Fathom vs tl;dv (2026): Comparison, Full Feature Table, Real Pricing, and the Verdict

Short answer: of the two, Fathom is better for individuals and small teams who want clean AI summaries fast and the most generous free plan, and tl;dv is better for sales and customer-success teams that need coaching scorecards, multi-meeting intelligence, and deeper CRM field automation. Both have a real free tier, and both work across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. The deeper question most comparisons skip is capture method: tl;dv always sends a recording bot, and Fathom sends one unless you use its bot-free beta for Mac, so neither is botless by default. Our pick over both is Scribbl: nothing joins the call on any of the three platforms, every meeting gets the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items, and the free plan needs no credit card.

We are the makers of Scribbl, and we are upfront about it. We read Fathom's and tl;dv's own pricing pages and help centers, and report what they say. Treat us as a primary source on Scribbl and a fair-but-interested reviewer of Fathom and tl;dv. This is a comparison, not a takedown: both are good tools that simply make different trade-offs. Where we cite a competitor price, feature, or accuracy figure, we mark it approximate and tell you to confirm it on that vendor's site, because these details change often.

Who should pick Scribbl over Fathom or tl;dv

Pick Scribbl if:

• You want nothing in the call: no bot on Google Meet, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams, nothing announced to the room, and no email to other attendees
• You want the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items for every meeting
• You meet on all three platforms and want them in one account: the Chrome extension for Google Meet, Scribbl Desktop for Zoom and Teams
• You want the follow-up done: Automations draft the email, log notes in HubSpot or Pipedrive, post to Slack or Teams, and ask before they change anything
• You want to ask Claude or ChatGPT about every meeting (Pro)

Fathom suits individuals who want fast summaries and a generous free plan; tl;dv suits sales teams that want coaching scorecards and accept a recording bot on every call. The bot vs botless section below explains why the capture method matters more than any feature row.

How we compared Fathom vs tl;dv

We compared both tools on the points below, using each vendor's own pricing pages and help centers.

• Capture and visibility. Whether a bot joins, whether attendees see it, and what happens on each platform, including any admission step.
• After the call. The summaries, action items, clips, multi-meeting reports, coaching features, and the CRM and follow-up flow.
• Price and ratings. We pulled each tool's published plans and pointed to where its third-party reviews live (G2, Capterra) so you can sanity-check both yourself.

Fathom vs tl;dv: the complete feature table

This is the asset two of the three top results either lack or bury. Here is the full feature-by-feature comparison, with Scribbl in the first column. A check means the capability is available on at least one current plan; a short label flags an important caveat. Prices and language counts are approximate as of June 2026 and change often, so confirm each on the vendor's own pricing page.

Feature	Scribbl	Fathom	tl;dv
No bot ever joins the call	Yes	Beta on Mac only	– No
Works on Meet, Zoom, and Teams	Yes	Yes	Yes
Free plan (no credit card)	Yes	Generous	Limited
AI meeting summaries and notes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Multi-meeting / cross-call intelligence	Smart Collections + ChatGPT or Claude	Via ChatGPT or Claude	Yes
CRM logging	HubSpot, Pipedrive	Summary push	Deep field autofill (MEDDIC)
Ask-AI chat over your meetings	Yes	Yes	Yes
Connects to the AI you already use (ChatGPT or Claude)	Yes	Yes	Yes

A few clarifications, because the SERP is noisy on these:

• Capture method. tl;dv sends a recording bot that joins every call as a participant. Fathom's assistant joins as a participant too; its bot-free capture is a beta for Mac. With Scribbl, nothing joins any call, on every plan.
• Languages. You will see conflicting numbers around the web (38, 40-plus, even 100-plus). The honest read in June 2026 is that both support a wide range, commonly cited at 30-plus for tl;dv and 38-plus for Fathom, and both rely on the same underlying speech engines as everyone else. Treat headline counts as marketing, and test your actual language.
• Coaching and multi-meeting. This is tl;dv's clearest advantage. Scorecards, playbooks, objection-handling, and reports that span many calls are a real product area for tl;dv that Fathom does not match.

Pricing: Fathom vs tl;dv

Pricing should not only live in prose, so here it is plainly. Both tools are cheaper on annual billing than month-to-month, and both have a real free plan. These figures are commonly cited as of June 2026 and change often, so confirm the current numbers on each vendor's pricing page before you buy.

