Gong 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
Gong
Revenue forecasting, deal inspection, and rep coaching
Price
Custom quote: per-user licenses plus a platform fee
Pricing details
Gong does not publish a self-serve price. Its pricing page says cost combines a per-user license with a platform fee, and capabilities such as Forecast, Engage, Enable, and Data Cloud are organized as additional packages.
Free option: No self-serve free plan or free trial is advertised; request a demo and quote.
Good for
- Sales analytics and forecasting
- Enterprise coaching workflows
Watch for
- Opaque pricing + platform fee
- Follow-up tasks require Engage
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.
What matters
Capture options
GongBroad supportGranolaAvailable with limitsCapture options
Gong:Broad supportGranola:Available with limits
Capture options
Capture options
Gong
Meeting bot, native Zoom recording, telephony, and mobile capture
Gong captures supported web meetings, calls, and email. Eligible company-hosted Zoom calls can use Zoom-native recording with no Gong bot; other web-conferencing paths generally use the bot. Its mobile app records scheduled or ad-hoc face-to-face conversations.
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.
Desktop and mobile
GongAvailable with limitsGranolaBroad supportDesktop and mobile
Gong:Available with limitsGranola:Broad support
Desktop and mobile
Desktop and mobile
Gong
Web plus iOS and Android; sales workflows are cloud-first
Mobile apps support recording and review. Gong is primarily an enterprise web platform rather than a general-purpose botless desktop recorder; only its Zoom integration offers native provider recording without the Gong bot.
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
GongAvailable with limitsGranolaBroad supportIn-person capture and speaker labels
Gong:Available with limitsGranola:Broad support
In-person capture and speaker labels
In-person capture and speaker labels
Gong
Mobile face-to-face audio recording
iOS and Android can capture scheduled or ad-hoc room meetings. Gong separates speakers, but same-room voices may appear as room-name Speaker 1, Speaker 2, and so on until someone edits them; noisy rooms can reduce quality.
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
GongBroad supportGranolaNot documentedRecordings, playback, and clips
Gong:Broad supportGranola:Not documented
Recordings, playback, and clips
Recordings, playback, and clips
Gong
Rich call playback, libraries, snippets, and coaching review
Recording review is a core Gong workflow, with synchronized transcript, comments, snippets, libraries, trackers, and manager coaching tools.
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
GongBroad supportGranolaBroad supportNotes, action items, and search
Gong:Broad supportGranola:Broad support
Notes, action items, and search
Notes, action items, and search
Gong
Sales summaries, next steps, account search, and conversation intelligence
Gong excels at finding deal moments, objections, topics, rep behaviors, and next steps. With Engage, recommended meeting follow-ups become due-dated to-dos that can be completed, dismissed, reviewed by managers, and acted on through email or calls. A recommendation can auto-dismiss after seven days if no other completion rule fires. The experience is optimized around customer and revenue questions rather than general company knowledge.
EvidenceGong plans and seatsGong recommended to-dosGong team to-do management
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
GongBroad supportGranolaAvailable with limitsPeople, companies, and context
Gong:Broad supportGranola:Available with limits
People, companies, and context
People, companies, and context
Gong
Deep account and deal history for GTM teams
Calls, meetings, and email roll into account and deal context. This is powerful for revenue work but is not positioned as a shared memory for every internal and external company conversation.
EvidenceGong plans and seats
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.
Automatic sharing and workspace defaults
GongAvailable with limitsGranolaNarrow or indirectAutomatic sharing and workspace defaults
Gong:Available with limitsGranola:Narrow or indirect
Automatic sharing and workspace defaults
Automatic sharing and workspace defaults
Gong
Permissioned call, snippet, and folder sharing
Calls and snippets can be shared internally or externally, and shared folders can grant access to every call they contain. Gong documents automatic capture rules, while post-meeting distribution centers on direct shares, folders, teams, accounts, and coaching libraries.
EvidenceGong call and folder sharing
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
GongBroad supportGranolaNarrow or indirectAutomations
Gong:Broad supportGranola:Narrow or indirect
Automations
Automations
Gong
Purpose-built revenue workflows and engagement sequences
Gong automates CRM activity, deal signals, alerts, coaching, and sales engagement. Engage flows and AI-recommended to-dos centralize rep work and let managers inspect team queues. It is highly capable inside revenue operations, but this task system is package-gated and less open-ended for arbitrary company workflows.
