Bluedot
vs
Granola

Bluedot vs Granola

A practical look at price, capture, notes, workflows, and what each product is actually good at.

The short answer

Which one fits better?

Best fit

Bluedot

Light, bot-free recording across desktop and mobile

Price

Free for 5 meetings lifetime; paid from $14/recorder/month annually

Pricing details

Prices are per recorder/month. Basic is $14 with annual billing or $18 month-to-month, but is audio-only and capped at one-hour meetings. Pro is $20 or $25 and adds video, unlimited duration, templates, and imports. Business is $32 or $39 with advanced workflows, CRM/ATS, SSO/SCIM, retention, webhooks, and organization MCP.

Free option: Yes, but only five meetings total—not five per month.

Good for

  • Bot-free capture
  • Simple recordings and clips

Watch for

  • Zoom extension has no speaker labels
  • No workspace-wide task tracker

Best fit

Granola

A calm personal notepad without saved recordings

Price

Free; Business $14/user/month; Enterprise from $35/user/month, billed monthly

Pricing details

Granola currently bills monthly rather than offering an annual discount. Basic is free but only the last 30 days of history remain accessible. Business adds unlimited history, advanced AI, integrations, MCP, API, billing, and user management. Enterprise adds SSO, retention, organization sharing/API controls, training defaults, and participant notifications. A workspace uses one tier and every active member of a paid workspace is a paid seat, although someone who only opens a shared note link does not need a seat.

Free option: Yes, with a rolling 30-day accessible history.

Good for

  • Writing notes as you meet
  • A polished final document

Watch for

  • Thin notes assume you attended
  • No auto-created, assigned action items

Side by side

The details that matter.

Ratings show documented breadth, not overall product quality. Open a row for specifics.

Capture options

BluedotBroad support
GranolaAvailable with limits

Bluedot

Bot-free browser and desktop capture, plus an optional Zoom bot

Bluedot usually captures meeting and system audio without joining a bot. Its newer desktop apps broaden support beyond browser-based Google Meet and Teams workflows, while an optional recorder bot is also documented for Zoom.

EvidenceBluedot product overviewBluedot Zoom recorder bot

Granola

Manual bot-free desktop, phone, and Apple Watch capture

Granola listens locally without a bot and combines typed notes with the transcript. It does not currently offer an “always automatically start every meeting” setting.

EvidenceGranola transcriptionGranola feature requests

Desktop and mobile

BluedotBroad support
GranolaBroad support

Bluedot

Browser, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, and Apple Watch

Device breadth is a standout, especially Apple Watch. Exact capture richness and speaker labeling depend on platform and mode.

EvidenceBluedot product overviewBluedot 2.1 release

Granola

macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, and Apple Watch

Desktop is the full experience. iOS and Android cover in-person conversations, and Apple Watch can start an in-person note with one tap and sync it to the phone and desktop apps. iPhone also supports outbound speakerphone calls but cannot capture another app’s audio; integrations and several workspace settings remain desktop-oriented.

EvidenceGranola iOSGranola Android launchGranola Apple Watch launchGranola transcription

In-person capture and speaker labels

BluedotBroad support
GranolaBroad support

Bluedot

Mobile, watch, and desktop room recording

Bluedot supports iOS, Android, Apple Watch, browser, and desktop capture for room conversations. The Watch records without an iPhone nearby, then syncs through the iPhone app. Bluedot’s speaker-recognition matrix documents desktop and browser meeting platforms, not mobile or Watch name-label parity, so verify those modes on a real group meeting.

EvidenceBluedot mobile appBluedot Apple Watch captureBluedot speaker recognition

Granola

Phone, Apple Watch, and laptop room capture

The iPhone app handles in-person conversations, identifies up to ten speakers, and can place outbound speakerphone calls. Android and Apple Watch also capture in-person meetings, though their launch pages do not promise the same speaker-label behavior. Desktop does not diarize individual voices: its transcript uses Me and Them for microphone versus system audio. iPhone cannot transcribe another calling app running on the same phone.

EvidenceGranola iOSGranola Android launchGranola Apple Watch launchGranola transcription

Recordings, playback, and clips

BluedotAvailable with limits
GranolaNot documented

Bluedot

Audio on Basic; video, clips, and unlimited duration on Pro+

The lowest paid plan is deliberately audio-only and limits meeting length. Video and longer calls require Pro, while clips and playback are otherwise polished.

EvidenceBluedot pricingBluedot recording download

Granola

No retained audio or video

Granola deliberately deletes audio after transcription. That is a privacy benefit for some teams and a hard limitation for anyone who needs playback, evidence, clips, or coaching review.

EvidenceGranola transcription

Notes, action items, and search

BluedotBroad support
GranolaBroad support

Bluedot

AI notes, templates, action items, chat, and workspace memory

Notes and meeting chat are easy to use. Templates can extract action items, responsible people, and timelines. Bluedot does not document an all-meetings workspace task center with assignment and completion state, so serious follow-through usually moves into another system.

