Gong excels as a comprehensive sales conversation intelligence platform that automatically records, transcribes, and analyzes customer interactions across calls, meetings, and emails. Its strength lies in robust sales coaching capabilities and AI-driven insights that help identify what drives successful deals, making it particularly valuable for sales teams focused on performance optimization. However, the platform comes with a significant cost barrier, requiring substantial annual investments that may not be justified for smaller organizations, and users report occasional transcription delays and accuracy issues.

Gong is best suited for established sales organizations with dedicated budgets for revenue intelligence tools, particularly those with complex sales cycles requiring detailed conversation analysis. Enterprise sales teams that prioritize coaching, deal forecasting, and pipeline visibility will find the most value in Gong's comprehensive feature set. The tool works well for organizations already invested in sales-focused workflows and willing to commit to annual contracts with higher per-user costs.

Otter.ai serves as an accessible meeting assistant that focuses on transcription and basic note-taking across various meeting platforms like Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet. Its primary advantages include ease of use, affordable pricing tiers including a free option, and straightforward integration with common video conferencing tools. The main limitations include transcription accuracy issues with accents and overlapping speech, restrictive usage limits on lower-tier plans, and AI-generated summaries that often require manual cleanup.

Otter.ai appeals to individuals, small teams, and organizations seeking a cost-effective solution for basic meeting documentation and transcription needs. It works particularly well for educational settings, general business meetings, and teams that primarily need searchable transcripts rather than advanced analytics. While both tools offer extensive integration lists, neither platform provides the depth of workflow automation or seamless task management integration needed to truly transform meeting outcomes into actionable results.

Comparison table

What users say about Gong and Otter.ai

Based on user reviews, Gong receives high praise for its sharing capabilities and practical sales applications. Users highlight that Gong's sharing features are amazing, allowing them to quickly share calls with clients or prospects right after meetings without administrative hassle. The platform is particularly valued by sales professionals who use the Gong AI Notetaker to capture summaries, track key moments, and keep their CRM updated across sales calls. Overall, Gong appears to excel in sales-focused environments with strong integration and sharing functionality.

Otter.ai receives positive feedback for its accessibility and real-time functionality, particularly for users seeking straightforward transcription services. Reviews consistently note that Otter is an easy-to-use tool that transcribes meetings live, with AI chat being a great feature that's powerful when used in real-time. Users appreciate the platform's simplicity and effectiveness for basic meeting transcription needs. The tool appears to be well-suited for users who prioritize ease of use and live transcription capabilities over more advanced sales-specific features.

One of the primary reasons users switch away from Gong is its high cost compared to competing solutions. The platform requires significant financial investment with annual platform fees around $5,000 for small teams, plus approximately $1,400-$1,600 per user per year, and potential onboarding services costing an additional $7,500. This enterprise-level pricing structure with no monthly payment options and custom-only quotes can be prohibitive for many organizations, especially smaller teams or companies looking for more budget-friendly alternatives.

Technical performance issues also drive users to seek alternatives to Gong. Users frequently report experiencing lags and delays in call processing, which can disrupt workflow efficiency and create frustration when trying to access timely insights from customer interactions. Additionally, transcription accuracy problems occur regularly, undermining one of the platform's core value propositions of providing reliable conversation intelligence and analytics for sales teams.

Privacy and data handling features, while designed for security compliance, can paradoxically limit the platform's usefulness for some users. The privacy features that automatically redact information like phone numbers and other potentially sensitive data sometimes hide valuable context and useful information from sales calls. This over-cautious approach to data masking can reduce the actionable insights that sales teams can extract from their recorded conversations, leading them to seek solutions that offer better balance between privacy protection and data accessibility.

Users often switch away from Otter.ai due to transcription accuracy issues that become problematic during important meetings and conversations. The AI struggles particularly with proper names, accents, and situations where multiple people are speaking simultaneously (crosstalk). This can result in incomplete or incorrect meeting records, forcing users to spend additional time cleaning up transcripts or risking missed important details from their conversations.

The platform's limited language support presents another significant barrier for users in multilingual environments or international organizations. While Otter.ai has historically been English-centric and only recently added French and Spanish transcription capabilities, users who need support for other languages or work in diverse linguistic settings find themselves constrained by these limitations. Organizations with global teams or clients speaking languages beyond these three options are forced to seek alternatives that can accommodate their broader language requirements.

Monthly usage restrictions and formatting limitations also drive users to seek more robust solutions. The free tier's 300-minute monthly limit and 30-minute per-meeting cap can be quickly exhausted by active users, while even paid plans may not provide sufficient transcription time for heavy users. Additionally, users report that AI-generated notes often require manual cleanup and that export formats like SRT files can be messy, creating additional work rather than streamlining workflows. These operational constraints become particularly problematic for organizations that rely heavily on meeting documentation and need consistent, professional-quality outputs.

Using Gong

Does Gong work for in-person meetings?

Yes, Gong supports capturing in-person (face-to-face) meetings via its mobile app, making it useful for live meetings or field sales situations.

What do users say about the quality of Gong transcriptions?

Users report occasional transcription inaccuracies and some experience lags or delays in call processing, though the platform generally provides rich call analytics with transcripts that help improve performance.

How does Gong help users follow up on action items?

Gong includes an automation engine with AI-driven workflows that can automatically generate follow-up tasks, trigger deal alerts, and provide AI recommendations to streamline sales processes.

Does Gong integrate with software like Hubspot, Salesforce, or Linear?

Yes, Gong has extensive integrations with over 250 tools, including CRM and productivity platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, Webex, and Calendly.

Using Otter.ai

Does Otter.ai work for in-person meetings?

Yes, Otter.ai works for in-person meetings. The mobile app can record any conversation (in-person or remote) and transcribe it. It's often used for on-site interviews and meetings.

Does Otter.ai require a meeting bot to join the meeting?

For online meetings, yes - the AI bot joins calls on platforms like Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet to record and transcribe. However, for in-person meetings, you can use the mobile app to record device audio locally without needing a bot.

What do users say about the quality of Otter.ai transcriptions?

Users report that transcription accuracy can drop with names, accents, or crosstalk. While the service is praised for saving time by auto-capturing notes, AI-generated notes sometimes require cleanup, and the formatting of exports can be messy.

How does Otter.ai help users follow up on action items?

Otter.ai provides automated summaries with action items and offers some task tagging and basic automation to identify action items within meeting transcripts.

Does Otter.ai integrate with software like Hubspot, Salesforce, or Linear?

No, Otter.ai does not have native CRM integrations with platforms like HubSpot or Salesforce. Integration with these platforms would require manual export or API-only connections. For teams seeking alternatives to Otter.ai with better integration capabilities, there are solutions that offer more comprehensive workflow automation and native CRM connections. Organizations looking for more robust meeting automation might want to explore the best meeting automation tools available in the market. Whether you need an AI meeting agent depends on your specific requirements for meeting productivity and follow-up workflows.

Another alternative: Circleback

Circleback provides best-in-class AI-powered meeting notes and automations. We support over 100 languages and automatic participant identification in both in-person and online meetings.

• Automatically-identified and assigned action items

• AI-enabled search across all meetings

• Automations with 100+ app integrations

• Industry-leading security with SOC 2 Type II, EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and HIPAA compliance

• Ability to capture both online and in-person meetings with desktop and mobile apps