# Gong vs Granola: pricing, features, and which is better > Gong and Granola compared across pricing, capture, speaker labels, recordings, notes, sharing, automations, integrations, AI-agent access, and administration. - Canonical HTML: https://circleback.ai/compare/gong-vs-granola - Structured JSON: https://circleback.ai/compare/gong-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 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. 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. ## Gong at a glance Gong captures customer interactions and turns them into sales coaching, deal intelligence, pipeline inspection, forecasting, and engagement workflows. It is much more than a note taker—and that is both its superpower and its cost. **Best for:** Mature go-to-market organizations that want rep coaching, deal inspection, pipeline forecasting, conversation intelligence, and sales engagement in one suite. **Less ideal for:** A whole company looking for a light, shared memory across engineering, product, recruiting, leadership, and internal conversations. **Price:** Custom quote: per-user licenses plus a platform fee 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. ### Gong strengths - Mature sales coaching, call libraries, scorecards, deal inspection, pipeline analytics, and forecasting workflows. - Captures calls, meetings, and email in a customer-account context designed for revenue teams. - Native Zoom recording avoids a Gong bot for eligible company-hosted Zoom calls, while iOS and Android cover face-to-face conversations. - A mature public API, data exports, and a new MCP server give engineering and AI tools useful access to Gong’s revenue context. - Gong Engage has a mature sales to-do system with AI-recommended follow-ups, due dates, completion state, rep and manager views, and direct email or call execution. ### Gong tradeoffs - Pricing is opaque and includes a platform fee; important workflows are split across packages. - Its data model, vocabulary, rollout, and analytics are sales-first, which can create another silo for non-GTM teams. - It is a substantial platform to administer when the actual need is meeting notes, shared context, and reliable follow-through rather than revenue operations. - Standard retention is the shorter of three years or the customer term, but calls placed in the company library are excluded. Shortening retention can also reduce the history behind Gong insights. - The new MCP server is useful but narrow and read-only: it answers questions about one account or deal and generates briefs rather than returning raw transcripts. MCP and some AI APIs also consume a shared pool of Gong credits. - Gong’s meeting-follow-up to-dos require the separately packaged Engage product, are fully supported only in English, and auto-dismiss after seven days if no other completion rule fires. ### Choose Gong when - Forecasting, rep coaching, and deal inspection are the center of the buying decision. - Your organization wants a full revenue platform and can support an enterprise rollout. - Sales leaders need opinionated analytics and manager workflows, not just searchable conversation context. ## 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 | Gong | Granola | | --- | --- | --- | | Capture options | Broad support — 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. | 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 | Available with limits — 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. | 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 | Available with limits — 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. | 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 | Broad support — 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. | 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 — 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. | 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 | Broad support — 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. | 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 — 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. | 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 | Broad support — 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. | 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 | Broad support — 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. | 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 | Broad support — 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. | 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 | Broad support — 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. | 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 — 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. | 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 **Gong has broader documented support for 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. Evidence: [Gong web-conferencing capture](https://help.gong.io/docs/web-conferencing-integrations), [Gong mobile recording](https://help.gong.io/docs/record-meetings-on-mobile). **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 **Granola has broader documented support for 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. Evidence: [Gong web-conferencing capture](https://help.gong.io/docs/web-conferencing-integrations), [Gong mobile recording](https://help.gong.io/docs/record-meetings-on-mobile). **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 **Granola has broader documented support for 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. Evidence: [Gong mobile recording](https://help.gong.io/docs/record-meetings-on-mobile), [Gong speaker identification](https://help.gong.io/docs/how-gong-identifies-speakers). **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 **Gong has broader documented support for 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. Evidence: [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/plans-and-seats), [Gong data retention](https://help.gong.io/docs/data-retention-policy). **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.