Plan	Scribbl	Fathom	tl;dv (approx, confirm)
Free	10 meetings a month, each with the video, transcript, AI notes and action items; Meet, Zoom and Teams; no credit card	Unlimited recordings, transcripts and storage; an AI summary on every call, with advanced summaries on your first 5 calls a month	Recording and transcription; tighter cap on AI notes and uploads
Entry paid	Pro $13 per user per month (annual)	Premium $16 per user per month (annual)	Pro around $18 per user per month (annual)
Team / mid	Team plan, see pricing	Team $15 per user per month (annual), 2-user minimum	Business around $29 per user per month (annual)
Top tier	See pricing	Business $25 per user per month (annual), 2-user minimum; Enterprise: talk to sales	Enterprise, custom pricing
Billing note	Pro is $20 billed monthly	Premium $20, Team $19, Business $34 billed monthly	Monthly billing is higher than annual

The practical takeaway between the two: Fathom's free plan is the more generous, and its entry paid tier tends to come in a touch lower than tl;dv's. tl;dv costs more as you climb because you are paying for coaching and revenue-intelligence features Fathom does not have. Scribbl's free plan gives full AI notes on 10 meetings a month across Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams with nothing joining the call, and Pro is $13 per user per month billed annually; see the Scribbl pricing page for every plan.

The decision most comparisons skip: bot vs botless

Feature tables rank tools by capability count and skip the part that changes the room. The first question is not which summary you prefer. It is whether you want a recording participant in your meeting at all.

A bot-based tool dials an assistant into the call. It is genuinely convenient because one bot can cover every platform, but it appears in the participant list, it may need to be admitted, and people clock it. On an external sales call, a first client meeting, or a sensitive internal review, a named recorder on the roster changes how the conversation goes. tl;dv works this way on every platform, and so does Fathom, unless you use Fathom's bot-free capture, which is a beta for Mac.

A botless tool records the meeting without adding anyone. Scribbl runs as a Chrome extension on Google Meet and Scribbl Desktop on Zoom and Teams, so there is no extra participant, no admission step, and no email to attendees. Nothing announces itself to your guests. That is a different category from both Fathom and tl;dv, and we go deeper on it in our botless AI notetaker explainer.

Fathom: fast summaries and a generous free plan

Fathom is built for speed. It produces clean AI summaries right after the call, surfaces real-time highlights while you talk, and makes it easy to share short clips, all on a free plan that is more generous than most rivals (unlimited recording, with advanced summaries on your first 5 calls a month). If your loop is record, summarize, and send a recap or a highlight, Fathom is a strong, low-friction fit, and it is the more affordable entry point of the two.

Where it falls short: Fathom does not match tl;dv on sales coaching, scorecards, or multi-meeting intelligence, and its CRM integration pushes summaries rather than auto-populating structured deal fields. And its assistant joins the call as a participant unless you use its bot-free capture, a beta for Mac.

Fathom pros

• Most generous free plan of the two (unlimited recording)
• Fast summaries and real-time highlights during the call
• Bot-free capture in beta on Mac
• Lower entry price; simple to roll out

Fathom cons

• No real sales coaching or scorecards
• No multi-meeting / cross-call intelligence
• CRM push is summary-level, not structured fields
• Assistant joins the call outside the Mac beta

tl;dv: sales coaching and multi-meeting intelligence

tl;dv is built around a recording library and what you can learn across many calls. It records the meeting, generates AI summaries with jump-to timestamps, supports a wide range of languages, and layers on the features sales and CS teams actually buy: coaching scorecards, playbooks, objection-handling analysis, multi-meeting reports, and deeper CRM automation that can auto-populate structured fields and frameworks like MEDDIC. If your workflow is coach reps, track deals across calls, and feed structured data into the CRM, tl;dv has real strengths Fathom does not.

Where it falls short: it is bot-based on every platform, so the recorder joins as a visible participant on each call. Its free plan is tighter than Fathom's, and it costs more as you climb because you are paying for the coaching and revenue features.

tl;dv pros

• Sales coaching: scorecards, playbooks, objection handling
• Multi-meeting and deal-level intelligence across calls
• Deeper CRM field automation (MEDDIC, deal stages)
• Wide language coverage and a searchable library

tl;dv cons

• A recording bot joins every call on every platform
• Tighter free plan than Fathom
• Higher per-seat cost as you add features
• More tool than a non-sales team usually needs

Scribbl: our pick over both

Scribbl is for people who want clean notes and real follow-up with nothing in the call. It captures Google Meet through a Chrome extension and Zoom and Microsoft Teams through Scribbl Desktop (Mac with Apple silicon, and Windows), and never dials anyone in: no participant named after the tool, no admission step, no email to attendees. Every meeting gets the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items, with share links. There is a free plan with no credit card, so you can run it on your next call with no billing commitment.

What sets Scribbl apart is what happens after the call. On Pro you can ask Claude or ChatGPT about every meeting, or about just one Smart Collection ("What were the main objections in my sales calls this week?"), and Automations do the follow-up: draft the email, log notes in HubSpot or Pipedrive, post to Slack or Teams, save to Notion, Google Drive or Confluence, or open a Linear, Jira, Asana or Monday ticket, asking before they change anything by default. Smart Collections sort your meetings by themselves into groups you describe in one sentence. Scribbl is rated 5.0 from 3,000 reviews on the Chrome Web Store and 4.9 from 725 reviews on G2, and is used across more than 10,000 organizations. If your team sells, the Scribbl for sales page shows the no-bot flow on prospect calls.

