# Bluedot vs Granola: pricing, features, and which is better > Bluedot and Granola compared across pricing, capture, speaker labels, recordings, notes, sharing, automations, integrations, AI-agent access, and administration. - Canonical HTML: https://circleback.ai/compare/bluedot-vs-granola - Structured JSON: https://circleback.ai/compare/bluedot-vs-granola.json - Comparison directory: https://circleback.ai/compare - Language: en-US - Editorial perspective: Neutral competitor comparison. Circleback appears only as a clearly labeled third option. ## Short answer 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. The useful buying test is to run both products on the same external call, internal planning session, and noisy in-person meeting. Compare the result, the sharing defaults, and the work that still has to happen by hand. ## Bluedot at a glance Bluedot has grown from a browser recorder into a credible multi-device meeting memory with desktop apps, mobile, Apple Watch, MCP, clips, workspace chat, and automated recording. Plan gates and capture-mode speaker limits deserve a close read. **Best for:** Teams that strongly prefer bot-free capture, want a clean recorder across desktop and mobile, and value simple notes, clips, and workspace chat. **Less ideal for:** Teams needing a generous free tier, inexpensive video, deep CRM/admin capabilities below the top plan, or a sophisticated native workflow builder. **Price:** Free for 5 meetings lifetime; paid from $14/recorder/month annually 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. ### Bluedot strengths - Bot-free browser and macOS/Windows desktop capture, plus iOS, Android, and Apple Watch. - A modern, low-friction interface with notes, clips, auto-recording, workspace chat, and MCP. - Only recorder seats are billed, which can make broad read access economical. - Customer meeting data is not used for model training; admins can set retention, SSO/SCIM, and EU residency, while users can export recordings and transcripts. ### Bluedot tradeoffs - The free plan is five meetings for the lifetime of the account, and Basic is audio-only with a one-hour limit. - CRM/ATS sync, organization MCP, webhooks, retention, and SSO/SCIM are gated to Business. - Speaker recognition varies by recording path; the browser extension does not identify speakers for Zoom. - Bluedot’s current pricing page says canceled recordings are deleted after one month, while its cancellation help article says three months; confirm the policy in writing if portability matters. - The integration and native automation catalog is smaller than older, broader platforms. - Action items can include owners and deadlines and webhooks can create external tasks, but Bluedot does not document a native workspace-wide action-item tracker. ### Choose Bluedot when - A visible bot is a deal-breaker and you want easy capture from almost any personal device. - Your workflow values a clean recording library, clips, and workspace chat more than deep workflow automation. - Paying only for recorders is more important than having a useful forever-free recorder tier. ## Granola at a glance Granola is intentionally calm: no meeting bot, no recording library, and a polished collaborative notepad. It now has Windows, iOS, Android, Apple Watch, integrations, an API, and MCP—so the old “Mac-only solo app” framing is wrong—but it remains a personal, document-first layer rather than an automatic company-wide meeting system. **Best for:** People and small teams who actively take lightweight notes during calls and want AI to expand them into polished documents without saving audio or video. **Less ideal for:** Companies that need recordings and clips, automatic capture, consistent named-speaker transcripts across every device, workspace-enforced sharing, bulk transcript export, service-account agent access, or operational automations across every function. **Price:** Free; Business $14/user/month; Enterprise from $35/user/month, billed monthly 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. ### Granola strengths - A calm bot-free experience that combines human notes with AI-generated structure. - No durable source recording: audio is processed for transcription and then deleted, which some privacy-sensitive teams prefer. - Windows, iOS, Android, Apple Watch, person/company pages, cross-meeting chat, integrations, API, and MCP make it much more capable than early reviews imply. - Granola can extract source-linked action-item text with owner and date labels, and paid users can route note output into task systems through Zapier. ### Granola tradeoffs - No replayable audio/video, timestamped moments, or clips after processing. - Android and Apple Watch now cover in-person capture, but their launch pages do not document the same multi-speaker labeling that Granola explicitly documents for iPhone. iPhone also cannot capture audio from another calling app; integrations and several settings remain desktop-oriented. - Automatic start for all meetings is still under consideration. Transcript segments can now be copied and redacted, which corrects an older product limitation. - Bulk CSV export omits transcripts, and admins cannot export the entire workspace; each person exports only their own notes. - MCP is OAuth-only, has no service-account/API-key path, and cannot directly access Team-space folders. Users must move a note to My Notes and share it explicitly, which changes its default visibility. - Free and Business accounts permit anonymized customer data to be used for Granola model improvements by default unless users opt out. An administrator-enforced organization-wide opt-out is an Enterprise feature. - Notes and transcripts are retained indefinitely by default. Configurable transcript retention is Enterprise-only; SSO is also Enterprise-only and documented for organizations with at least 50 seats. - Granola deliberately aims for a concise collaborative document. In our editorial judgment, the result is often too thin for a coworker who was not in the meeting and needs the notes to stand alone. - Granola can extract owner and date text into a note, but it does not automatically create and assign native action items to users. Actions remain note content unless a team builds a Zapier handoff; there is no workspace-wide task board with assignees, status, due dates, and completion tracking. ### Choose Granola when - You want a notepad first and do not want to retain source recordings. - Your users are on Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android, or Apple Watch and are happy