Otter.ai: Workflow, Plan Limits and Evaluation
Meeting transcription and searchable AI notes with distinct live-recording, import and meeting-length limits.
Who should consider Otter.ai
People who need a searchable record of spoken decisions and follow-up tasks. Evaluate it with the meeting platform and language your team actually uses.
Features and pricing
The pricing page lists live transcription, speaker identification, meeting chat and Zoom, Teams and Google Meet support. It distinguishes recording minutes from uploaded-file allowances.
Basic is free with 300 transcription minutes monthly and three lifetime audio/video imports. Pro lists 1,200 in-app recording minutes, ten monthly imports and meetings up to 90 minutes. Paid billing terms and temporary offers vary; budget using the standard price shown at checkout.
Official product website · Official plans and limits
A practical evaluation task
Run a permitted short planning meeting with two speakers, a changed deadline and an action explicitly left without an owner. Ask for decisions, unresolved questions and tasks.
Prepare a reference note before the call. Compare transcript passages and the generated summary with the agreed decisions. Test searching for the revised deadline rather than relying only on the first summary.
What a useful result must pass
Reject a summary that preserves the superseded date or assigns the ownerless task to the last speaker. Count speaker-label corrections and missing decisions. An accurate transcript with a misleading action summary still needs review.
Limits and data access
Obtain meeting permission and inspect who can view shared notes. Calendar connections may affect which meetings are captured; review automatic joining settings before enabling them. A monthly minute allowance does not replenish the separate lifetime import quota.
Alternatives and tradeoffs
Compare Granola for a device-audio notepad workflow, and Fireflies for its meeting integrations. Descript is a more relevant evaluation when the final output is an edited recording.
Granola · Fireflies.ai · Descript
Sources checked October 22, 2026. Based on official product documentation. Use the suggested trial to assess fit for your workflow.