Otter.ai Review 2026: Is the AI Meeting Transcription Tool Worth $17/Month?

If you've ever sat in a meeting furiously typing notes while simultaneously trying to sound intelligent, you've probably wondered: can't AI just handle this? That's exactly what Otter.ai promises — an AI meeting agent that joins your calls, transcribes everything, and spits out summaries so you can actually participate in conversations instead of documenting them.

But here's the thing: there are now at least a dozen AI meeting transcription tools fighting for your money. Otter was one of the first, but being first doesn't mean being best. Let's dig into what Otter.ai actually delivers in 2026 and whether it's worth paying for.

What Otter.ai Actually Does

At its core, Otter is a meeting transcription and note-taking tool. It joins your Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams calls, records them, transcribes the audio in real-time, and generates summaries with action items after the call ends.

The transcription quality is genuinely good — probably 90-95% accurate for clear audio in English. It identifies speakers by name (once you've trained it), timestamps everything, and highlights keywords. You can search across all your past transcripts, which is actually one of its killer features. Need to find that one time Dave said he'd "definitely have the designs ready by Friday"? Otter's got the receipts.

They've also added AI Meeting Templates that let you structure your notes around specific meeting types — sales calls, standups, one-on-ones. The templates pull out relevant information automatically. A sales call template will extract budget mentions, pain points, and next steps. A standup template will capture blockers and commitments.

The live transcription feature works in the Otter app and as an overlay in Google Meet, which is genuinely useful for people who are hard of hearing or joining calls in noisy environments.

The Pricing Breakdown

Otter has four tiers, and the free plan is genuinely usable — which is rare:

Basic (Free): 300 minutes/month of transcription, 30-minute max per conversation, 25 most recent transcripts stored. Limited but functional.
Pro ($16.99/month, or $10/month annually): 1,200 minutes/month, 90-minute conversations, unlimited history, 10 file imports per month. This is the sweet spot for most individuals.
Business ($30/month, or $20/month annually): Unlimited transcription minutes, 4-hour conversations, 3 concurrent meetings, Salesforce integration, admin controls. Built for teams.
Enterprise (custom pricing): Everything in Business plus SSO, SCIM, dedicated support, and compliance features.

The Pro plan is where most people land, and $10-17/month is reasonable if you're in 5+ meetings a week. The math is simple: if Otter saves you even 30 minutes of note-taking per week, it's paying for itself in time savings alone.

What Otter Gets Right

The search is excellent. Being able to search across months of meeting transcripts is genuinely powerful. It's like having a searchable memory of every work conversation you've ever had. This alone justifies the subscription for heavy meeting-goers.

Speaker identification works well. After a few meetings, Otter learns who's who and labels speakers correctly most of the time. It's not perfect — it occasionally gets confused when people talk over each other — but it's reliable enough to be useful.

The summaries are surprisingly good. They're not just extractive summaries that pull random sentences. Otter's AI actually synthesizes the key points, decisions, and action items into something readable. Are they perfect? No. Do they capture 80% of what matters? Usually yes.

Real-time transcription is a genuine accessibility feature. For people who are deaf or hard of hearing, or for non-native English speakers, having live captions during a meeting is transformative. This isn't a gimmick — it's a legitimate productivity and inclusion tool.

What Otter Gets Wrong

The free tier is a trap. 300 minutes sounds generous until you realize that's about 5-6 one-hour meetings. If you're in a job that requires meetings (so, most jobs), you'll burn through the free tier in a week. And the 30-minute conversation limit means your transcript just... stops mid-meeting. That's worse than not having a transcript at all.

Language support is limited. English, French, and Spanish. That's it. In 2026, with competitors supporting 40+ languages, this is embarrassing. If your team operates in German, Japanese, Portuguese, or basically any other language, Otter isn't an option.

Accuracy drops in challenging audio. Multiple speakers talking over each other, heavy accents, poor microphone quality, background noise — Otter struggles with all of these. The 90-95% accuracy I mentioned earlier is for ideal conditions. Real meetings are rarely ideal.

The mobile app is mediocre. It works for basic transcription, but the interface feels like an afterthought compared to the web app. Searching and navigating transcripts on mobile is clunky.

Privacy concerns are real. Otter is recording and transcribing your meetings, which means your company's conversations are sitting on Otter's servers. They have SOC 2 compliance and encryption, but if you work in healthcare, finance, or government, your compliance team might have opinions about this.

Otter.ai vs the Competition

Otter vs Fireflies.ai: Fireflies starts at $19/month and offers similar transcription quality, but with better integrations and a ChatGPT-style assistant (Fred) that can answer questions about your meetings. Fireflies supports more languages and has more flexible export options. If you need more than English/French/Spanish, Fireflies wins by default.

Otter vs tl;dv: tl;dv is the strongest competitor right now. It supports 40+ languages, has better multi-meeting intelligence (you can ask questions across all your meetings at once), and the free tier is more generous. The paid plans are competitively priced. If I were starting fresh today, I'd probably look at tl;dv first.

Otter vs Grain: Grain focuses more on video clips and highlights rather than full transcription. It's better for sales teams who want to share specific moments from calls. Different use case, but worth knowing about.

Otter vs just using Zoom's built-in AI: Zoom now has its own AI Companion that does transcription and summaries. If you're already paying for Zoom, the built-in option is free and decent. It's not as good as Otter for search and organization, but it's good enough for many people.

Who Should Actually Use Otter.ai

It's great for: Individual professionals in English-speaking teams who attend 5+ meetings per week and need searchable records. Journalists who do interviews. Students recording lectures. Accessibility use cases.

It's not great for: Multilingual teams, companies with strict data residency requirements, people who only have 2-3 meetings per week (the free tier might be enough, and the paid tier isn't worth it), or anyone who primarily uses meeting platforms with decent built-in transcription.

The Bottom Line

Otter.ai is a solid, mature meeting transcription tool that does the basics well. The transcription quality in English is among the best, the search functionality is genuinely useful, and the summaries save real time.

But it's 2026, and the competition has caught up. Otter's limited language support, restrictive free tier, and lack of innovation compared to newer tools like tl;dv make it harder to recommend as the default choice. If you're already using Otter and it works for you, there's no urgent reason to switch. But if you're evaluating meeting transcription tools for the first time, shop around before committing.

Rating: 7/10 — Does the job well for English speakers, but the competition is eating its lunch on features and language support.

Price: $10-20/month depending on plan and billing cycle. Free tier available but limited.