Notta Alternatives (2026): Free Plans With No 3-Minute Cap

The best Notta alternative depends on how you use it. For meetings with no bot: Reline (we make it), Granola or Jamie. For the biggest free plan: Fathom or tl;dv, which join with a bot by default. For phone apps plus file imports: Otter. For uploaded files: Sonix, Rev or the free open-source Buzz.

Notta transcribes 65 languages, sells live translation as an add-on, and runs on the web, Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. What pushes people to look elsewhere is on its own pricing and help pages:

• The free plan stops at 3 minutes. Free includes 120 transcription minutes a month, but each recording or file is capped at 3 minutes, and Notta’s help center says a longer recording cannot be transcribed in full. Downloading transcripts starts on Pro.
• Minutes run out. Pro includes 1,800 transcription minutes a month with no carryover, 100 file uploads and 100 AI summaries; unlimited transcription needs Business, $16.67 per seat a month billed yearly.
• The bot. Notta Bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and Webex calls as a participant. Notta Desktop for Mac and Windows records without it on every plan, so try that first if the bot is your only complaint.
• Trials that turn into payments. The 3-day web trial is a trial of the annual Pro plan and the 7-day Business trial asks for a payment method; both are free only if you cancel before they end, and Notta’s help center says web purchases are generally not refunded.
• Data and training. Notta stores data with AWS in Tokyo and keeps transcription data until you delete it. Its Japanese help center says a Japanese partner that supplies its speech recognition trains that engine on randomly picked audio and transcripts, except on Enterprise, Business Plus and a special plan for licensed professionals (it uses no plan’s data to train its other AI features); its English help center lists “No data training” only on Enterprise.
• SSO only at scale. SAML SSO and audit logs are Enterprise features, and Enterprise starts at 51 seats.

If you only want Notta Bot out of your calls, our guide shows how to stop it without leaving Notta.

Every fact comes from the vendor’s own pages as of November 2026, with Notta in the first row for reference. Prices are per user per month, shown as monthly / billed yearly; Notta’s monthly prices come from its help center, because its pricing page lists the yearly ones. Tools that never send a bot come first, then the tools that send one by default, each group sorted by score, ties alphabetically.

How we scored: one point per column from “Paid entry” to “SSO and admin”, half a point for a partial answer, zero when the vendor’s own pages do not say. Paid entry: a point at 10 or less a month billed yearly, half up to 20, in the vendor’s own currency. Free plan: a point for a permanent free plan that transcribes a 30-minute meeting in full, half when it cuts recordings shorter, none for a trial. Bot: a point when nothing joins your calls, half when a bot joins by default or by choice but a desktop mode records without it. Apps: a point for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android, half if any is missing. Languages: a point for 30 or more, half for 10 to 29. Recording kept: a point when the audio or video stays on the usual plans, half when only some modes or plans keep it. Chat: a point when you can ask across your meetings, half for a beta or a small allowance that does not renew. SSO and admin: a point for single sign-on and SCIM on some plan, half for SSO alone or for team workspaces with admin roles. These rules differ from our Otter and Fireflies lists, scored out of 7 and 6: this one adds the SSO and admin column, gives the free point only for a full 30-minute meeting and halves chat that runs on an allowance that does not renew, so a tool can score differently there.

We make Reline, and it scores 6.5, level with Notta itself, Granola, Fireflies, Otter and Read AI. It loses half a point each for having no phone app, a yearly price of $12 against the $10 line, and no SSO or SCIM yet. Notta drops its half points on the 3-minute free cap, the bot and SSO without SCIM. A total hides what matters most, so weigh the column that made you leave.

Notta Free cuts every recording at 3 minutes. Here is what the other free plans allow, as of November 2026:

• Fathom: unlimited recordings and transcriptions; a bot by default, with a bot-free beta on Mac.
• tl;dv: unlimited recordings and transcripts; AI notes on your first 10 meetings, then on the first 10 minutes of each, for the life of the account; recordings kept 3 months.
• Fireflies: recordings up to 2 hours; its pricing page lists unlimited transcription, while its help center says free accounts opened since 1 September 2026 get 3 meeting transcriptions unless Auto-join is on; 400 minutes of storage per team.
• Reline: up to 1 hour of recording per note and 10 hours of transcription, with no bot and no card.
• Read AI: 5 meetings a month, up to 1 hour each.
• Otter Basic: 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation.
• Jamie: 10 AI notes a month, meetings up to 30 minutes, no bot.
• Granola: no bot and no meeting cap listed, with 30 days of history.