Chrome Web Store rating 5.0

Reviews behind that rating 3,000

Organizations using Scribbl 10,000+

Who each is for

• Pick Scribbl if you want notes with nothing in the call: botless capture on Meet, Zoom, and Teams in one account, the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items for every meeting, a free plan with no credit card, and Automations so the follow-up actually happens.
• Fathom suits individuals who want fast AI summaries and a generous free plan; tl;dv suits sales or CS teams that want coaching scorecards and structured CRM autofill and accept a recording bot.

Fathom vs tl;dv FAQ

Is Fathom or tl;dv more accurate?

Independent reviewers commonly cite real-world transcription accuracy in the 85 to 90 percent range for this class of tool, and every tool slips on heavy crosstalk and thick accents. Do not pick on accuracy alone. Both advertise wide language coverage (around 38 for Fathom and 30-plus for tl;dv), so if your meetings are not in English, run one real call in your own language with your own product names before you decide.

Is Fathom or tl;dv free?

Both have a genuine free plan. Fathom's free plan is the more generous of the two: unlimited recordings, transcripts and storage, and every call gets an AI summary, though advanced summaries cover only your first 5 calls each month and AI action items need Premium. tl;dv's free plan allows recording and transcription but caps the number of AI notes and uploads more tightly. Free-tier limits change often, so confirm the current caps on each vendor's pricing page. If you want a free plan that also never puts a bot in the call, Scribbl is a botless option with no credit card required.

Do Fathom and tl;dv work with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams?

Yes. Both Fathom and tl;dv support Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. The key difference is how they capture: tl;dv sends a recording bot that joins the call as a participant on every platform, while Fathom's assistant also joins as a participant unless you use its bot-free capture, which is a beta for Mac. If you want zero bot on any platform, Scribbl captures Meet, Zoom, and Teams without ever joining the call.

Which is better for sales teams, Fathom or tl;dv?

Of the two, tl;dv goes further on built-in coaching. It offers scorecards, playbooks, objection-handling analysis, multi-meeting and deal-level intelligence, and it can auto-populate structured CRM fields including frameworks like MEDDIC. Fathom is leaner: it pushes clean AI summaries and clips into the CRM but does not match tl;dv's coaching depth. Both put a bot on prospect calls in their common setups. For sales calls where you do not want a bot announcing itself, Scribbl is the pick: nothing joins the call, and its Automations log notes in HubSpot or Pipedrive and draft the follow-up email.

What is the main difference between Fathom and tl;dv?

Fathom is built for fast per-meeting output: quick AI summaries, real-time highlights during the call, and easy clip sharing, with a generous free plan. tl;dv is built for cross-call intelligence: a searchable recording library, multi-meeting reports, sales coaching, and deeper CRM field automation. Fathom suits individuals and small teams who want clean notes fast; tl;dv suits sales and CS teams that need coaching and pipeline insight. Both can put a recording bot in the call, which is the deeper question for many buyers and the reason our pick is Scribbl, where nothing joins the call.

Does Fathom or tl;dv put a bot in the meeting?

tl;dv sends a recording bot that joins the call as a visible participant on every platform. Fathom's assistant joins as a participant too, unless you use its bot-free capture, which is a beta for Mac. So neither is botless by default. If you want notes with nothing ever joining the call, Scribbl is botless on Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, with a free plan and no credit card.

How much do Fathom and tl;dv cost?

Both publish a free plan plus paid tiers, billed cheaper annually than monthly. Fathom Premium is 16 dollars per user per month billed annually (20 dollars monthly), Team is 15 dollars billed annually (19 dollars monthly) with a 2-user minimum, and Business is 25 dollars billed annually (34 dollars monthly) with a 2-user minimum. tl;dv Pro is 18 dollars per seat per month billed annually (29 dollars monthly), Business is 29 dollars billed annually (39 dollars monthly), and Enterprise is custom. Prices change often and vary by billing term, so confirm the current numbers on each vendor's pricing page before you buy. Scribbl's free plan covers 10 meetings a month with no credit card, and Pro is 13 dollars per user per month billed annually, or 20 dollars monthly.

Is there a botless alternative to Fathom and tl;dv?

Yes. Scribbl is botless by design, so no bot ever joins the call, nothing appears in the participant list, and no email is sent to other attendees. It works with Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, has a free plan with no credit card, and connects each meeting to ChatGPT or Claude so the follow-up work gets done, not just the notes. It is a separate category from both Fathom and tl;dv, which both rely on a recording participant in their common setups.