to start notes themselves. - The quality and feel of the final note matters more than a large automation and media system. ## Feature comparison | What matters | Bluedot | Granola | | --- | --- | --- | | Capture options | Broad support — 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. | Available with limits — 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. | | Desktop and mobile | Broad support — 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. | Broad support — 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. | | In-person capture and speaker labels | Broad support — 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. | Broad support — 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. | | Recordings, playback, and clips | Available with limits — 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. | Not documented — 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. | | Notes, action items, and search | Broad support — 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. | Broad support — 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. | | People, companies, and context | Available with limits — 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. | Available with limits — 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. | | Automatic sharing and workspace defaults | Available with limits — 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. | Narrow or indirect — 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. | | Automations | Available with limits — 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. | Narrow or indirect — 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. | | Integrations | Available with limits — 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. | Available with limits — 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. | | API, MCP, CLI, and data portability | Available with limits — 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. | Available with limits — 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. | | Security, privacy, and admin | Available with limits — 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. | Available with limits — 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. | | Languages | Broad support — 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. | Available with limits — 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. | Ratings describe documented breadth rather than overall product quality: - **Broad support:** Broad native support across the product or relevant paid plans. - **Available with limits:** Documented support with meaningful scope, mode, or plan limits. - **Narrow or indirect:** Narrow, indirect, beta, or substantially plan-gated support. - **Not documented:** No current first-party documentation for a native option. ## Detailed analysis ### Capture options **Bluedot has broader documented support for capture options.** **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. Evidence: [Bluedot product overview](https://www.bluedothq.com/), [Bluedot Zoom recorder bot](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/10697005-how-to-invite-the-bluedot-recorder-to-a-zoom-meeting). **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. Evidence: [Granola transcription](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/taking-notes/transcription), [Granola feature requests](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/feature-requests). ### Desktop and mobile **Both products document broad support for desktop and mobile, with different scope and plan limits.** **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. Evidence: [Bluedot product overview](https://www.bluedothq.com/), [Bluedot 2.1 release](https://www.bluedothq.com/blog/bluedot-2-1). **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. Evidence: [Granola iOS](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/ios/getting-started), [Granola Android launch](https://www.granola.ai/blog/introducing-granola-for-android), [Granola Apple Watch launch](https://www.granola.ai/blog/granola-for-apple-watch), [Granola transcription](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/taking-notes/transcription). ### In-person capture and speaker labels **Both products document broad support for in-person capture and speaker labels, with different scope and plan limits.** **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. Evidence: [Bluedot mobile app](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/12878531-getting-started-with-the-bluedot-mobile-app), [Bluedot Apple Watch capture](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/15460054-how-to-record-meetings-on-your-apple-watch), [Bluedot speaker recognition](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/12731344-speaker-recognition-overview). **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. Evidence: [Granola iOS](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/ios/getting-started), [Granola Android launch](https://www.granola.ai/blog/introducing-granola-for-android), [Granola Apple Watch launch](https://www.granola.ai/blog/granola-for-apple-watch), [Granola transcription](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/taking-notes/transcription). ### Recordings, playback, and clips **Bluedot has broader documented support for recordings, playback, and clips.** **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. Evidence: [Bluedot pricing](https://www.bluedothq.com/pricing), [Bluedot recording download](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11402197-how-to-download-a-recording). **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. Evidence: [Granola transcription](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/taking-notes/transcription). ### Notes, action items, and search **Both products document broad support for notes, action items, and search, with different scope and plan limits.