyond the core meeting stack is thin
- Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zapier integrations are gated to Pro and up
FAQ
- Is Fathom or Otter.ai better?
- Fathom edges ahead in our scoring. In the Best AI Meeting Notes ranking Fathom scores 3.85 and Otter.ai scores 3.45 out of 5. Otter.ai still wins on specific criteria, so the right pick depends on what you weight most.
- Is Fathom cheaper than Otter.ai?
- Fathom has the lower entry price: Fathom starts at $15/mo and Otter.ai starts at $17/mo.
- What is the difference between Fathom and Otter.ai?
- Fathom is positioned as Free AI notetaker that records, transcribes, and summarizes your calls. Otter.ai is positioned as Real-time transcription and AI meeting notes, built for live capture. They go head to head in Best AI Meeting Notes.
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