Otter vs Fireflies: which notetaker fits a freelancer's call load?
Otter and Fireflies both join your calls, record them, and hand you back a transcript with a summary. For a freelancer, the real question is rarely which transcript is prettier — it is which free plan survives your actual call load, because the two products ration completely different things. Otter's free plan gives you 300 transcription minutes a month with a 30-minute cap per conversation. Fireflies' free plan gives you unlimited transcription, but only 400 minutes of storage. One meters what you record; the other meters what you keep.
That single difference decides most purchases. If your calls are short and you want notes while the meeting is still happening, Otter's ration is generous. If you record hours of client calls a week and mainly need to search them afterwards, Fireflies' ration is the one that fits — until its storage fills up. Everything else in this comparison is secondary to matching the limit to your habits.
How we tested
We ran the same calls through both tools in November 2026: a 25-minute client progress call on Zoom, a longer discovery call with two speakers and some cross-talk, and a call with a speaker whose accent neither tool had an easy time with. We tested signup, connecting a calendar, how each tool joins and behaves inside a live meeting, transcript search a week later, and the summaries each produced without editing. Free-plan limits, upgrade prices and storage rules were checked against each product's published pricing page in November 2026.
Our verdict
Choose Otter if you want live, in-meeting notes and the simplest Zoom experience — its live transcript and summary appear while the call is still running, and setup takes minutes. Choose Fireflies if you record many calls and mostly search them later — unlimited transcription on the free plan suits a heavy call schedule, as long as you accept that its 400 minutes of storage means old recordings do not stay free forever.
The free plans, side by side
Both free plans are real products, not seven-day trials — but they run out in different places. Figures checked November 2026.
| Free plan | Otter | Fireflies |
|---|---|---|
| Transcription allowance | 300 minutes / month | Unlimited transcription |
| Cap per conversation | 30 minutes | No per-call minute cap — storage is the cap |
| Storage included | Transcripts stay in your workspace | 400 minutes of recordings |
| Live transcript during the call | Yes — a core feature | Notes focus on the after-call record |
| Search across past calls | Within your workspace | A core strength |
| What runs out first | A long workshop, at minute 31 | Your archive, at 400 stored minutes |
Do the arithmetic against your own diary. Five client calls a week at 45 minutes each is roughly 900 minutes a month: Otter's free plan covers about a third of that, and the 30-minute cap means a standard 45-minute call is not fully transcribed even once. Two short calls a week, on the other hand, is around 240 minutes — inside Otter's allowance, with room to spare. Fireflies flips the problem: record everything, but 400 minutes of storage is about nine 45-minute calls, so a busy freelancer hits the storage wall within a fortnight and has to delete or upgrade.
Scores from our tests
Scores are out of 10, from the calls described in our test method. The overall scores match the ones published on our homepage.
| Category | Otter | Fireflies |
|---|---|---|
| Transcription accuracy | 8.2 | 8.0 |
| Free-plan value | 7.4 | 8.4 |
| Search & summaries | 7.6 | 8.2 |
| Ease of use | 8.8 | 7.4 |
| Price to upgrade | 7.0 | 6.0 |
| Overall | 7.8 | 7.6 |
The scores are close because the products are close — the gap is in shape, not quality. Otter wins on accuracy by a hair and on ease by a lot: it is the tool a non-technical client can be sent a live link to without a briefing. Fireflies wins the free-plan and search categories that matter to a freelancer working alone across many clients, then loses points on what it costs when the free storage runs out and the upgrade becomes compulsory rather than optional.
Which one fits you?
Pick Otter if…
- You want notes and a live transcript while the meeting is still running
- Your calls are mostly short — under 30 minutes each
- You live in Zoom and want the least setup and the simplest interface
- Clients sometimes join the notes link and need it to just make sense
- 300 minutes a month honestly covers your call load
Pick Fireflies if…
- You record many calls a week and 300 minutes would not last a fortnight
- You mainly search transcripts afterwards — "what did they say about the budget?"
- Your calls run long and a 30-minute cap would cut them in half
- You work across several clients and want one searchable archive
- You will export or delete recordings before the 400-minute storage fills
The honest drawbacks
Both tools share the category's real weakness: accuracy is conditional. On a clean call with one speaker at a time, both transcripts in our test were good enough to quote from. Add a strong accent, cross-talk, a bad microphone or technical vocabulary and both produced passages we had to repair by listening back — names and numbers suffered first. Budget a minute of checking for any quote, figure or commitment you plan to act on, whichever you choose. Neither tool removes the need to listen; both reduce how much of the call you have to listen to twice.
Otter's specific catch is the 30-minute cap. It is easy to miss how restrictive it is: a standard one-hour discovery call or workshop is transcribed only halfway on the free plan, and the back half — often where decisions happen — is simply not there. The 300 monthly minutes sound generous until you divide them by real call lengths.
Fireflies' specific catch is storage, and it is quieter. "Unlimited transcription" is the headline, but with 400 minutes of storage on the free plan, recordings you keep count against a small allowance — once it fills, older recordings are deleted to make room or the archive stops growing until you clear it. A freelancer who records everything and never tidies up will lose early client calls without noticing. Both tools also announce themselves as a recording participant in the meeting, which is legally and socially necessary — tell clients beforehand anyway; a surprise "notetaker has joined" has ended calls.
Questions
Related guides and tools
Both tools sit in the Meetings & Notes section of our pillar guide, the best AI tools for freelancers, organised by job alongside the tools for winning clients, doing the work and getting paid. And when a good call turns into real work, turn the brief into a document with our free proposal generator — scope, timeline and payment terms included, built in your browser with nothing uploaded.