Fathom vs Fireflies vs tl;dv: Best AI Meeting Assistant in 2026

AI meeting notetakers used to be a simple comparison: who transcribes best, who summarizes best, who’s cheapest. In 2026 there’s a fourth question that overrides all of them: will your tool actually get into the meeting? Microsoft Teams now labels third-party meeting bots “Unverified” and can require organizers to admit them from the lobby, and admins can auto-block detected bots entirely with a policy that went generally available in late September 2026. Meanwhile, companies and universities are blocking bot notetakers on Zoom at the org level.

So this comparison scores Fathom, Fireflies, and tl;dv on transcription accuracy, note and action-item quality, CRM sync depth, and real cost at team scale — and on which one survives a locked-down meeting environment. Fathom wins the free tier. Fireflies wins team-scale economics. tl;dv wins the sales team.

Quick Verdict

Solo professional who wants the best free notetaker → Fathom. Unlimited recording, transcription, and storage at $0 with summaries in ~30 seconds — the most generous free tier of the three. Its botless mode is still a Mac-only beta, though.

Team that needs cheap seats and deep integrations → Fireflies. Pro at $18/month ($10 annually) is the cheapest real seat here, with 100+ integrations and 100+ languages. Watch the AI-credit pool — your AI features pause when it runs dry.

Sales team that lives on playbooks and pipelines → tl;dv. Pro at $29/month ($18 annually) with CRM auto-sync, or Business at $39/month ($29 annually) for MEDDIC/BANT playbook scoring and multi-meeting insights. Its desktop-app botless recording is the most mature bot workaround of the three.

At-a-Glance Comparison

Fathom Deep Dive

Fathom built its reputation on one thing: speed. The call ends, and roughly 30 seconds later you have a structured summary, action items, and follow-up email draft. The free plan is the most generous in the category — unlimited recording, transcription, and storage with no per-meeting time cap, in 25+ languages. The catch: advanced summaries are capped at roughly 5 calls a month (the basic chronological summary stays unlimited), Ask Fathom is limited to about the last two weeks, and CRM sync is paid-only.

Pricing (verified October 2026): Free at $0. Premium at $20/month ($16 annually) for single users — unlimited advanced summaries, AI follow-up emails, unlimited Ask Fathom on your own calls. Team at $19/month ($15 annually, 2-seat minimum) adds shared search and keyword alerts. Business at $34/month ($25 annually, 2-seat minimum) unlocks CRM field-level sync, Deal View, and coaching metrics. Enterprise is custom. Paid plans carry a 90-day money-back guarantee — the longest refund window of the three.

The 2026-specific concern: Fathom joins as a visible bot by default, and its botless capture mode is still a beta limited to the Mac desktop app. If your org runs locked-down Teams with bot auto-blocking, you’re gambling on the beta. Fathom also publishes no vendor accuracy claim, so there’s no number to hold against it.

Real use cases: (1) A freelancer records every client call on the free plan — unlimited storage means nothing expires, and the 30-second summary lands before the follow-up email. (2) A sales team on Business syncs fields to Salesforce and reviews Deal View metrics on call recordings.

• Best free tier of the three — unlimited recording, transcription, and storage at $0
• Fastest summaries: usable output ~30 seconds after the call
• 90-day money-back guarantee on paid plans is unusually generous
• Deal View and field-level CRM sync are genuinely strong on Business

• Botless mode is a Mac-only beta — worst botless story of the three
• Advanced AI summaries on free are capped at ~5 calls a month
• No published accuracy claim and (as of this writing) no confirmed shipping mobile app

Fireflies Deep Dive

Fireflies is the infrastructure play: a searchable database of everything your team ever said on a call, wired into 100+ integrations. It joins Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and Webex as a visible bot, but also offers a Chrome extension that records browser tabs without a visible participant — a real botless path that works anywhere Chrome runs. Fireflies claims up to 99% transcription accuracy for English, and its 100+ languages with auto-detection are the widest coverage here.

Pricing (verified October 2026): Free at $0 — unlimited transcription, but only 400 minutes of storage (its own pricing page says per team while its help article says per seat — the ambiguity is on the vendor, not us), limited AI summaries, and 20 one-time AI credits. Pro at $18/month ($10 annually) — unlimited transcription and AI summaries, 8,000 minutes of storage per seat, video recording. Business at $29/month ($19 annually) — unlimited storage, conversation intelligence, CRM integrations, API access. Enterprise at $49/$39 (annual billing only) — SSO/SCIM, HIPAA BAA, private storage.

The model to watch is AI credits: they’re a one-time shared workspace pool, not a monthly allowance. Summaries, action items, and AskFred queries draw from it, and when it runs dry, AI features pause until you buy add-on packs (~$0.06–0.10 per credit). Budget for it — a busy team can drain the included credits fast. For a deeper two-way take on Fireflies’ meeting workflow, our Fireflies vs Otter.ai comparison covers how it stacks up against the other big notetaker.

Real use cases: (1) A 6-person agency runs Pro at $10/seat/month annual — $720 a year total — and pushes every client-call transcript into Notion via the native integration. (2) A recruiting team searches AskFred across all interviews instead of rewatching recordings.

