Fathom vs Fireflies 2026: Which AI Note Taker Costs Less?

Fireflies costs less once you pay: Pro is $10 per seat a month billed annually, against $16 for Fathom Premium on the same billing. Fathom has the better free plan, with unlimited recordings, transcripts and instant summaries, while Fireflies Free limits AI summaries and stores 400 minutes. Prices read on both vendors' pricing pages on October 21, 2026.

Our take: start on Fathom Free if you are one person who mainly needs a recap after each call, and pay for Fireflies if a team needs a paid seat at the lowest price. Fathom earns its higher seat price when a sales team wants CRM field sync and coaching metrics without buying add-ons.

One ownership change to know about: Fathom is now part of Superhuman, the company formerly called Grammarly, which announced the deal on September 14, 2026. Fathom's own announcement page says nothing changes for users for now: same app, same login, same product.

Toolradar data: among the 171 transcription tools in the catalog of Toolradar, the software directory we run, Fireflies.ai is listed as an alternative to 81 other tools, third in the category, and Fathom to 77, fourth, as of October 2026. Both sit in the top four of that list, so most buyers who shortlist one will meet the other.

Fathom vs Fireflies at a glance

Prices come from Fathom's pricing page and Fireflies' pricing page, per user per month, read October 21, 2026.

Question	Fathom	Fireflies	Edge
Free plan	Unlimited recordings, transcripts and instant summaries	Unlimited transcription with auto-join, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage	Fathom
Cheapest paid plan, billed annually	Premium, $16	Pro, $10	Fireflies
Cheapest paid plan, billed monthly	Premium, $20	Pro, $18	Fireflies
Team plan, billed annually	Team, $15, two-user minimum	Pro again, sold for individuals and small teams	Fireflies
Sales tier, billed annually	Business, $25, with CRM field sync and coaching metrics	Business, $19, with conversation intelligence and unlimited storage	Fireflies on price
Extra AI usage	Included in the plan	AI credits, from $5 a month for 50	Fathom
Recording without a bot	Bot-free capture, in beta on Mac	Chrome extension for Google Meet without the bot	Depends on your platform

The headline split is simple. Fireflies wins every paid price row, and Fathom wins the free plan and the predictability of the bill.

What does each plan cost?

Both vendors discount annual billing, so compare annual against annual and monthly against monthly. Fathom says annual billing saves 25% or more, and Fireflies says up to 44%.

Plan	Monthly billing	Annual billing	Who it is for
Fathom Free	$0	$0	One person who wants recordings, transcripts and a recap
Fathom Premium	$20	$16	One person who wants advanced summaries, action items and the meeting assistant
Fathom Team	$19 per user	$15 per user	Teams of two or more sharing playlists, folders and search
Fathom Business	$34 per user	$25 per user	Sales teams that sync fields into a CRM and track coaching metrics
Fathom Enterprise	Talk to sales	Talk to sales	SSO, SCIM and custom data retention
Fireflies Free	$0	$0	Trying the bot on real calls
Fireflies Pro	$18 per seat	$10 per seat	Individuals and small teams that need downloads and video recording
Fireflies Business	$29 per seat	$19 per seat	Growing teams that want conversation intelligence and team analytics
Fireflies Enterprise	Not sold monthly	$39 per seat	Rules engine, SSO, SCIM, HIPAA and private storage

Note the odd step on Fathom: the Team seat costs a dollar less than Premium on each billing, but it needs at least two users. A solo buyer cannot take the cheaper Team rate.

Fathom shows a 90-day guarantee on each paid card. It also runs three offers worth checking before you pay: up to two years of Team free for startups backed by selected VCs and accelerators, 10 free seats for nonprofits, and Business free for the rest of a Gong contract when a team switches.

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What one person pays in a year

A solo user picks between Fathom Premium and Fireflies Pro. Our arithmetic on the printed per-month rates:

One person	Fathom Premium	Fireflies Pro
Billed annually, per year	$192	$120
Billed monthly, per year	$240	$216

On annual billing, Fireflies saves $72 a year. On monthly billing the gap shrinks to $24, so a buyer who refuses to commit for a year gets most of the way to Fathom's price on Fireflies anyway.

Before paying at all, check whether Fathom Free already covers you. It records and transcribes every meeting with no cap and writes an instant summary, so a person who only needs the recap may never need Premium. Fireflies Free covers the transcript on auto-joined meetings, but its summaries run on a small number of transcription credits and storage stops at 400 minutes, after which you delete old files to make room.

What a five-person team pays

Teams compare Fathom Team with Fireflies Pro, and the two sales tiers with each other. Our arithmetic for five seats over a year:

Five seats, per year	Fathom	Fireflies
Entry team plan, billed annually	$900 (Team)	$600 (Pro)
Entry team plan, billed monthly	$1,140 (Team)	$1,080 (Pro)
Sales tier, billed annually	$1,500 (Business)	$1,140 (Business)
Sales tier, billed monthly	$2,040 (Business)	$1,740 (Business)

Fireflies leads in every row, by $300 a year on the annual entry plan. Then add the variable cost. The plan's included AI credits are shared across the team and do not grow with seats, and features such as AI Skills, Slack questions, CRM autofill and the default-on Daily Digest and Meeting Prep consume them. If a five-person Pro team adds the 200-credit pack on annual billing, the year comes to $792, still below Fathom Team's $900. Only a team that needs the 1,000-credit pack or more ends up paying more than Fathom for the same five seats.

The gap narrows further if usage is heavy. Fireflies Pro stores 8,000 minutes per seat, and only Business and Enterprise have unlimited storage. Fathom lists recordings and call storage as unlimited on every plan, so a team that keeps every call should compare Fathom Team with Fireflies Business, not with Pro.