EvidenceBluedot product overviewBluedot 2.1 releaseBluedot custom note templates

Granola

Concise attendee notes, extracted actions, and cross-meeting chat

Human notes influence the generated document, and paid plans support broad chat across meetings, folders, people, and companies. Our editorial judgment is that the output is polished but thin and assumes the reader attended, rather than documenting enough context to stand alone. Granola can extract owner- and deadline-aware action-item text with transcript citations, but it does not create and assign native tasks to users. Those actions remain note content rather than a workspace task system, and there is still no source recording for playback.

EvidenceGranola transcriptionGranola spaces and foldersGranola action-item extraction

People, companies, and context

BluedotAvailable with limits
GranolaAvailable with limits

Bluedot

Workspace meeting memory, without broader email relationship context

Bluedot can search and chat across meetings, but it does not emphasize a combined email/calendar/person/company history as a primary product surface.

EvidenceBluedot product overview

Granola

People and company pages built from calendar contacts

Granola groups meetings around people and companies, with chat across those groups. Directory entries are inferred from calendar data and cannot be manually added, so imperfect associations can happen.

EvidenceGranola workspacesGranola spaces and folders

Automatic sharing and workspace defaults

BluedotAvailable with limits
GranolaNarrow or indirect

Bluedot

Attendee auto-share and workspace permissions

Individuals can automatically share recordings and notes with meeting participants. Workspace admins can restrict external sharing and enforce recording defaults, while conditional auto-sorting remains a user-level setting rather than a workspace-wide sharing policy.

EvidenceBluedot automatic sharingBluedot workspace settings

Granola

Private by default; sharing starts with a note or folder

Notes are not auto-shared with attendees. A user shares a note or adds it to a team-space folder; recurring meetings can auto-add to a folder and new folder notes can auto-post to connected tools. Enterprise can enforce how links work across the workspace, but it still does not provide conditional rules that automatically distribute each matching meeting to the right internal people or teams.

EvidenceGranola workspacesGranola spaces and foldersGranola sharing controlsGranola note sharing

Automations

BluedotAvailable with limits
GranolaNarrow or indirect

Bluedot

Advanced workflows and task-capable webhooks on Business

Bluedot supports automated recording and post-meeting workflows. Webhooks can send summaries and transcripts to custom endpoints that create tasks in Asana, Trello, or Jira, although that downstream mapping is something the customer builds. Its deepest CRM/ATS and team-wide workflow features are reserved for Business.

EvidenceBluedot pricingBluedot 2.1 releaseBluedot webhooksBluedot custom note templates

Granola

Folder and manual Zapier triggers; less of a native workflow canvas

Paid users can trigger Zapier when a note is added to a chosen folder or manually shared, then create tasks in Linear, Asana, Trello, Monday, and thousands of other apps. This is useful, but there is no automatic every-meeting trigger in the documented integration and Granola does not center conditional custom extraction and multi-action workflows in the product itself.

EvidenceGranola integrationsGranola spaces and foldersGranola Zapier

Integrations

BluedotAvailable with limits
GranolaAvailable with limits

Bluedot

Core collaboration tools; CRM and ATS on Business

The catalog covers common destinations but is smaller than platforms advertising hundreds or thousands of connections. CRM/ATS access is a top-plan feature.

EvidenceBluedot pricing

Granola

Notion, Slack, Attio, HubSpot, Affinity, Zapier, API, and MCP

The catalog is now credible, particularly on Business. Zapier can turn folder notes into tasks across 8,000+ apps, while the native catalog remains smaller and more destination-oriented than systems with broad action libraries.

EvidenceGranola integrationsGranola Zapier

API, MCP, CLI, and data portability

BluedotAvailable with limits
GranolaAvailable with limits

Bluedot

Personal MCP; organization MCP and webhooks on Business

Personal MCP and user-level webhooks are available below Business; organization-wide MCP and team webhooks require Business. MCP follows the meetings the authenticated Bluedot user can already access, while team webhooks can receive events for every workspace user after support enables them. Users can also export transcripts as PDF or TXT and recordings as WebM.

EvidenceBluedot MCP with ClaudeBluedot webhooksBluedot transcript exportBluedot recording download

Granola

MCP and API on Business+; material export and scope limits

Personal API keys are beta on Business/Enterprise and can return transcripts for notes the key owner may access; Enterprise organization keys can cover Team-space notes. MCP also has a transcript tool, but uses OAuth, has no service-account key, and cannot directly access Team-space folders. Bulk CSV export excludes transcripts and admins cannot export every member’s notes, so programmatic access exists but workspace portability is not complete.

EvidenceGranola MCPGranola APIGranola data export

Security, privacy, and admin

BluedotAvailable with limits
GranolaAvailable with limits

Bluedot

Retention, SSO/SCIM, and advanced administration on Business

Business adds SSO/SAML, SCIM, configurable retention, and EU residency. Bluedot says customer data is not used to train models and AI providers retain nothing after generation. Its pricing and cancellation help pages currently disagree on whether canceled recordings are deleted after one or three months.

