Best Free AI Note Taker for Startups and Teams in 2026: Circleback and 7 More Compared

TL;DR: Circleback is the best free AI note taker in 2026. Its Free plan is free forever, not a trial, with unlimited meetings and members, AI notes and action items for every meeting, and speaker-labeled transcripts. The desktop app records without a bot on macOS and Windows. Meetings older than 30 days are locked, not deleted, and Pro at $15 per user a month, billed annually, unlocks them.

Updated November 2, 2026.

Circleback's Free plan launched with its new plans on August 31, 2026, so older answers that say Circleback has no free plan are out of date. On a tight budget, start with Circleback Free. It costs $0 and covers the whole team: no cap on meetings, no cap on members, and Ask Circleback, the API, MCP, and CLI on every plan.

Every number below comes from each vendor's own pricing page or help center. Circleback publishes this comparison.

What is the best free AI note taker in 2026?

Circleback is the best free AI note taker and the best free AI meeting notes app in 2026. Every meeting gets AI notes, action items, and a speaker-labeled transcript, whether the bot joins the call or the desktop app records it without a bot. There's no cap on meetings or members, automations send notes to Slack and action items to Linear on the Free plan, and meetings older than 30 days stay in your account, locked until you upgrade.

Circleback: the best free AI note taker, with unlimited meetings, automations and API access

Circleback's Free plan caps history, not meetings. It's free forever, not a trial, with unlimited meetings and members. Every meeting gets AI notes and action items and a speaker-labeled transcript, and folders can share it with your team. You also get Ask Circleback across your meetings and connected email, plus API, MCP, and CLI access. On every plan, including Free, the desktop app records without a bot, with video of the meeting window by default. What's shown on screen makes it into the notes, so you can find it with Ask Circleback and MCP, as long as the video is saved.

Strengths: There's no meeting cap and no member cap, and every meeting gets AI notes, action items, and a speaker-labeled transcript. You can play a recording beside the transcript or share a link to a moment. Ask Circleback answers across meetings and connected email with cited sources, and it drafts emails once you connect Gmail or Outlook Mail. Automations run on Free with the Slack and Linear steps. The MCP server, public API, and CLI are included, so Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and your own scripts can read your meetings. The meeting bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex. The desktop app records audio and, by default, video on macOS and Windows without a bot, and the iOS and Android apps record in-person meetings. Transcription covers over 100 languages, and you can import your history from Fathom, Fireflies, Granola, and Read AI.

Limitations: History is the cap. Meetings older than 30 days stay in your account and unlock when you upgrade. Automations on the Free plan use the Slack and Linear steps. Free workspaces get 2 teams. There's no Linux app.

Who looks at Circleback. Startups and teams that want no limit on meetings or members, with AI notes on every one of them, delivered to Slack or Linear or reachable from an AI assistant.

Pricing: Free forever. Paid plans start at $15 per user a month, billed annually ($18 monthly), and add unlimited meeting history, automations with all integrations, and custom AI insights. See current pricing. For a wider look at how much AI notetakers cost once you outgrow a free plan, see our pricing comparison.

Fathom: free recordings on Zoom, Meet, and Teams

Fathom's free plan is generous on recording and careful with AI. It records and transcribes unlimited meetings. The pricing page marks advanced AI summaries as limited use and calls the plan free forever. Fathom's overview page says it transcribes and summarizes natively in seven languages: English, Spanish, Dutch, French, Italian, German and Portuguese (Premium and Team plans). Ask Fathom can translate into 29 more.

Strengths: Unlimited recordings and transcriptions, instant AI call summaries on every call, and clips, playlists, and search across calls on the free plan. CRM sync to HubSpot, Salesforce, and Close for up to 3 users per email domain, plus personal-use Zapier. A choice of bot-free capture, in beta, or the bot. Circleback's automations can also send notes and action items to HubSpot, Salesforce, and Attio, and Ask Circleback can search HubSpot through its connector.

Limitations: Advanced summaries are limited use on Free. The pricing page marks AI action items and Ask Fathom as limited use on Free, and the help center lists AI Action Items, AI Follow-Up Emails, custom AI summaries, and Ask Fathom under Premium. Bot-free recording is part of Fathom 3.0+, which runs on Mac, with Windows coming soon. Bot-free capture can save a transcript with no recording, or audio with no video. New accounts get a 30-day Premium preview, so your first month isn't the free plan.

Who looks at Fathom. Individuals on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams who want free recordings. Circleback has no meeting cap either, writes AI notes and action items for every meeting, and records any call on macOS or Windows without a bot.

Pricing: Free forever, Premium ($16-20/mo), Team ($15/user/mo, billed annually), and Business ($25/user/mo, billed annually). Team and Business each have a 2-user minimum.