EvidenceGong automation rulesGong recommended to-dosGong team to-do management
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
GongBroad supportGranolaAvailable with limitsIntegrations
Gong:Broad supportGranola:Available with limits
Integrations
Integrations
Gong
Deep CRM, calendar, conferencing, and sales-stack integrations
The integration strategy is strong where revenue teams live: CRMs, dialers, calendars, meeting platforms, and sales engagement systems.
EvidenceGong plans and seats
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.
API, MCP, CLI, and data portability
GongBroad supportGranolaAvailable with limitsAPI, MCP, CLI, and data portability
Gong:Broad supportGranola:Available with limits
API, MCP, CLI, and data portability
API, MCP, CLI, and data portability
Gong
Mature APIs, exports, data cloud, and a focused MCP server
Gong exposes calls, full speaker-segmented transcripts, users, CRM-linked objects, exports, and data-warehouse tables. Its 2026 MCP server supports personal or organization-wide authorization for ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and custom agents, but is read-only and limited to account/deal questions and generated briefs—not raw meeting retrieval. Those MCP tools and some AI APIs consume Gong credits. There is no documented first-party CLI.
EvidenceGong transcript APIGong API overviewGong MCP serverGong MCP setupGong AI creditsGong transcript downloadsGong media downloads
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.
Security, privacy, and admin
GongBroad supportGranolaAvailable with limitsSecurity, privacy, and admin
Gong:Broad supportGranola:Available with limits
Security, privacy, and admin
Security, privacy, and admin
Gong
Mature enterprise administration and governance
Gong supports large deployments, granular access, SSO/SCIM, retention configuration, deletion, and compliance workflows. Standard retention is the shorter of three years or the customer term and data is deleted 30 days after the relationship ends; company-library calls sit outside the standard rule.
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
GongBroad supportGranolaAvailable with limitsLanguages
Gong:Broad supportGranola:Available with limits
Languages
Languages
Gong
More than 70 languages; some AI features remain English-only
Gong documents more than 70 transcription languages plus AI translation. Email labels, red-flag alerts, Gong-recommended to-dos, and example-based smart trackers are still English-only, so global teams should verify the exact workflow rather than relying on the headline count.
EvidenceGong language support
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 Gong 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.
Gong sources18 first-party references
- Gong pricing
Custom pricing structure, per-user licenses, platform fee, and package model.
- Gong web-conferencing capture
Bot capture across providers and native bot-free recording for eligible Zoom meetings.
- Gong transcript API
Documented call-transcript endpoint, pagination, filters, and authorization scope.
- Gong API overview
Calls, full transcripts, analyzed conversation data, users, activity, and CRM-linked API capabilities.
- Gong MCP server
Read-only account/deal questions and brief generation for external AI clients.
- Gong MCP setup
Paid-seat requirement, personal or shared authorization, OAuth setup, and official MCP endpoint.
- Gong AI credits
Shared annual credit pool and consumption behavior for MCP, AI APIs, and continuous AI processing.
- Gong transcript downloads
Per-call transcript download and synchronized transcript behavior.
- Gong media downloads
Permissioned audio, video, and snippet downloads on any Gong plan.
- Gong plans and seats
Foundation platform and Enable, Forecast, Engage, and Data Cloud packages.
- Gong mobile recording
iOS and Android in-person recording behavior and quality considerations.
- Gong speaker identification
Speaker separation, same-room generic labels, platform behavior, and optional voice identification.
- Gong data retention
Standard and custom retention behavior.
- Gong language support
More than 70 transcription languages, AI translation, and the AI capabilities that remain English-only.
- Gong call and folder sharing
Company permissions for external call sharing and internal shared folders.
- Gong automation rules
Plan availability, supported triggers and actions, and future-only rule application.
- Gong recommended to-dos
Engage eligibility, AI meeting follow-ups, source timestamps, due dates, completion rules, seven-day expiry, and language limits.
- Gong team to-do management
Personal and manager task views, filters, due dates, bulk completion, CRM context, and execution controls.
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: Gong or Granola?
Gong is a managed revenue system with recordings and analytics. Granola is a quiet personal notepad that keeps no source recording and asks the user to shape the note.
Which is less expensive, Gong or Granola?
Gong: Custom quote: per-user licenses plus a platform fee. 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 Gong and Granola record without a bot?
Gong: Meeting bot, native Zoom recording, telephony, and mobile capture. 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. Gong: Permissioned call, snippet, and folder sharing. Granola: Private by default; sharing starts with a note or folder.
Can I access and move the full meeting data?
Gong: Mature APIs, exports, data cloud, and a focused MCP server. 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.