EvidenceBluedot workspace settingsBluedot cancellation policyBluedot pricingBluedot security

Granola

User management on Business; retention and organization controls on Enterprise

SSO, retention, enforced sharing/API controls, participant notification, and organization training defaults require Enterprise; Granola documents SSO for organizations with at least 50 seats. There is no native password or MFA system—authentication delegates to Google, Microsoft, or Enterprise SSO. Notes and transcripts persist indefinitely unless deleted or covered by Enterprise retention, and admins do not get a one-click workspace export.

EvidenceGranola pricingGranola subscriptions and billingGranola security and data FAQ

Languages

BluedotBroad support
GranolaAvailable with limits

Bluedot

100+ languages advertised

Bluedot advertises broad language support. As with every vendor, evaluate real calls with accents, crosstalk, and domain vocabulary rather than relying on the count alone.

EvidenceBluedot pricing

Granola

Multilingual transcription

Granola supports multiple languages, but it does not publish the same 100+ headline count as several rivals. Test switching, accents, and domain vocabulary on real calls.

EvidenceGranola transcription

Worth a look

Circleback

If neither Bluedot nor Granola quite fits, Circleback covers a different job: capturing online and in-person meetings and sharing them by rule. It is built for people and AI agents, with the same full meeting data available through its API, MCP, and CLI.

Every meeting

Bot, botless desktop app, iPhone, Android, or Apple Watch. Speaker labels every time; recording optional.

Shared company memory

Detailed notes, automatic sharing, and people and company context across every team.

People and AI agents

Assigned actions and automations for people; the same full meeting data for agents through API, MCP, and CLI.

Sources

First-party pricing, product docs, help articles, and release notes.

Bluedot sources16 first-party references
Granola sources18 first-party references
  • Granola pricing

    Basic, Business, and Enterprise prices and feature gates.

  • Granola subscriptions and billing

    30-day free history, workspace privacy, plan uniformity, and removal behavior.

  • Granola integrations

    Notion, Slack, CRM, Zapier, MCP, and API integrations.

  • Granola Zapier

    Paid-plan manual and folder triggers, note payload, workspace sharing, and task handoff across Zapier destinations.

  • Granola action-item extraction

    Automatic extraction of source-linked commitments, owners, and due dates from the transcript and human notes.

  • Granola workspaces

    Private-by-default notes and team-space collaboration behavior.

  • Granola sharing controls

    Personal link defaults and Enterprise-enforced workspace link restrictions.

  • Granola note sharing

    No attendee auto-sharing, note and integration sharing, and limited transcript visibility on public note links.

  • Granola spaces and folders

    Shared folders, recurring-meeting auto-add, and automatic posting to connected tools.

  • Granola feature requests

    Current product-request status, including automatic meeting start.

  • Granola iOS

    In-person/outbound calls and mobile limitations.

  • Granola Android launch

    Android in-person capture and cross-device note access.

  • Granola Apple Watch launch

    One-tap in-person capture, reminders, syncing, availability, and watchOS requirement.

  • Granola transcription

    Desktop “Me/Them” behavior, iPhone diarization, transcript copying, segment deletion, and lack of prerecorded-file support.

  • Granola data export

    Individual and bulk exports, CSV transcript omission, and the absence of workspace-wide admin export.

  • Granola MCP

    OAuth access, plan gates, transcript tool, 30-day Basic history, and Team-space folder limitation.

  • Granola API

    Personal beta keys, Enterprise keys, permitted-note scope, transcripts, and meeting data.

  • Granola security and data FAQ

    Model-improvement defaults, individual opt-out, and Enterprise organization-wide enforcement.

Questions people usually ask

Which is better: Bluedot or Granola?

Both feel light and bot-free. Bluedot keeps recordings and works across more devices; Granola is a writing-first notepad that deletes source audio after transcription.

Which is less expensive, Bluedot or Granola?

Bluedot: Free for 5 meetings lifetime; paid from $14/recorder/month annually. Granola: Free; Business $14/user/month; Enterprise from $35/user/month, billed monthly. Compare the paid seats, included usage, recording access, and admin features you actually need.

Can Bluedot and Granola record without a bot?

Bluedot: Bot-free browser and desktop capture, plus an optional Zoom bot. Granola: Manual bot-free desktop, phone, and Apple Watch capture. The useful check is whether your required capture mode keeps video, a recording, and speaker names.

Which is better for a whole company?

First ask who gets each note automatically; otherwise useful context stays with the recorder. Then compare permissions, retention, and enforced defaults. Bluedot: Attendee auto-share and workspace permissions. Granola: Private by default; sharing starts with a note or folder.

Can I access and move the full meeting data?

Bluedot: Personal MCP; organization MCP and webhooks on Business. Granola: MCP and API on Business+; material export and scope limits. Check the selected plan, authentication model, transcript scope, export format, and retention window for the workflow you need.

How was this comparison researched?

We use first-party pricing pages, product pages, help docs, and release notes for both products. The sources are linked below.