** **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. Evidence: [Bluedot product overview](https://www.bluedothq.com/), [Bluedot 2.1 release](https://www.bluedothq.com/blog/bluedot-2-1), [Bluedot custom note templates](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11393395-how-to-create-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. Evidence: [Granola transcription](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/taking-notes/transcription), [Granola spaces and folders](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/folders/spaces-and-folders), [Granola action-item extraction](https://www.granola.ai/blog/meeting-action-items-ai-extraction). ### People, companies, and context **Both products support people, companies, and context, with different scope and plan 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. Evidence: [Bluedot product overview](https://www.bluedothq.com/). **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. Evidence: [Granola workspaces](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/workspaces), [Granola spaces and folders](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/folders/spaces-and-folders). ### Automatic sharing and workspace defaults **Bluedot has broader documented support for automatic sharing and workspace defaults.** **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. Evidence: [Bluedot automatic sharing](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11403151-how-to-set-up-auto-sharing), [Bluedot workspace settings](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/15434559-workspace-settings-overview). **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. Evidence: [Granola workspaces](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/workspaces), [Granola spaces and folders](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/folders/spaces-and-folders), [Granola sharing controls](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/consent-security-privacy/sharing-controls), [Granola note sharing](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/sharing-notes). ### Automations **Bluedot has broader documented support for automations.** **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. Evidence: [Bluedot pricing](https://www.bluedothq.com/pricing), [Bluedot 2.1 release](https://www.bluedothq.com/blog/bluedot-2-1), [Bluedot webhooks](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11461975-how-to-set-up-webhooks-in-bluedot), [Bluedot custom note templates](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11393395-how-to-create-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. Evidence: [Granola integrations](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/integrations/integrations-with-granola), [Granola spaces and folders](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/folders/spaces-and-folders), [Granola Zapier](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/integrations/zapier). ### Integrations **Both products support integrations, with different scope and plan 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. Evidence: [Bluedot pricing](https://www.bluedothq.com/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. Evidence: [Granola integrations](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/integrations/integrations-with-granola), [Granola Zapier](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/integrations/zapier). ### API, MCP, CLI, and data portability **Both products support API, MCP, CLI, and data portability, with different scope and plan 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. Evidence: [Bluedot MCP with Claude](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/16188120-how-to-connect-bluedot-to-claude-using-mcp), [Bluedot webhooks](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11461975-how-to-set-up-webhooks-in-bluedot), [Bluedot transcript export](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/12497819-how-to-export-a-transcript-as-pdf-or-txt), [Bluedot recording download](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11402197-how-to-download-a-recording). **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. Evidence: [Granola MCP](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/integrations/mcp), [Granola API](https://docs.granola.ai/introduction), [Granola data export](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/exporting-notes). ### Security, privacy, and admin **Both products support security, privacy, and admin, with different scope and plan 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. Evidence: [Bluedot workspace settings](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/15434559-workspace-settings-overview), [Bluedot cancellation policy](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11383438-how-to-cancel-your-bluedot-subscription), [Bluedot pricing](https://www.bluedothq.com/pricing), [Bluedot security](https://www.bluedothq.com/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. Evidence: [Granola pricing](https://www.granola.ai/pricing), [Granola subscriptions and billing](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/managing-your-account/subscriptions-and-billing), [Granola security and data FAQ](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/consent-security-privacy/security-privacy-data-faqs). ### Languages **Bluedot has broader documented support for languages.** **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. Evidence: [Bluedot pricing](https://www.bluedothq.com/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. Evidence: [Granola transcription](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/taking-notes/transcription). ## A third option to consider: Circleback Circleback turns online meetings, in-person conversations, and imported calls into one shared company memory. Record with a bot, with the botless desktop app, from an iPhone or Android phone, or on Apple Watch. Every route produces the same speaker-labeled record, detailed notes designed to stand alone, and automatically assigned action items. Sharing rules and automations carry the useful parts into the teams and tools that need them. Circleback is built for people and AI agents: the complete meeting record available to a person is also available programmatically through its API, MCP, and CLI. Circleback can also search connected apps and take action in them. It is built for people and AI agents: the same complete meeting data available to a person is available programmatically to ChatGPT, Claude, other agents, and internal tools through the API, MCP, and CLI. Free; Pro from $15/user/month annually; Business from $25/user/month annually; Enterprise $35/user/month, billed annually. ## Frequently asked questions ### 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. ## Methodology Circleback reviews first-party pricing pages, product pages, help docs, and release notes. Prices and capabilities move, so check the linked sources when a detail is important to your decision. Every feature dimension links to the exact first-party documents used for that claim. Ratings describe documented breadth, not an overall