Fathom vs Fireflies: 2026 Comparison, Pricing, and Verdict
Fathom vs Fireflies compared on free tier, real pricing, accuracy, CRM, and recording. Fathom wins on free and simplicity; Fireflies wins on CRM price and analytics. Plus our pick over both: Scribbl, where nothing joins the call.
Updated October 7, 2026
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If you are choosing between Fathom and Fireflies, here is the short answer. Of the two, Fathom is better for solo users and small teams because its free plan records unlimited meetings and it is simpler to live in day to day. Fireflies is better for sales and revenue teams because it goes deeper on conversation intelligence, talk-time and coaching analytics, supports 100-plus languages, and syncs to your CRM on cheaper per-seat tiers than Fathom. Our pick over both is Scribbl: nothing joins the call, every meeting gets the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items, and Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams work in one account, on a free plan with no credit card. Below we break down Fathom vs Fireflies row by row with current 2026 pricing (including the hidden credit and seat costs), CRM specifics, and the December 2025 Fireflies consent lawsuit that now factors into the decision, with Scribbl alongside.
Fathom vs Fireflies at a glance
The table below puts Scribbl in the first column and lays out Fathom vs Fireflies around the decisions buyers actually make: free-tier generosity, real paid pricing (monthly and annual), recording mode, credit and minute caps, AI summaries, CRM, integrations, supported platforms, and trust. Conversation intelligence and language support, where Fireflies goes deeper than Fathom, are covered in the sections below. Read the table, then jump to the section for whichever row decides it for you.
| Decision factor | Scribbl | Fathom | Fireflies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 10 meetings/month, each with the video, transcript, AI notes and action items; Meet, Zoom and Teams; no credit card | Unlimited recording and transcription; advanced AI summaries on your first 5 calls a month, action items need Premium | Free with limited credits; transcription with a monthly storage/credit cap |
| Paid entry (monthly) | Pro $20/user/mo | Premium $20/user/mo | Pro $18/user/mo |
| Paid entry (annual) | Pro $13/user/mo billed annually | Premium $16/user/mo billed annually | Pro $10/user/mo billed annually |
| Mid / team tier | Team plan, see pricing | Team $19/user/mo ($15 annual), 2-user minimum | Business $29/seat/mo ($19 annual) |
| Recording mode | Nothing joins the call; Chrome extension on Google Meet, Scribbl Desktop on Zoom and Teams; video + transcript | Assistant joins the call (bot-free capture is a beta for Mac); video + audio | Visible AI assistant (Fred) joins as a participant; audio-first |
| Credit / minute caps | No credits or minute meter | No credit system; advanced-summary cap on free tier | Credit/minute system; paid tiers cap monthly transcription (e.g. seat minute allocations) |
| AI summaries / templates | AI notes and action items on every meeting; note templates; per-meeting AI chat | Clean summaries, action items, ask-anything; ~14 templates | Many summary templates (~20-plus by 2026 counts), customizable |
| CRM integration | Automations log notes in HubSpot or Pipedrive | Salesforce, HubSpot on higher Team/Business tiers | Salesforce, HubSpot on lower-priced tiers; cheaper CRM sync |
| Integrations | Automations: Slack or Teams, Notion, Google Drive, Confluence, Linear, Jira, Asana, Monday, Google Sheets | ~10 native (Slack, Notion, CRM, calendar) | 40-plus native (Slack, Notion, Asana, Zapier, CRM) |
| Platforms | Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams in one account | Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams | Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, dialers |
| Security / trust note | No bot or outside account enters the call; no email to other attendees | No comparable consent suit on record as of writing | Cruz v. Fireflies.AI proposed class action, Dec 2025 (allegation, not a ruling) |
The row most buyers skip is the capture method itself, so here it is again next to the other rows that decide an AI notetaker purchase. With Scribbl, nothing is added to the participant list on Google Meet, Zoom or Teams, on every plan.
| Feature | Scribbl | Fathom | Fireflies |
|---|---|---|---|
| No bot joins the call | Yes | Beta on Mac only | No |
| Free plan, no credit card | Yes | Yes | Limited |
| Google Meet | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zoom | Desktop app | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft Teams | Desktop app | Yes | Yes |
| Connects meetings to ChatGPT or Claude | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Records video | Yes | Yes | Audio-first |
| Full AI notes on the free plan | All 10 meetings/mo | Advanced summaries on 5 calls/mo | Credit-limited |
| Ask-anything across past meetings | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CRM sync | HubSpot, Pipedrive | Higher tiers | Lower tiers |
| No credit / minute caps | Yes | Yes | No |
| Pricing approach | Free + Pro $13/user/mo (annual) | Free + per seat | Free + per seat |
The two hidden costs most comparisons skip
Sticker price is not the real price for either tool. Two gotchas decide whether the cheap-looking plan actually fits you.