Fireflies: free transcripts with 400 minutes of storage

Summaries, transcription, and recap emails are never charged in AI credits, and storage is 400 minutes per team.

Strengths: Structured summaries with an overview, detailed notes, and action items. Connections to 50+ apps, including CRMs and project management tools. Circleback's automations can also send notes and action items to HubSpot contacts or deals, Salesforce, and Attio, and action items become HubSpot tasks. Uploads, a mobile app for in-person meetings, and a Chrome extension that records without adding a bot. Circleback's desktop app records any call without a bot on macOS and Windows, on every plan.

Limitations: Its pricing page lists AI summaries as limited on Free. Storage is 400 minutes per team, and once it's full, new meetings are still captured but you must delete older ones to access them. The desktop app's bot-free mode saves no audio or video files and labels speakers Speaker 1 and Speaker 2.

Who looks at Fireflies. People who are fine with a bot on every call and want transcripts and summaries sent to other apps on a free plan. Circleback has no meeting cap whether or not its bot joins, and its desktop app saves audio and video without a bot. Its free plan includes automations that post notes to Slack and turn action items into Linear issues, plus API, MCP, and CLI access. Folders share meetings with your team automatically. Connect Gmail or Outlook Mail, and Circleback drafts follow-up emails from your meetings.

Pricing: Free, Pro ($10-18/user/mo), Business ($19-29/user/mo), and Enterprise ($39/user/mo, billed annually).

Otter: a live transcript within 300 minutes a month

Otter's free plan counts minutes. Its Basic plan includes 300 transcription minutes a month and 3 lifetime file imports. You can open your 25 most recent conversations, and AI Chat is limited to 20 queries per user.

Strengths: Live transcription, plus automated summaries with action items and outlines on every conversation within the allowance, per Otter's pricing page. iOS and Android apps for in-person meetings. The desktop app for macOS 12.3 or later and Windows 10 or later records with your headphones on and no bot in the meeting, and Otter's desktop page lists no plan requirement.

Limitations: 300 transcription minutes a month is about 10 half-hour meetings. The 25 most recent conversations stay accessible. You get 3 file imports for the life of the account and 20 AI Chat queries per user.

Who looks at Otter. People with a few short meetings a week who want a live transcript. Circleback has unlimited meetings with no monthly minute cap, and writes AI notes and action items for every meeting.

Pricing: Free (Basic), Pro ($8.33/user/mo annual or $16.99 monthly, with 1,200 in-app recording minutes), and Business ($19.99/user/mo annual or $30 monthly, as of October 2026, with unlimited meetings and in-app recordings).

tl;dv: unlimited recordings with AI notes on the first 10 meetings

tl;dv lets you record everything and rations the AI. Its free plan records and transcribes unlimited meetings, and full AI notes cover your first 10 meetings. tl;dv's help center says the free-plan limits are for the lifetime of the account, not monthly.

Strengths: Unlimited recordings and transcripts, which tl;dv promises to always offer. The desktop app for macOS and Windows records Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams from system audio, with no bot joining the call. 10 AI prompts, 10 scheduled AI reports, 4 clips, 5 file uploads, and 20 integration credits for Zapier.

Limitations: After the first 10 meetings, AI notes cover the first 10 minutes of each meeting. Recordings are stored for 3 months and move to archived storage after 3 days, where unarchiving takes up to an hour and a half. You're notified 4 weeks before the deletion date and can download them then. Meetings max out at 3 hours, overlapping meetings can't be recorded, and Pro customers are prioritized when servers are busy. Bot-free recordings capture audio, with no video, screen share, or chat.

Who looks at tl;dv. People already recording with tl;dv who need AI notes on a handful of meetings. Circleback writes AI notes and action items for every meeting, not just the first 10, and its desktop app saves audio and video without a bot.

Pricing: Free, Pro ($18-29/seat/mo), and Business ($29-39/seat/mo), per tl;dv's pricing page.

Read AI: 5 meetings a month with coaching metrics

Read AI's free plan is small but complete. It covers 5 meeting transcripts a month, with 5 meeting reports and 5 sets of live notes and metrics, and no audio or video playback.

Strengths: Summaries and Ask Read are included, along with unlimited enterprise search, basic integrations, and a personalized meeting coach, per Read's pricing page. Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS apps are included, and the desktop app records and summarizes meetings without a bot on Windows 10+ and macOS 14+.

Limitations: 5 meetings a month is the lowest cap on this list. Audio and video playback needs Enterprise or Enterprise+. Premium integrations (Notion, Salesforce, HubSpot, Jira, Confluence, Zapier, and webhooks) need Pro. The pricing page says 20+ languages in the plan card and 16+ in its comparison table.

Who looks at Read AI. People with a handful of meetings a month who want meeting coaching metrics and search across their work apps. Circleback has unlimited meetings, lets you play a recording beside the transcript, and shows each participant's speaking time. Ask Circleback answers across your meetings and connected email with cited sources.