** **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. Evidence: [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/plans-and-seats), [Gong recommended to-dos](https://help.gong.io/docs/gong-recommended-to-dos), [Gong team to-do management](https://help.gong.io/docs/working-with-todos). **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 **Gong has broader documented support for 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. Evidence: [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/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. 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 **Gong has broader documented support for 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. Evidence: [Gong call and folder sharing](https://help.gong.io/docs/enable-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. 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 **Gong has broader documented support for 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. Evidence: [Gong automation rules](https://help.gong.io/docs/introduction-to-automation-rules), [Gong recommended to-dos](https://help.gong.io/docs/gong-recommended-to-dos), [Gong team to-do management](https://help.gong.io/docs/working-with-todos). **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 **Gong has broader documented support for 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. Evidence: [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/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. 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 **Gong has broader documented support for 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. Evidence: [Gong transcript API](https://help.gong.io/apidocs/retrieve-transcripts-of-calls-by-date-or-callids-v2callstranscript-2), [Gong API overview](https://help.gong.io/docs/what-the-gong-api-provides), [Gong MCP server](https://help.gong.io/docs/about-gong-mcp-server), [Gong MCP setup](https://help.gong.io/docs/create-an-integration-to-connect-to-the-mcp-server), [Gong AI credits](https://help.gong.io/docs/about-gong-credits), [Gong transcript downloads](https://help.gong.io/docs/view-a-call-transcript), [Gong media downloads](https://help.gong.io/docs/download-a-call-or-snippet). **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 **Gong has broader documented support for 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. Evidence: [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/plans-and-seats), [Gong data retention](https://help.gong.io/docs/data-retention-policy). **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 **Gong has broader documented support for 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. Evidence: [Gong language support](https://help.gong.io/docs/what-languages-are-supported-in-gong). **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: 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. ## 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 ### Gong sources - [Gong pricing](https://www.gong.io/pricing): Custom pricing structure, per-user licenses, platform fee, and package model. - [Gong web-conferencing capture](https://help.gong.io/docs/web-conferencing-integrations): Bot capture across providers and native bot-free recording for eligible Zoom meetings. - [Gong transcript API](https://help.gong.io/apidocs/retrieve-transcripts-of-calls-by-date-or-callids-v2callstranscript-2): Documented call-transcript endpoint, pagination, filters, and authorization scope. - [Gong API overview](https://help.gong.io/docs/what-the-gong-api-provides): Calls, full transcripts, analyzed conversation data, users, activity, and CRM-linked API capabilities. - [Gong MCP server](https://help.gong.io/docs/about-gong-mcp-server): Read-only account/deal questions and brief generation for external AI clients. - [Gong MCP setup](https://help.gong.io/docs/create-an-integration-to-connect-to-the-mcp-server): Paid-seat requirement, personal or shared authorization, OAuth setup, and official MCP endpoint. - [Gong AI credits](https://help.gong.io/docs/about-gong-credits): Shared annual credit pool and consumption behavior for MCP, AI APIs, and continuous AI processing. - [Gong transcript downloads](https://help.gong.io/docs/view-a-call-transcript): Per-call transcript download and synchronized transcript behavior. - [Gong media downloads](https://help.gong.io/docs/download-a-call-or-snippet): Permissioned audio, video, and snippet downloads on any Gong plan. - [Gong plans and seats](https://help.gong.io/docs/plans-and-seats): Foundation platform and Enable, Forecast, Engage, and Data Cloud packages. - [Gong mobile recording](https://help.gong.io/docs/record-meetings-on-mobile): iOS and Android in-person recording behavior and quality considerations. - [Gong speaker identification](https://help.gong.io/docs/how-gong-identifies-speakers): Speaker separation, same-room generic labels, platform behavior, and optional voice identification. - [Gong data retention](https://help.gong.io/docs/data-retention-policy): Standard and custom retention behavior. - [Gong language support](https://help.gong.io/docs/what-languages-are-supported-in-gong): More than 70 transcription languages, AI translation, and the AI capabilities that remain English-only. - [Gong call and folder sharing](https://help.gong.io/docs/enable-call-and-folder-sharing): Company permissions for external call sharing and internal shared folders. - [Gong automation rules](https://help.gong.io/docs/introduction-to-automation-rules): Plan availability, supported triggers and actions, and future-only rule application. - [Gong recommended to-dos](https://help.gong.io/docs/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](https://help.gong.io/docs/working-with-todos): Personal and manager task views, filters, due dates, bulk completion, CRM context, and execution controls. ### 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.