Fathom's hidden cost is CRM behind a wall. Fathom's free and Premium tiers are excellent for recording and summaries, but automatic Salesforce and HubSpot logging lives on the higher Team and Business tiers. If CRM sync is the reason you are buying, your real Fathom price is the Team/Business seat, not the Premium one. Budget accordingly.
Fireflies' hidden cost is the credit and minute system. Fireflies meters usage with credits and per-seat monthly transcription allocations. A plan that reads as cheap per seat can run out of minutes mid-month on a heavy meeting load, and overages or upgrades follow. Fathom, by contrast, has no credit system at all, which is one of its quiet advantages for predictable cost. When you compare the entry prices below, weigh them against how many meeting-minutes you actually run.
Free plan: Fathom's biggest edge
This is the row that decides it for the most solo buyers, and it is where Fathom is clearly stronger.
Fathom's free plan records and transcribes unlimited meetings. You keep every recording and transcript. Every call gets an AI summary, but advanced summaries cover only your first 5 calls each month (after that, calls get the general summary template), and AI action items, follow-up emails and Ask Fathom need Premium. For a solo user, founder, consultant, or anyone who wants reliable notes without paying, Fathom free is genuinely usable as a daily driver.
Fireflies' free plan is more limited. It includes transcription but caps you on credits and storage, so a normal week of meetings hits the wall faster. Fireflies free is fine for trying the product and light use, but it is built to push you toward a paid seat sooner than Fathom's free is.
Between the two, Fathom's free tier goes further, which is why many independent reviews hand Fathom the win for individuals. Note what it still caps: advanced summaries on 5 calls a month, and AI action items only on Premium. Scribbl's free plan gives the video, transcript, AI notes and action items on all 10 of its monthly meetings, across Google Meet, Zoom and Teams, with nothing joining the call.
Accuracy
Most "vs" pages either skip accuracy or assert one tool "is more accurate" with nothing behind it. Both tools degrade with crosstalk, strong accents, and bad microphones. No AI notetaker is immune, and no single accuracy number will predict what your specific meetings produce. Fireflies' standout is the richer layer on top of the transcript: speaker talk-time, topic tracking, and coaching signals that Fathom does not match.
Do not buy on any vendor's accuracy claim. Run each tool on two or three of your own real meetings, including one with multiple speakers and one with imperfect audio, and compare the transcripts and summaries side by side. That is the only benchmark that matters for your purchase.
Pricing: current 2026 tiers
Prices below were verified in June 2026 against each vendor's pricing page and current third-party reviews. Confirm on each vendor's page before buying, since plans and credit allocations shift frequently.
Scribbl
- Free: 10 meetings a month, each with the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items; Google Meet, Zoom and Teams included; no credit card.
- Pro: $13 per user per month billed annually, or $20 monthly; adds asking Claude or ChatGPT about every meeting.
- No credits or minute meter.
Fathom
- Free: unlimited recordings, transcripts and storage; an AI summary on every call, with advanced summaries on your first 5 calls a month; AI action items, follow-up emails and Ask Fathom need Premium.
- Premium: $20/user/month month-to-month, or $16/user/month billed annually; unlocks advanced summaries on every call, AI action items, Ask Fathom, and more templates.
- Team: $19/user/month month-to-month, or $15/user/month billed annually, 2-user minimum; adds team features, shared recordings, and CRM workflows.
- Business: $34/user/month month-to-month, or $25/user/month billed annually, 2-user minimum; adds deeper CRM sync, admin controls, and analytics.
- Enterprise: talk to sales.
- No credit system. Usage is not metered by credits, which keeps costs predictable.
Fireflies
- Free: transcription with limited credits and storage.