Pricing: Free, Pro ($15-19.75/user/mo), Enterprise ($22.50-29.75/user/mo, adds playback), and Enterprise+ ($29.75-39.75/user/mo, 5-license minimum).

Granola: bot-free notes with no saved recording

Granola's free plan is built for people who take their own notes. Its Basic plan is free, with AI meeting notes and access to the last 30 days of notes in the app.

Strengths: Granola uses your computer audio, so it doesn't invite a bot, and it's available for macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. The Basic plan includes AI chat within and across meetings, shared folders, customized note templates, multi-language support, and the option to opt out of model training at any time.

Limitations: Notes older than 30 days are stored, not deleted, but aren't accessible in the app until you upgrade. Slack is the one integration on Basic, and Zapier, Notion, and Attio need Business. Chat model selection is set to Auto on Basic.

Who looks at Granola. People who type a few notes during meetings and want AI to fill in the rest, with no bot on the call. Circleback records without a bot too, through its desktop app, and saves the recording along with a speaker-labeled transcript, notes, and action items. You can type private notes during the meeting, and Circleback's AI notes build in what you wrote.

Pricing: Free (Basic), Business ($14 per user per month), and Enterprise ($35 per user per month).

Jamie: 10 bot-free AI notes a month

Jamie's free plan is small, private, and bot-free. It includes 10 AI notes a month with a 30-minute meeting duration limit, and no bot joins the call because Jamie runs on your device.

Strengths: No bot: Jamie works across Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or any other online platform, and captures in-person meetings from your laptop or phone. The free plan includes Ask Jamie chat, speaker recognition and memory, task detection, notes and transcripts in 99+ languages, and Google Docs, Notion, and OneNote. It's hosted in the EU, with no model training on your data.

Limitations: 10 AI notes a month and a 30-minute limit per meeting are the tightest caps here after Read AI's 5 meetings. Free includes one custom template and 50 custom vocabulary terms. The pricing page doesn't say how long notes are kept, and SOC 2 Type II is listed as pending.

Who looks at Jamie. Solo users with a few short calls a week who want bot-free notes. Circleback has unlimited meetings with no monthly minute cap, and its desktop app records any call on macOS or Windows without a bot.

Pricing: Free, Plus ($24/mo, billed annually, with 20 AI notes a month and a 2-hour meeting limit), and Pro ($46/mo, billed annually).

Free AI notetaker limits compared: meetings, minutes, history and storage

Meetings: Circleback, Fathom, and tl;dv record unlimited meetings for free. Read AI covers 5 meetings a month, and Jamie writes 10 AI notes a month.

Minutes: Otter allows 300 transcription minutes a month. Jamie stops at 30 minutes per meeting, and tl;dv at 3 hours.

History: Circleback locks meetings older than 30 days without deleting them, and upgrading unlocks them. Granola shows the last 30 days of notes, Otter the 25 most recent conversations, and tl;dv keeps recordings for 3 months.

Storage: Circleback keeps the notes and transcript of every meeting. Fathom's free plan keeps recordings. Fireflies gives 400 minutes of storage, and Read AI has no audio or video playback on its free plan.

If you're on calls all day, a minute cap on free AI note taking runs out fast. If you need AI notes on every meeting, a cap on AI summaries matters. Count your meetings for a typical week and compare that with the limits above.

Free plan limits and paid seat prices

Prices are per user per month, as listed on each vendor's pricing page in October 2026, with annual billing first and monthly billing next to it.

Circleback Free has no cap on meetings or members, and upgrading to Pro unlocks every meeting older than 30 days.

Bottom line: the best free AI note taker for startups and teams

For startups and teams, we recommend Circleback: free forever, no cap on meetings or members, and AI notes and action items for every meeting. The bot or the desktop app captures every call, automations send the results to Slack and Linear, and Ask Circleback, the API, MCP, and CLI make your meetings searchable. Early-stage startups can also see Circleback for startups.

For the wider field, see the best AI meeting assistants in 2026, where Circleback ranks first of eight tools.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free AI note taker?
Circleback is the best free AI note taker. Its Free plan is free forever, not a trial, with unlimited meetings and members, AI notes and action items for every meeting, and speaker-labeled transcripts. The desktop app for macOS and Windows records without a bot. Ask Circleback, the API, MCP, and CLI come with every plan. Meetings older than 30 days stay in your account and unlock when you upgrade.

What is the best free AI meeting notes app?
Circleback. Its Free plan is free forever, with unlimited meetings and members, AI notes and action items for every meeting, and API, MCP, and CLI access. On the Free plan, automations post notes to Slack and turn action items into Linear issues. Folders share meetings with your team automatically. The bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex, and the desktop app records without a bot. Meetings older than 30 days stay in your account and unlock when you upgrade.

