Free AI Meeting Notetakers: Limits, History and Exports

Free AI meeting notetakers limit different parts of the same job. Capturing a call, reading its transcript, generating a useful summary and keeping an independent copy are separate entitlements. A plan can cover the first two while charging for the last two.

Source check and correction — September 28, 2026: This comparison uses the official pages linked below, not a hands-on accuracy test. The earlier version described Otter’s duration cap as stopping the meeting, treated Fireflies’ website signup allowance as universal, and implied that every history restriction meant recoverable storage. Those claims have been corrected. The September 21 Fathom correction remains valid: five advanced summaries per month, followed by the General/Enhanced template.

Illustration only; these symbols are not measured product results.

What the free plans include

Checked September 28, 2026. These are documented plan limits, not guarantees of recognition quality or uninterrupted service. Account eligibility and settings matter.

Tool	Capture or transcription allowance	Summary allowance	History or exit constraint	Official source
Otter Basic	300 transcription minutes/month; 30 accessible transcript minutes per conversation; three lifetime file imports	Check the current plan for the summary features you need	Latest 25 conversations visible; older conversations archived	Basic limits
Fathom Free	Unlimited recordings, transcription and storage	Five advanced summaries/month; General/Enhanced template after that	Unlimited storage does not establish every export or integration entitlement	Free versus Premium
Fireflies Free	Website signup: three transcription credits; other signup paths differ; eligible auto-join transcription can be unlimited	Summarization consumes transcription credits; advanced AI credits are a separate allowance	400 stored minutes/seat; transcript downloads require a paid plan	Free plan
tl;dv Free	Unlimited recordings and transcripts, subject to documented service limits	Full automatic notes for first ten meetings; subsequently only the first ten minutes	Recordings stored three months, with a restricted download window	Free limits
Granola Basic	AI meeting notes included; do not read this as a promise of a permanent audio archive	Notes and AI chat included	Thirty-day meeting history; audio deleted after transcription	Plan comparison

The table deliberately separates history access from deletion. Being unable to open something today does not tell you whether the provider still holds it, whether paying will restore it, or whether an administrator can erase it. For an archive, you need an answer to each question.

Read the limit in the unit your work uses

Otter’s help page says recording or importing does not stop at 30 minutes: access to the transcript is restricted, with the full transcript unlockable on a paid plan. It also says deleting conversations does not restore monthly transcription minutes. An hour-long interview therefore needs a different evaluation from two separate half-hour calls, even though both contain an hour of audio. Otter’s explanation distinguishes the duration, monthly and history limits.

Fathom’s five-call allowance concerns advanced summaries, not five recordings or five transcripts. Its individual-plan guide also describes a 30-day Premium preview. Evaluate the continuing Free plan separately from that preview. The pricing page still lists individual Premium at $16 per month on annual billing or $20 monthly; a team-plan headline is not the individual upgrade price. That is a quoted plan price, not a recommendation to upgrade or a prediction of your final tax-inclusive bill.

Illustration only; unlimited capture does not establish unlimited features.

Fireflies’ credit guide distinguishes website signup credits (three), Chrome extension signup (five), and mobile new-user signup (ten; five for existing users). It scopes the new rules to signups from September 1, 2026, with an exception for earlier accounts already receiving unlimited free meetings. Auto-join changes how eligible meeting transcription consumes credits; uploaded files still consume a credit each. That is a documented setting, not a loophole or a guarantee that every input method becomes unlimited.

There is another counter: Fireflies’ storage guide says the 400-minute Free allocation is total stored content, not a monthly refill. Free and Pro storage is pooled across teammates. At the limit, new meetings are still captured, but older meetings must be deleted to access new ones. The Free overview separately lists 20 monthly AI credits for advanced features. Do not interchange storage minutes, transcription credits and AI credits when estimating capacity.

History can expire before your project does

The tl;dv help page specifies three-month storage for recordings. It gives a download opportunity during the four weeks before scheduled deletion; outside that window, recordings created on Free cannot be downloaded, even by a Pro user. After three days, videos move to archived storage while transcripts and notes remain accessible; retrieving video can take up to 90 minutes. Those are distinct access states, not one generic retention number. The guide also sets a three-hour maximum per recorded or uploaded meeting. Read the full restrictions before relying on a recurring archive.

Granola’s current comparison table lists thirty-day Basic history and unlimited Business history, with Business displayed at $14/user/month. It also says audio is deleted after transcription. That makes a notes workflow different from keeping source recordings. A thirty-day history entitlement alone does not prove every older note survives indefinitely or will reappear after an upgrade; confirm the retention settings and recovery behavior for your account.

Illustration only; hidden history, archived video and deleted recordings are different states.

A capacity example you can adapt

Suppose, hypothetically, one person has twelve 25-minute calls in a billing month and needs a full transcript of each. That is 12 × 25 = 300 minutes. On the documented Otter allowance, it uses the entire monthly budget while staying within the per-conversation limit. A thirteenth call would need another solution or a plan change. This is arithmetic from an invented schedule, not a completed product test.

Now change just one requirement: those twelve calls become six 50-minute interviews. The total is still 300 minutes, but the 30-minute transcript access limit now matters for every interview. A monthly total alone gives the wrong answer.

For a single-seat Fireflies account with an empty 400-minute allocation, twelve stored 25-minute calls occupy 300 minutes; sixteen occupy 400. This illustrative calculation assumes all calls count toward that allocation and no other files occupy it. Deleting an old call might free capacity, but it is only a sensible workflow if you already have whatever independent record you need and are entitled to export it.

This is the same comparison discipline used in the SaaS pricing checklist: specify the workload before judging the headline price. If summaries are optional but verbatim transcripts are essential, a summary cap has a different consequence than a transcript cap.

Run a small acceptance check before committing

Use a non-sensitive practice meeting that all participants agree to record. Define the expected output in advance: a decision, its owner, a deadline and one deliberately unresolved question. The point is to see whether the tool preserves uncertainty as well as settled facts. No result is assumed here.

1. Confirm that the account is on its lasting free tier rather than a temporary paid preview. Record the preview end date if applicable.
2. Check the calendar settings before connecting a work account. Choose which meetings may be captured and inspect who receives recaps.
3. Record the practice discussion using the actual device, language and meeting platform you expect to use.
4. Compare the transcript and summary with your own reference notes. Mark missing decisions, invented commitments and wrong speaker assignments separately.
5. Try obtaining the required independent copy. A share link is not the same as a file that opens without the account.
6. Check how to remove the practice content and revoke sharing. Document any step that needs a paid plan or an administrator.

A free allowance is irrelevant if the resulting record needs more correction than your workflow can tolerate. Conversely, a sparse summary may be sufficient if the transcript is searchable and you only need to locate a passage. The AI subscription value guide explains how to compare the work left for you with the subscription cost.

Illustration only; no ranking or hands-on endorsement is implied.

Keep a decision record

Fill this in for your shortlisted tool. Leave an unknown answer visibly unknown instead of treating an absent restriction as permission.

Field	Your answer
Account plan and preview end date
Monthly call count and longest call
Required output: audio, video, transcript, summary
Limit unit and reset date
Access after the history window
Deletion rule and any recovery promise
Export format available on this plan
Who can receive or open shared notes
Errors found in the practice meeting
Official source URL and date checked

Choose based on the first requirement the free plan fails. Keep the free tier if it supports the output, access period and exit route you actually need. Consider payment only when it resolves a specific failing requirement; more credits will not fix an unacceptable summary. Before relying on an archive, apply the export inspection method to the files you can actually obtain.