Otter.ai Review: Is It Still the Best AI Note Taker in 2026?
Otter is the name most people reach for first when they want AI meeting notes, and for good reason. But the free plan has real caps, video calls run through a visible bot, and it has no way to record a phone call and no watch app. Here's a fair look at what Otter gets right, where it struggles, and who should consider something else.
Windows
ChromeOtter.ai is still one of the best AI note takers for scheduled Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams calls: excellent live transcription, an auto-joining bot, and a free plan with 300 min/month. Its limits are a 30 min cap per free conversation, no phone-call recording, and no watch app; if those matter, Wave AI covers them, with a smaller free plan of 30 minutes a month.
Otter.ai has been synonymous with automatic meeting transcription for years. It popularized the “live transcript scrolling on screen” experience, and for scheduled Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams calls it remains one of the most polished options available. This review covers what Otter does genuinely well in 2026, its real limitations, its current pricing, and where a mobile-first tool like Wave fits if Otter leaves gaps.
What Otter.ai does well
- Real-time transcription. Otter’s live transcript, with speaker labels appearing as people talk, is still one of the best in the category — useful for following along or catching up mid-meeting.
- A generous free tier on minutes. The free Basic plan includes 300 min/month of transcription, far more than most competitors give away and enough to test the product properly.
- The Otter Assistant bot. Connect your calendar and Otter auto-joins your Zoom, Meet, and Teams calls to record and summarize them without you lifting a finger.
- Otter AI Chat. You can ask questions across your meetings and get answers drawn from the transcripts, plus automated summaries and action items.
- Established and well-integrated. Web, iOS, and Android apps (which record in-person conversations too), plus a large install base and mature integrations, make it a safe default for teams that live in video calls.
Where Otter.ai falls short
- The free plan’s fine print. Those minutes come with a 30 min cap per conversation, 3 lifetime file imports, and only the 25 most recent conversations visible, so a single long meeting or a backlog of recordings hits the wall quickly.
- It’s built around a visible bot. For video calls, the Otter Assistant joins as a participant. In client or sensitive conversations, a third-party note taker showing up on the roster isn’t always welcome.
- No phone-call recording or watch app. Otter is designed for meetings and mic capture. If the conversation you need is a regular 1:1 phone call, or you want to record from your wrist, Otter has no path for it.
- Per-conversation caps on paid plans too. Pro caps each conversation at 90 min and allows 10 a month imports; Business raises the cap to 4 hr.
Otter.ai pricing in 2026
Otter offers four tiers. These are the US prices on Otter’s pricing page when we checked; confirm on Otter’s site before buying:
- Basic (Free): 300 min/month, 30 min per conversation, 3 lifetime file imports.
- Pro: $8.33 a user per month billed annually ($16.99 month-to-month), 1,200 min/month, a 90 min conversation cap, and 10 a month imports.
- Business: $19.99 a user per month billed annually ($30 month-to-month), with unlimited meetings and in-app recordings and a 4 hr conversation cap.
- Enterprise: custom pricing, with SSO, the Otter API, and HIPAA compliance as an add-on.
How Wave compares
Wave covers the same core Otter is known for — a calendar bot that joins Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams, with speaker-labeled transcripts and AI summaries — and then extends to the conversations Otter can’t capture:
- Phone calls. Wave’s Phone Bridge records incoming and outgoing calls on iPhone and Android, both sides, with your real caller ID, transcribed and summarized. It works on every plan (on Free, calls count toward the 30 minutes a month; Wave Pro is unlimited), and it’s something Otter doesn’t offer.
- No-bot desktop capture. The Wave desktop app for Mac and Windows records mic + system audio directly, so nothing joins the call as a visible participant.
- On the go. Record in-person conversations from your iPhone, Android phone, Apple Watch, or Wear OS watch, and import existing audio and video files (MP3, M4A, WAV, MP4, and more).
- Ask your whole archive. Every recording is searchable, Voice ID labels speakers automatically across sessions, and there’s an MCP server so Claude and ChatGPT can query your transcripts.
The honest trade-off: Otter’s free tier is more generous on raw minutes. Wave’s free plan includes 30 minutes of recording per month with full transcription and summaries and no per-recording cap, versus Otter’s 300 min/month — so if all you need is a lot of free video-meeting transcription, Otter wins on that one axis. Wave’s paid plan is $15 a month, or $80 a year, for unlimited recording. For a direct feature-by-feature breakdown, see Wave vs Otter.ai.
Pros and cons at a glance
| Strengths | Limitations |
|---|---|
| Excellent real-time transcription | 30-min per-conversation cap on free plan |
| 300 free minutes per month | Only 3 lifetime file imports on free |
| Auto-joining calendar bot + AI Chat | Bot is a visible participant in calls |
| Mature web and mobile apps | No phone-call recording or watch app |
The verdict
Otter.ai is still an excellent choice if your world is scheduled video meetings and you want best-in-class live transcription with a big pool of free minutes. Where it leaves gaps: phone calls, recording from a watch, long conversations on the free plan, and capture without a visible bot. If those matter to you, it’s worth trying Wave’s free plan alongside Otter and seeing which one fits how you actually work.