Notta also transcribes audio and video files: 50 a month on Free at 3 minutes each, 100 on Pro and 200 per seat on Business, up to 5 hours a file. Reline does not transcribe uploaded audio or video files; it transcribes meetings while it records them. These tools do, as of November 2026:

Our read: for an occasional interview, Buzz costs nothing and keeps the audio on your computer. If you upload a few hours a month, Sonix’s pay-as-you-go rate avoids a subscription. If a person has to check the words, Rev sells human transcripts.

Notta’s own Desktop app already records without a bot on every plan, within the same transcription limits; system audio needs macOS 13 or later, or Windows 10 or later. These alternatives never send a bot at all:

Reline never joins the call. Its desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux (beta) records your microphone and the call audio on your computer; live transcription in 60+ languages (automatic detection follows a switch of language mid-meeting), AI notes and storage run in the cloud. Free allows up to 1 hour of recording per note, against 3 minutes on Notta Free, plus 10 hours of transcription. The recording stays next to the notes with a play button on every transcript line, and chat answers questions across notes, folders and workspaces.

Where it is weaker for Notta users: it does not transcribe uploaded audio or video files, there is no phone app and no live translation, speakers show as Me and Others rather than names, there is no single sign-on or SCIM yet and no SOC 2 report, and the Linux app is in beta.

No bot does not remove the duty to tell people. Notta’s help center says the same of its own bot-free recording: getting consent is your responsibility. Reline plays no consent message, so say you are recording before you start and check the rules where everyone on the call is.

Granola uses your device’s audio, so no bot joins, and runs on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android. It transcribes 31 languages on desktop and 17 on mobile, its chat works within and across meetings, and Basic is free with 30 days of meeting history; Business is $14 per user a month. Its pricing page says the audio is deleted after transcription on every plan, so there is nothing to replay later. Pick it for a polished notepad on every device; skip it if you need the recording or more languages.

Otter covers most of Notta’s ground: a notetaker for Zoom, Teams and Google Meet, a Mac and Windows desktop app that records without a bot, iOS and Android apps, and file imports, 3 for the life of a Basic account and 10 a month on Pro. It keeps the audio for playback, and AI Chat works within and across meetings. Basic gives 300 minutes a month with 30 minutes per conversation, against 3 minutes on Notta Free; Pro is $16.99 a month or $8.33 billed yearly. The trade-off is language: Otter transcribes six (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese), Notta 65.

Fireflies’ bot joins Zoom, Google Meet and Teams from your calendar, and its desktop app and Chrome extension record without it; per its help center, the bot-free desktop mode saves no audio or video file and labels speakers Speaker 1 and Speaker 2. Recordings run up to 2 hours on Free and Pro. Its pricing page lists unlimited transcription on Free, while its help center says free accounts opened since 1 September 2026 get 3 meeting transcriptions unless Auto-join is on. Global AskFred answers across past meetings and spends AI credits, of which Free and Pro get 20, once. Pro is $18 a month or $10 billed yearly.

Read AI’s assistant joins Zoom, Teams and Google Meet as a participant when invited from your calendar, while its Windows and Mac apps, its phone apps and Google Meet’s native recording capture without it. Free covers 5 meetings a month of up to 1 hour; Pro is $19.75 a month or $15 billed yearly and adds 100 minutes of file uploads a month. Ask Read searches meetings, email and chat with no limit on questions, but recording playback starts at Enterprise, and its help center lists 36 languages for meeting reports.

Fathom’s free plan has unlimited recordings and transcriptions, with transcripts in 38 languages and unlimited call storage. It joins as a bot by default; bot-free capture is a beta for Macs, and Fathom says Windows users are next. Premium is $20 a month or $16 billed yearly, and account-wide Ask Fathom is still a beta. Pick it if free recording volume matters most; skip it on Windows if you want no bot.

tl;dv’s bot joins your calls by default, its desktop app for Mac and Windows records with no bot, and it has iOS and Android apps. Free gives unlimited recordings and transcripts, with AI notes on your first 10 meetings and then on the first 10 minutes of each, for the life of the account, and keeps free recordings 3 months. It lists 100+ languages on its homepage and 30+ on its languages page, and Ask tl;dv AI can read many meetings at once, with 10 such questions on Free and Pro that do not renew. Pro is €29 a month or €18 billed yearly, and tl;dv says its data centers are all in Europe.

Notta is strong here: 65 transcription languages per its help center, plus live translation sold as add-ons, $6 a month billed yearly for one language or $9 for bilingual transcription and translation. Among the alternatives, Jamie lists 99+ languages, tl;dv 100+ on its homepage and 30+ on its languages page, Fireflies English plus four with 100+ more in beta, Reline 60+ with automatic detection that follows a switch mid-meeting, Fathom 38, Read AI 36 for meeting reports (it says meetings that mix languages are not fully supported), Granola 31 on desktop and Otter six. Reline has no live translation, so if you translate during calls, Notta keeps the edge.