score or winner. This page is a neutral competitor-to-competitor comparison. There are no paid placements or affiliate rankings. ## First-party sources ### Bluedot sources - [Bluedot pricing](https://www.bluedothq.com/pricing): Lifetime free limit, audio/video gates, meeting duration, recorder billing, Business workflows, and governance. - [Bluedot product overview](https://www.bluedothq.com/): Desktop, mobile, Watch, clips, meeting chat, and workspace memory. - [Bluedot 2.1 release](https://www.bluedothq.com/blog/bluedot-2-1): June 2026 additions including Watch, MCP, auto-recording, and retention. - [Bluedot speaker recognition](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/12731344-speaker-recognition-overview): Recognition differences across desktop, extension, Meet, Teams, and Zoom. - [Bluedot Zoom recorder bot](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/10697005-how-to-invite-the-bluedot-recorder-to-a-zoom-meeting): Optional Zoom-bot recording path alongside the bot-free capture modes. - [Bluedot automatic sharing](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11403151-how-to-set-up-auto-sharing): User-level automatic sharing of recordings and notes with meeting participants. - [Bluedot workspace settings](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/15434559-workspace-settings-overview): Admin controls for external sharing, downloads, consent, recording formats, and bot behavior. - [Bluedot mobile app](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/12878531-getting-started-with-the-bluedot-mobile-app): iOS and Android in-person capture, uploads, transcripts, notes, playback, and sharing. - [Bluedot Apple Watch capture](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/15460054-how-to-record-meetings-on-your-apple-watch): Independent Watch recording and the iPhone sync/upload path. - [Bluedot webhooks](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11461975-how-to-set-up-webhooks-in-bluedot): User-level payloads and Business/Enterprise team webhooks covering every workspace user. - [Bluedot custom note templates](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11393395-how-to-create-custom-note-templates): Custom AI output structures, including action items, responsibilities, and timelines. - [Bluedot MCP with Claude](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/16188120-how-to-connect-bluedot-to-claude-using-mcp): Authenticated MCP access to permitted transcripts and meeting metadata. - [Bluedot cancellation policy](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11383438-how-to-cancel-your-bluedot-subscription): Help-center deletion timing, which currently conflicts with the pricing-page statement. - [Bluedot security](https://www.bluedothq.com/security): No-training policy, AI-provider zero retention, SSO/SCIM, custom retention, EU residency, and deletion behavior. - [Bluedot transcript export](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/12497819-how-to-export-a-transcript-as-pdf-or-txt): Per-meeting transcript export in PDF and TXT. - [Bluedot recording download](https://help.bluedothq.com/en/articles/11402197-how-to-download-a-recording): WebM recording downloads and the workspace admin download restriction. ### Granola sources - [Granola pricing](https://www.granola.ai/pricing): Basic, Business, and Enterprise prices and feature gates. - [Granola subscriptions and billing](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/managing-your-account/subscriptions-and-billing): 30-day free history, workspace privacy, plan uniformity, and removal behavior. - [Granola integrations](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/integrations/integrations-with-granola): Notion, Slack, CRM, Zapier, MCP, and API integrations. - [Granola Zapier](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/integrations/zapier): Paid-plan manual and folder triggers, note payload, workspace sharing, and task handoff across Zapier destinations. - [Granola action-item extraction](https://www.granola.ai/blog/meeting-action-items-ai-extraction): Automatic extraction of source-linked commitments, owners, and due dates from the transcript and human notes. - [Granola workspaces](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/workspaces): Private-by-default notes and team-space collaboration behavior. - [Granola sharing controls](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/consent-security-privacy/sharing-controls): Personal link defaults and Enterprise-enforced workspace link restrictions. - [Granola note sharing](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/sharing-notes): No attendee auto-sharing, note and integration sharing, and limited transcript visibility on public note links. - [Granola spaces and folders](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/folders/spaces-and-folders): Shared folders, recurring-meeting auto-add, and automatic posting to connected tools. - [Granola feature requests](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/feature-requests): Current product-request status, including automatic meeting start. - [Granola iOS](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/ios/getting-started): In-person/outbound calls and mobile limitations. - [Granola Android launch](https://www.granola.ai/blog/introducing-granola-for-android): Android in-person capture and cross-device note access. - [Granola Apple Watch launch](https://www.granola.ai/blog/granola-for-apple-watch): One-tap in-person capture, reminders, syncing, availability, and watchOS requirement. - [Granola transcription](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/taking-notes/transcription): Desktop “Me/Them” behavior, iPhone diarization, transcript copying, segment deletion, and lack of prerecorded-file support. - [Granola data export](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/exporting-notes): Individual and bulk exports, CSV transcript omission, and the absence of workspace-wide admin export. - [Granola MCP](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/sharing/integrations/mcp): OAuth access, plan gates, transcript tool, 30-day Basic history, and Team-space folder limitation. - [Granola API](https://docs.granola.ai/introduction): Personal beta keys, Enterprise keys, permitted-note scope, transcripts, and meeting data. - [Granola security and data FAQ](https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/consent-security-privacy/security-privacy-data-faqs): Model-improvement defaults, individual opt-out, and Enterprise organization-wide enforcement.