The AI credit catch on Fireflies

Fireflies bills its advanced AI features in credits, and this is where its lower seat price can drift up. Fireflies' AI credits guide lists the packs and the rules.

Credits per month	Monthly price
50	$5
200	$20
1,000	$90
2,500	$200

Annual billing lowers the monthly price of each pack, and larger packs exist for heavy users. Unused purchased credits do not carry over to the next billing cycle, so buying a bigger pack "just in case" wastes money.

Two rules matter more than the table. When a paid plan's included credits run out, Fireflies subscribes the account to the lowest credit tier automatically, and an existing credit subscriber is moved up to the next tier, unless you pause auto-upgrades in settings. Credits are charged per query and vary with the complexity of the request, so you cannot predict the count in advance.

Transcription itself never uses credits. Standard transcripts, notes and recap emails are covered by the plan, and summary templates are free; only custom summary sections and the AI tools above spend credits. A team that uses Fireflies as a transcript and recap tool can ignore credits entirely.

Fathom has no credit meter on its pricing page. Its paid plans include the meeting assistant and summaries, and Ask Fathom across all calls is a beta feature with unlimited lookback on your own calls on paid plans. That makes Fathom the steadier bill for a team that will ask the assistant a lot of questions.

Which one fits how you meet?

Recording without a bot. Fathom offers bot-free capture as a beta feature on Mac, alongside its usual bot. Fireflies records Google Meet without its bot through the Chrome extension and also has a desktop app. If your calls run on Zoom or Teams on a Windows laptop, check each vendor's current capture options before you assume a botless setup.

Sales teams. Fathom Business adds CRM field sync, deal view, coaching metrics, AI scorecards and custom summaries. Fireflies Business adds conversation intelligence, team analytics and multi-language mode, and Fireflies' CRM autofill for HubSpot and Salesforce runs on AI credits. A manager who wants deal fields filled after every call without watching a credit balance is the buyer Fathom Business is built for.

Languages and uploads. Fireflies transcribes in more than 100 languages and accepts uploaded audio and video. Uploads are rate limited at 3,000 minutes per source per month for an individual, with overage at $0.01 a minute, while live meetings captured by the bot have no limit. Teams that import past recordings at volume should check that line.

AI tools you already pay for. Fathom lists integrations with Claude and ChatGPT and a public API with MCP, so meeting context can reach the assistant your team already uses. That matters if you already pay for one of them: our ChatGPT pricing and Claude pricing explainers list what those seats cost. Fireflies lists API access on every plan, including Free, which suits a developer who wants to pull transcripts into an internal tool without upgrading first.

For the wider field, our best AI meeting assistants ranking adds Otter, Avoma, Granola and tl;dv, and our best free AI note takers list goes deeper on the free plans. If a bot on the call is the real problem, our Otter vs Granola comparison and the Granola review cover the botless route, and the Otter.ai review covers the third big name. For notes beyond meetings, see our best AI note-taking apps.

Who should pick Fathom, and who should pick Fireflies?

Pick Fathom if you are one person who wants a capable free plan, if your team wants a flat bill with no credit meter, or if a sales team needs CRM field sync and coaching metrics in one seat.

Pick Fireflies if the paid seat price decides it, if you need transcripts in many languages or bulk uploads, or if your team uses the tool mainly for transcripts and recaps and will rarely touch the credit-based features.

Both first paid plans sit inside the range on our AI subscription prices page, which tracks what AI tools charge across categories. Our AI tools for business guide covers where a note taker fits in a wider stack.

How we compared

Plan prices and features come from Fathom's and Fireflies' pricing pages, Fireflies' AI credits, free plan and storage guides, and Fathom's and Superhuman's acquisition announcements, all read on October 21, 2026. Yearly and team totals are our arithmetic on printed per-seat prices, with no promotion, startup program or credit purchase applied unless a row says so. The Toolradar figures come from the Fathom and Fireflies.ai profiles in the Toolradar catalog, October 2026. We did not test transcription accuracy, so this page does not rank it.

AIpresso data: the audience file refreshed October 25, 2026 shows 26,000+ subscribers and a 31% average open rate.

Cite this: AIpresso, "Fathom vs Fireflies 2026: Which AI Note Taker Costs Less?", October 2026. Prices verified on vendor pages, October 21, 2026.

FAQ

Is Fathom or Fireflies cheaper in 2026?

Fireflies is cheaper on every paid plan. Fireflies Pro costs $10 per seat a month billed annually, or $18 monthly, against $16 or $20 for Fathom Premium. Fathom has the stronger free plan, with unlimited recordings, transcripts and instant summaries.

Is Fathom still free after the Superhuman acquisition?

Yes. Fathom's pricing page still lists a Free plan, and Fathom's announcement says nothing changes for users for now: same app, same login and same product. Superhuman announced the acquisition on September 14, 2026.

What does Fireflies' free plan include?

Unlimited transcription of auto-joined meetings, 100+ languages, AskFred and API access, with limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage and 20 AI credits. Downloading transcripts and video recording need a paid plan.

Does Fireflies charge extra for AI features?

Advanced AI features use credits, and transcription does not. When a paid plan's included credits run out, Fireflies subscribes the account to a credit pack, starting at $5 a month for 50 credits, unless auto-upgrade is paused.

Which is better for sales teams?

Fathom Business includes CRM field sync, deal view and coaching metrics at $25 per user a month billed annually. Fireflies Business costs less at $19 and adds conversation intelligence, but its CRM autofill runs on AI credits, so heavy use adds to the bill.

Can I use Fathom or Fireflies without a bot joining the call?

Both offer a route. Fathom has bot-free capture in beta on Mac, and Fireflies can record Google Meet without its bot through its Chrome extension.

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