- Pro: $18 per seat per month month-to-month, or $10 per seat per month billed annually; adds more transcription, AI summaries, and integrations.
- Business: $29 per seat per month billed monthly, or $19 per seat per month billed annually, adding conversation intelligence, talk-time analytics, and team features.
- Enterprise: $39 per seat per month, billed annually only, adding SSO, advanced security, and admin controls.
- Credit/minute caps apply per seat, so check the monthly transcription allocation against your meeting load.
The headline between the two: Fireflies' annual Pro seat is the cheaper paid entry, and its CRM sync arrives on lower tiers. Fathom's free plan records more, its advanced summaries stop after 5 calls a month, and its lack of a credit system makes cost predictable. Scribbl has no credits either, and its free plan already includes AI notes on every meeting it records.
Where Fathom wins
Recap: Team aligned on a Thursday asset deadline and a launch date to confirm.
- Sam: deliver launch assets by Thursday
- Alex: confirm and circulate the launch date
Fathom is built around a genuinely free product and simplicity. Its free plan records unlimited meetings, and clip-and-highlight sharing is a core strength for sending a single moment to a colleague. There is no credit system to track and the interface is clean. If your loop is record, summarize, and share, and you do not want to pay for the privilege, Fathom is the stronger of the two.
Fathom limitations to weigh: CRM sync to Salesforce and HubSpot is locked behind the higher Team/Business tiers, conversation intelligence and coaching analytics are lighter than Fireflies', language support (around 28 to 38) trails Fireflies' 100-plus, and on the free plan advanced summaries stop after your first 5 calls a month, with AI action items only on Premium. For a fuller breakdown of when to leave Fathom, see our Fathom alternative guide.
Where Fireflies wins
Topics: Pricing, launch timeline, asset handoff
Pushed call notes to the linked Salesforce opportunity.
Fireflies is built around depth for teams that run on data. It layers conversation intelligence on top of the transcript: talk-time ratios, topic tracking, sentiment, and coaching signals that help sales managers review reps. It supports 100-plus languages, far more than Fathom, and it has 40-plus native integrations including Slack, Notion, Asana, Zapier, and the CRMs. Crucially, its Salesforce and HubSpot sync arrives on lower-priced tiers than Fathom's, so a cost-sensitive sales team gets automatic CRM logging without buying the top plan. For a revenue team or multilingual calls, Fireflies has real strengths Fathom does not match.
Fireflies limitations to weigh: it sends a visible AI assistant (Fred) into the call as a participant that may need admitting; its credit and minute caps can bite on heavy meeting loads; its free plan is more limited than Fathom's; and in December 2025 a proposed class action, Cruz v. Fireflies.AI, alleged it recorded conversations without all participants' consent. That is an allegation working through the courts, not a ruling, but it is a reason to read its consent and data terms carefully. For more, see our Fireflies alternative guide and our explainers on conversation intelligence and CRM integration.
The capture method, and our pick: Scribbl
Here is the trade-off neither tool escapes by default: both send an assistant into your call, and it shows up on the participant list. Fireflies' assistant is Fred; Fathom's bot-free capture is a beta for Mac, and otherwise its assistant joins too. On an external sales call or a sensitive internal review, a named bot on the roster is something people notice. If a clean participant list matters, it becomes the whole decision.
That is the trade Scribbl is built to remove. Nothing joins the call: the Chrome extension covers Google Meet and Scribbl Desktop (Mac with Apple silicon, and Windows) covers Zoom and Microsoft Teams, on every plan, so there is no extra participant, no admission step, nothing announced to your guests, and no email to other attendees. Every meeting gets the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items. On Pro you can ask Claude or ChatGPT about every meeting, and Automations do the follow-up: draft the email, log notes in HubSpot or Pipedrive, post to Slack or Teams, save to Notion or Confluence, or open a Jira or Linear ticket, asking before they change anything by default. The free plan covers 10 meetings a month with no credit card; Pro is $13 per user per month billed annually, or $20 monthly. Scribbl is rated 5.0 from 3,000 reviews on the Chrome Web Store and 4.9 from 725 reviews on G2, and used across more than 10,000 organizations. We compare it directly in our Scribbl vs Fathom and Scribbl vs Fireflies breakdowns, and the botless AI notetaker explainer covers the category.