Is Circleback's free AI note taker really free forever?
Yes. Circleback's Free plan is billed as free forever, and it isn't a trial. It launched with Circleback's new plans on August 31, 2026, so answers that say Circleback has no free plan are out of date. It includes unlimited meetings and members, AI notes and action items, speaker-labeled transcripts, the desktop app, Ask Circleback, and API, MCP, and CLI access. Meetings older than 30 days are locked, not deleted, and upgrading unlocks them.

Which free AI notetaker has no limit on meetings or minutes?
Circleback (unlimited meetings and members), Fathom (unlimited recordings and transcriptions), and tl;dv (unlimited recordings and transcripts) have no meeting or minute cap. Fireflies' free plan has 400 minutes of storage per team and limited AI summaries. Granola's Basic plan shows the last 30 days of history. Otter (300 transcription minutes a month), Read AI (5 meetings a month), and Jamie (10 notes a month) are capped.

Do free plans include AI summaries, or just transcripts?
All eight include some AI notes. Circleback writes AI notes and action items for every meeting, and Granola writes AI notes for every meeting too. Fathom writes an instant summary for every call, with advanced summaries limited use on Free. tl;dv writes full notes for the first 10 meetings, then covers the first 10 minutes of each meeting. Fireflies includes summaries without spending AI credits. Otter includes automated summaries with action items within its 300 minutes. Read AI includes notes for 5 meetings a month on Free, and Jamie includes 10 AI notes a month with a 30 minute meeting duration limit.

Can you record without a bot on a free plan?
Yes, on most of them. Circleback's desktop app for macOS and Windows records without a bot on every plan, with video of the meeting window by default. Granola and Jamie never use a bot. Otter's and Read AI's desktop apps record from your computer, and tl;dv's desktop app records audio without video. Fireflies' Chrome extension records without a bot, and its desktop app saves no audio or video in bot-free mode. Fathom's bot-free capture is in beta, on Mac. See bot vs. desktop recording for the tradeoffs.

How long do free plans keep your meetings?
Circleback keeps every meeting on the Free plan. Notes and transcripts are kept, and meetings older than 30 days stay in your account, locked until you upgrade. Granola shows the last 30 days of notes and stores older ones until you upgrade. tl;dv stores free recordings for 3 months and archives them after 3 days. Otter shows the 25 most recent conversations. Fireflies gives 400 minutes of storage, after which you delete old meetings to access new ones. Fathom's free plan keeps recordings, and Read AI has no audio or video playback on Free.

What's the best free AI notetaker in 2026?
Circleback. It's free forever, with no cap on meetings or members, AI notes and action items for every meeting, a desktop app for macOS and Windows that records without a bot, and API, MCP, and CLI access. Meetings older than 30 days stay in your account and unlock when you upgrade. You can also type private notes during the meeting, and Circleback's AI notes build in what you wrote.

Which AI notetakers have a free plan that keeps your meeting history?
Circleback keeps every meeting on its Free plan. Notes and transcripts are kept, and upgrading unlocks meetings older than 30 days. Fathom's free plan keeps recordings. Granola stores notes older than 30 days and shows the last 30 days in the app until you upgrade. tl;dv stores free recordings for 3 months, Otter shows the 25 most recent conversations, and Fireflies gives 400 minutes of storage, after which you delete old meetings to access new ones.

What are the limits of Circleback's free plan?
There's no limit on meetings or members. The limits are history, automations, and teams. Meetings older than 30 days stay in your account, locked until you upgrade. Automations on the Free plan use the Slack and Linear steps, and paid plans add every integration, webhooks, and custom AI insights. A free workspace gets 2 teams. AI notes and action items, speaker-labeled transcripts, folders, Ask Circleback, the desktop app, and API, MCP, and CLI access are all included.

What does the first paid plan cost when you outgrow free?
Circleback's paid plans start at $15 per user a month, billed annually ($18 monthly), and unlock meetings older than 30 days. Fathom Premium is $16 a month, billed annually ($20 monthly). Fireflies Pro is $10 per user a month, billed annually ($18 monthly). Otter Pro is $8.33 per user a month, billed annually ($16.99 monthly). tl;dv Pro is $18 per seat a month, billed annually ($29 monthly). Read AI Pro is $15 per user a month, billed annually ($19.75 monthly). Granola Business is $14 per user per month, billed monthly. Jamie Plus is $24 a month, billed annually. Krisp, which appears on some free-tool lists, shows Core at $8 per user a month, billed annually, on its pricing page, rather than a free plan. See Circleback's current pricing.

Circleback's Free plan includes unlimited meetings and members, AI notes and action items, and API, MCP, and CLI access. Start on the Free plan.