Otter.ai Review 2026: Pricing, Features and Verdict

What it is

Otter.ai is an AI meeting assistant and transcription app. Its meeting agent joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls from your calendar, writes a live transcript you can read during the call, and produces a summary, action items and a searchable record afterward. The desktop app on Mac and Windows can also capture meetings without a bot joining, and the mobile app records in person conversations.

Otter is one of the oldest products in this category, which shows in two places. Its App Store app has 85,529 ratings averaging 4.8, far more than any other meeting assistant we track, and its live transcript is still the feature most people buy it for. The flip side is that its plan structure still meters minutes and conversation length, where newer rivals have moved to unlimited recording.

Pricing explained

Plan	Monthly	Annual	Minutes	Per conversation	Other limits
Basic	$0	$0	300 per month	30 minutes	3 lifetime imports, 1 meeting at a time, 20 AI chat queries
Pro	$16.99 per user	$8.33 per user	1,200 per month	90 minutes	10 imports a month, 2 meetings at a time, 50 AI chat queries
Business	$30 per user	$19.99 per user	Unlimited	4 hours	Unlimited imports, 3 meetings at a time, 200 AI chat queries
Enterprise	Quote	Quote	Unlimited	4 hours	SSO, SCIM, domain capture, HIPAA add on, API and webhooks

Prices are as listed on otter.ai/pricing in October 2026. The full breakdown, with worked team examples, is on our Otter.ai pricing page.

The annual discount is the whole story. Pro drops 51% on annual billing, from $16.99 to $8.33. That makes Otter the cheapest annual seat among the major note takers (Fireflies Pro is $10, Krisp Core $8 with no free plan). On monthly billing Otter is mid pack.

Minutes still matter on Pro. 1,200 minutes is 20 hours a month, or about one hour a day across a working month. Someone on back to back calls will hit it. Business removes the cap for $19.99 a user annual.

Concurrent meetings are a hidden limit. Basic records one meeting at a time, Pro two and Business three. If you double book and want both captured, that limit decides your plan.

Education pricing. A .edu email gets 20% off Pro: $79.99 a year ($6.67 a month) or $13.59 monthly.

Key features

Live transcript and meeting agent

The agent joins scheduled calls on Zoom, Meet and Teams, shows a live transcript to you during the meeting and lets you highlight lines as they happen. After the call it writes a summary and action items. Free users get a 30 minute cut off per conversation, which ends the transcript partway through most real meetings.

Bot free desktop capture

The Mac and Windows desktop apps can capture meeting audio without sending a bot into the call. This answers the most common complaint about Otter's agent, that it shows up in meetings uninvited. Granola and Krisp are built entirely around this approach; with Otter it is an option you have to choose.

AI chat across meetings

Otter's chat answers questions about a meeting or across meetings. It is metered: 20 queries per user on Basic (3 per conversation), 50 on Pro and 200 on Business, according to the pricing table.

File imports

You can upload recorded audio or video. Basic allows 3 imports for the life of the account, Pro 10 a month and Business unlimited. If transcribing recorded interviews is your main job, Notta's 5 hour per file limit on paid plans is the stronger fit.

Custom vocabulary

Basic allows 5 custom terms. Pro allows 100 names and 100 terms per user plus the same at team level, and Business 200 per user and 800 at team level. This is how you teach it product names and people's names.

Integrations

Salesforce, HubSpot and Zapier start on Pro. The Otter API and webhooks are Enterprise only, which is a gap for teams that want to pipe transcripts into their own systems on a mid tier plan; tl;dv and Granola both offer an API on their first paid tier.

Languages

Six transcription languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese. This is the narrowest list among the major note takers. Fireflies lists 100+ and Granola 31 on desktop.

What users say

Otter has the largest review footprint in the category: 4.4 on G2 from 505 reviews, 4.8 on the App Store from 85,529 ratings and 4.2 on Trustpilot from 767 reviews, as listed in October 2026.

On Trustpilot, the praise centers on time saved by automatic transcripts and summaries, a simple interface, and support staff who resolve account and billing problems quickly. The complaints are about billing more than the product: charges people did not expect after a trial or at renewal, plan limits that only show up after upgrading, and a card requirement for trials. A smaller group reports recording glitches, such as recordings that kept running after a call ended.

The pattern is worth acting on. Set a calendar reminder before any renewal date, and check the plan table above before you upgrade so the minute and conversation caps do not surprise you.

Privacy and security

This section matters more for Otter than for any other note taker right now.

The class action. On August 15, 2025, Justin Brewer filed a class action against Otter.ai in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Related suits were consolidated as In re Otter.AI Privacy Litigation, case 5:25-cv-06911, before Judge Eumi K. Lee. The complaints center on Otter's notetaker recording meeting participants who had not agreed to it. Judge Lee heard Otter's motion to dismiss on August 3, 2026 and, in an order dated August 13, 2026, granted it in part. That means some claims were dismissed and others are allowed to continue. Otter filed its answer to the amended complaint on September 17, 2026. These are allegations; no court has found Otter liable, and the case is ongoing.

What it means for you. The practical risk is consent. If Otter's agent auto joins your calls, people outside your company may be recorded without having agreed to it. Turn auto join off for external meetings, announce the recording, and check your state's consent rules; some states require every party to agree to a recording, not just one.

Compliance features. SSO, SCIM and domain capture are Enterprise only, and HIPAA is an Enterprise add on. There is no HIPAA path on the self serve plans, where Fathom lists a signed BAA and Read AI offers HIPAA on Enterprise+.

Who it is for

• Students and educators who want a live transcript of lectures; the .edu discount brings Pro to $6.67 a month.
• English speaking teams on a budget willing to pay annually for $8.33 a seat.
• Journalists and researchers who record in person on a phone and want strong search across years of conversations.

Who should skip it

• Anyone who wants a free plan they can live on. Fathom records and transcribes every meeting for $0. See the free AI note taker guide.
• Multilingual teams. Six languages is not enough; Fireflies lists 100+.
• People who dislike meeting bots. Granola never joins the call on any plan.
• Regulated industries that need HIPAA without an enterprise contract.
• Legal or risk teams uneasy about the pending class action, at least until the case resolves.

Alternatives

• Fathom: unlimited free recordings, 5.0 on G2 from 7,085 reviews. Compare in Otter vs Fathom.
• Fireflies.ai: $10 a seat annual, 100+ languages, no minute cap on Pro. See Otter vs Fireflies.
• Granola: bot free notes on any app. See Granola vs Otter.
• Read AI: meetings, email and chat in one assistant. See Otter vs Read AI.
• The full list is in Otter.ai alternatives.

Verdict

Otter is still the best live transcript you can buy and, on annual billing, one of the cheapest paid seats at $8.33. Those two facts keep it in the conversation. Everything else points elsewhere: the free plan stops each conversation at 30 minutes, Pro meters minutes, it handles six languages, and the most serious privacy lawsuit in the category is moving forward. Buy Pro annually if you are an English speaking student or solo user who values the live transcript. Teams should start with Fathom or Fireflies and see how their free plans hold up first.