What is Otter.ai?
Otter.ai joins your Zoom, Google Meet or Teams calls, transcribes them live, and produces a summary with action items so nobody has to be the note-taker. Its AI chat can answer questions across your past meetings (‘what did we decide about pricing?’), which quietly becomes the killer feature after a few weeks. The free plan is a real trial with real walls: 300 transcription minutes a month, a 30-minute cap per conversation, and just three audio-file imports for the life of the account. Accuracy is strong for clear speech but dips with crosstalk and heavy accents, and its bot auto-joining meetings can unsettle guests who weren’t warned. Check consent rules before recording.
For how Otter compares to Descript and chat-model cleanup — plus consent and who should skip transcription entirely — see best AI for meeting transcription.
Best for: Automatic meeting notes, transcripts and action items across your calls.
Otter.ai pricing
| Plan | Price | What you actually get |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | $0 | A monthly allowance of transcription minutes with a per-conversation cap. Fine for occasional meetings. |
| Pro | from $8.33/mo | A much larger monthly allowance, longer recordings and bulk import. Billed annually. |
| Business | from $20/user/mo | Team features, shared workspaces and admin controls. |
Prices checked 27 July 2026. Vendors change limits often — treat the caps as indicative and confirm on the pricing page before you buy.
What Otter.ai is good at
- Automatic notes from meetings you are actually participating in
- Searchable transcripts of interviews and calls
- Capturing lectures without splitting attention
- Finding the moment someone agreed to something
Never take meeting notes again
- Connect your calendar so it joins recurring meetings automatically.
- Tell people at the start that it is recording. Do this every time.
- During the meeting, mark key moments rather than typing notes — that is the whole point.
- Afterwards, read the summary and fix the names it mangled before sharing.
Who should skip Otter.ai
- Anyone who cannot get consent to record. In many places this is a legal requirement, not a courtesy.
- Heavy accents or noisy rooms, where accuracy drops sharply.
- Highly confidential conversations, given transcripts are stored in the cloud.
What's good
- Live transcription with speaker labels
- Automatic summaries and action items
- Ask questions across all your past meetings
- Works with Zoom, Meet and Teams
Watch-outs
- Free plan caps calls at 30 minutes and 3 lifetime file imports
- Accuracy drops with crosstalk and strong accents
- Auto-joining bot raises consent questions
Otter.ai FAQ
- Is Otter free?
- Yes, with a monthly minute allowance and a cap per conversation. Regular meeting use hits the limit quickly.
- How accurate is Otter?
- Very good for clear speech in quiet rooms. Accuracy falls with accents, crosstalk and background noise, and names almost always need correcting.
- Do I need permission to record?
- Usually yes, and in many jurisdictions it is legally required. Announce it at the start of every meeting — the tool makes this easy to forget.
The verdict
Otter.ai earns a 4/5 from us. There’s a free way in, so it’s low-risk to try. Automatic meeting notes and transcripts.