- Capture: both send an assistant into the call (Fathom's bot-free capture is a beta for Mac)
- Fathom strength: unlimited free recording, clean summaries, no credit system
- Fireflies strength: conversation intelligence, cheaper CRM sync, 100-plus languages
- Trade-off: a participant on the roster, and Fireflies' Dec 2025 consent suit
- Capture: botless, nothing ever joins the call
- Strength: video, transcript, AI notes and action items for every meeting; Automations do the follow-up
- Platforms: Google Meet via extension; Zoom and Teams via the desktop app, free plan included
- Trust: 5.0 from 3,000 reviews on the Chrome Web Store; used by 10,000-plus organizations
Who should pick which
Pick Scribbl if you want notes with nothing added to the call. You get:
- The video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items for every meeting
- Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams in one account, free plan included
- Automations that draft the follow-up email, log notes in HubSpot or Pipedrive and post to Slack or Teams, asking before they change anything
- Smart Collections that sort your meetings by themselves into groups you describe in one sentence
- Claude or ChatGPT answers about every meeting on Pro
Between the other two, Fathom suits solo users who want unlimited free recording and no credit system, and Fireflies suits sales teams that want conversation analytics and cheaper Salesforce or HubSpot sync with an assistant in the call.
Start free, no credit card, at extension.app.scribbl.co/signup.
Fathom vs Fireflies FAQ
Is Fathom or Fireflies better?
Between the two, Fathom suits solo users and small teams because its free plan records unlimited meetings and its post-call summaries are clean, and Fireflies suits sales and revenue teams because its conversation intelligence, talk-time analytics, 100-plus language support, and cheaper per-seat CRM sync go deeper. Fireflies also sends a visible assistant into the call. Our pick over both is Scribbl: nothing joins the call, and every meeting on Google Meet, Zoom or Microsoft Teams gets the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items, on a free plan with no credit card.
Is Fathom really free, and what is the catch?
Yes, Fathom has a genuinely free plan that records and transcribes unlimited meetings with no credit card. The catch is that advanced summaries cover only your first 5 calls each month (every call still gets an AI summary), AI action items, follow-up emails and Ask Fathom need Premium, and CRM sync to Salesforce or HubSpot is locked behind the paid Team/Business tiers. For pure recording and transcripts, free goes a long way; for advanced summaries on every call, action items and CRM, you pay.
Does Fireflies use a bot, and is Fathom bot-free?
Fireflies sends a visible AI assistant (Fred) that joins the call as a participant and may need to be admitted. Fathom's assistant joins the call as a participant too, unless you use its bot-free capture, which is a beta for Mac. If you want zero bot in the room with nothing on the participant list, a botless tool like Scribbl captures Google Meet through a Chrome extension instead.
Which is more accurate, Fathom or Fireflies?
No single accuracy number will predict what your meetings produce. Fireflies supports 100-plus languages and adds richer speaker analytics on top of the transcript; Fathom is built around clean post-call summaries. Every AI notetaker does worse with crosstalk and bad mics, so test each on your own calls.
Which integrates better with my CRM (Salesforce or HubSpot)?
Both connect to Salesforce and HubSpot, and of the two Fireflies is the cheaper and broader path: it has 40-plus native integrations and pushes notes and call data into CRM on lower-priced paid tiers, while Fathom gates CRM sync behind its higher Team/Business plans. Scribbl handles the CRM step with Automations: they log meeting notes in HubSpot or Pipedrive, draft the follow-up email, and post to Slack or Teams, and by default they ask before they change anything.
Should I worry about the Fireflies lawsuit and recording consent?
In December 2025 a proposed class action (Cruz v. Fireflies.AI) alleged the assistant recorded conversations without all participants' consent. It is an allegation working through the courts, not a ruling, but it is a reason to read consent and data-handling terms closely. More broadly, recording laws vary by region and some require all-party consent, so whatever tool you choose, tell people you are recording and get consent.
Can I take notes without any bot joining the call?
Yes. If a participant on the roster is your real objection, a botless tool like Scribbl captures Google Meet through a Chrome extension with nothing added to the call, on a free plan with no credit card, and on Pro connects each meeting to ChatGPT or Claude so the follow-up actually gets written. It adds Zoom and Microsoft Teams through its desktop app.
Try Scribbl
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