Reline is our product, so here is exactly what using it looks like, to judge against the others.

1. Install the desktop app. On a Mac, the first run asks you to click “Allow microphone”, then “Allow system audio” (call audio needs macOS 13 or later); on Windows and Linux (beta), a short sound check runs instead.
2. Join your Zoom, Teams or Meet call as usual and click “Quick note” in the header or on Home: a note opens and recording starts at once. In a note you already have, click “Start” in the bottom pill. With the desktop app running, a card also offers to take notes when a call app starts using your microphone.
3. Type rough lines while people talk: a number, a name, “pricing?”. The live transcript fills in under Me and Others, and Reline treats your lines as the points the notes must cover.
4. When the call ends, click the stop square in the bottom pill, then “Generate notes”. If you started from the card, Reline stops when the call ends and writes the notes on its own.
5. Type a question in the “Ask anything” box, such as “What did we agree on price?”. The answer quotes the transcript lines with their [m:ss] times; click one to hear that moment.

What it costs, as of November 2026: Free includes 10 hours of transcription and up to 1 hour of recording per note, with no card. Professional is $15 per user a month, or $12 a month billed yearly.

Stay if you transcribe files and meetings in one place, if you need its 65 languages and live translation, if you record on your phone or with its Notta Memo recorder, or if Privacy Mode matters: on Pro and above, Notta Desktop can transcribe on your computer and keep the files in a local folder, and Notta says those recordings are not used for AI training. Pro at $8.17 a month billed yearly is among the cheapest paid seats here; just do not count on the free plan for anything longer than 3 minutes.

Not tied to Notta at all? Our guide to the best AI note taker picks one tool for each kind of meeting.

1. Export first: downloading transcripts is a Pro feature, so save what you need before you drop to Free.
2. Stop Notta Bot: turn off auto-join in Notta’s calendar settings and disconnect your calendar; our Notta Bot guide covers each platform.
3. If you are leaving for good, delete the account in Notta’s settings; Notta says a deleted account cannot be retrieved.
4. Pick your reason for leaving from the table and try only the tools that fix it; for files, run one real recording through each upload tool.
5. In Reline, bring notes over with “Import Markdown” in a note’s menu, one .md file at a time; there is no bulk import and no audio import.
6. Tell people how you record now, especially once no bot announces it.

• Notta: notta.ai/en/pricing and notta.ai/pricing (Japanese prices); Notta Help Center (support.notta.ai): “Understand Notta’s Plans Pricing”, “How to choose a Notta Plan?”, “What is included in each Notta plan?”, “Import files from local storage”, “What languages does Notta support for transcription and translation?”, “Transcribe online meetings via calendar integration”, “Understand credits in Notta Brain”
• Notta Help Center: “Notta Desktop vs. Notta Bot: What’s the Difference?”, “What is Bot-Free Recording?”, “What is Privacy Mode Recording?”, “What are the differences between ‘3-day free trial’ and ‘Free Plan’?”, “What is the ‘7-day Business Trial’ on Notta Web?”, “Do you offer refunds?”, “Data security and privacy policy”, “Is there a storage period or capacity limit for transcription data?”, “Can I retrieve my account after it is deleted?”; Japanese articles “Nottaの料金プランについて”, “AI学習について” and “「ビジネス Plus」と「ビジネスプラン」の違いは何ですか？”; Notta privacy policy (effective 2 September 2025)
• Read AI: read.ai/pricing; Read AI Help Center (support.read.ai): “What are the different paid plans that Read offers?”, “What meeting platforms does Read support?”, “How to Use Read’s Desktop App for Windows and Mac”, “What languages does Read support?”, “Using Ask Read to search your meetings and connected apps”
• Granola: granola.ai/pricing, docs.granola.ai (multi-language)
• Jamie: meetjamie.ai, meetjamie.ai/pricing
• Fireflies: fireflies.ai/pricing; guide.fireflies.ai/articles/6666374717, 1512776728 and 2114151875; guide.fireflies.ai/hc/en-us/articles/21617190473617
• Otter: otter.ai/pricing, otter.ai/desktop
• Fathom: fathom.ai/pricing, fathom.ai/whats-new, help.fathom.video/en/articles/296192
• tl;dv: tldv.io, tldv.io/pricing, tldv.io/features/languages, tldv.io/security-commitment, intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8919450, 8490450 and 9207514
• Sonix: sonix.ai/pricing. Rev: rev.com/pricing
• Buzz: github.com/chidiwilliams/buzz (README; last commit 9 November 2026)
• Reline: reline.so/pricing, reline.so/privacy