• Cheapest paid seat of the three — Pro at $10/month annual
• 100+ native integrations and a public GraphQL API — the most extensible platform here
• 100+ languages with auto-detection — widest language coverage
• Chrome extension gives a real botless path on browser-based calls

• AI credits are a one-time pool — AI features can silently pause mid-month
• Free storage unit is ambiguous (“per team” vs “per seat” on the vendor’s own pages)
• “Up to 99%” accuracy claim is a best-case figure, not a real-world guarantee

tl;dv Deep Dive

tl;dv is the sales-team specialist in this shootout. Yes, it transcribes and summarizes like the others — but its Business tier sells things the others don’t: MEDDIC/BANT playbook scoring, objection handling analysis, multi-meeting AI insights, and scheduled AI reports. The trade: its free plan is really a trial — AI notes are limited to 10 meetings, lifetime, and recordings auto-delete after 3 months.

Pricing (verified October 2026): Free at $0 with the caps above. Pro at $29/month ($18 annually) — unlimited AI notes, downloads, CRM integrations with auto-sync, API, webhooks, and MCP access. Business at $39/month ($29 annually) — premium transcription, multi-language mode, custom vocabulary, playbook monitoring, objection analysis, team automations. (Some roundups still quote Business at $59 — that’s the pre-repricing figure.) tl;dv is EU-hosted with GDPR and SOC 2 claims, a genuine differentiator for European or regulated buyers.

For bot-locked environments, tl;dv’s desktop app records system audio without a bot joining — audio only, no video or screen-share capture. It’s the most mature botless path of the three, even with those limits. For the broader sales-intelligence picture, see our Gong vs Chorus vs Clari comparison — tl;dv sits upstream of those platforms as the meeting-capture layer.

Real use cases: (1) An SDR team scores every call against its MEDDIC playbook on Business and pipes the results to Salesforce automatically. (2) A distributed team uses clips and reels to share 30-second call highlights in Slack instead of forwarding hour-long recordings.

• Only tool here with sales playbook scoring (MEDDIC/BANT) and objection analysis
• Most mature botless path — desktop app with system-audio recording
• CRM auto-sync starts on Pro at $18/month annual — the cheapest CRM sync here
• EU-hosted with GDPR/SOC 2 claims for regulated buyers

• Free plan is a trial in disguise — 10 lifetime AI notes, 3-month retention
• Priciest paid seat of the three ($29/month annual on Business vs $19 Fireflies, $25 Fathom)
• Botless desktop recording is audio-only — no video, screen share, or chat capture

Head-to-Head: The Criteria That Matter

Transcription accuracy and languages

Fireflies publishes the most aggressive claim — up to 99% for English — and third-party tests put real-world results at 88–95% on clear audio. Its 100+ languages with auto-detection beat Fathom (25+) and tl;dv (30+). Fathom publishes no accuracy figure at all; tl;dv reserves “premium transcription” for its Business tier. Winner: Fireflies.

Note and action-item quality

Fathom’s summaries land ~30 seconds after the call and read like a competent human’s notes — best first-draft quality of the three. tl;dv’s are close, and its decisions/action-item extraction plus playbook insights give sales teams more to work with. Fireflies’ AskFred is better for mining old meetings than for the morning-after recap. Winner: Fathom, with tl;dv the pick for sales workflows.

CRM sync depth

Fathom gates field-level sync and Deal View to Business ($25/seat/month annual). Fireflies puts CRM integrations on Business ($19) with the widest native catalog of the three. tl;dv puts basic CRM auto-sync on Pro at $18/month annual — the cheapest CRM sync here. Deepest integration goes to Fathom; cheapest goes to tl;dv. Winner: Fathom for depth, tl;dv for value.

Real cost at team scale

Do the math for 10 seats, annual billing: Fireflies Pro is $100/seat/year — $1,000 total. Fathom Team is $15/seat/month — $1,800 a year. tl;dv Pro is $18/seat/month annual — $2,160 a year. Fireflies is nearly half the cost of tl;dv for the same headcount — though remember to budget AI-credit top-ups (~$0.06–0.10 each). Winner: Fireflies.

Final Verdict

Solo or small team, mostly free → Fathom. The free tier — unlimited recording, transcription, and storage — is the most generous of the three, and Premium at $16/month annual is a fair single-user upgrade. Caveat: if your org runs locked-down Teams, Fathom’s Mac-only botless beta is the weakest workaround here.

Team that needs cheap seats and 100+ integrations → Fireflies. Pro at $18/month ($10 annually) is the cheapest seat, the integration catalog is the deepest, and the Chrome extension gives you a botless path on browser calls. Budget AI-credit top-ups, and confirm which storage unit the vendor means on your plan.

Sales team with playbooks and a pipeline → tl;dv. Pro at $29/month ($18 annually) gets you CRM auto-sync; Business at $39/month ($29 annually) gets MEDDIC/BANT scoring, multi-meeting insights, and the most mature botless recording path of the three. The free plan is a trial — plan to pay.

One 2026 rule that applies to all three: check with your IT admin before you buy. Teams’ bot-labeling (March 2026) and opt-in auto-blocking (generally available late September 2026) mean an org policy — not your credit card — decides whether a bot-based notetaker works at all. If bots are blocked, tl;dv’s desktop app and Fireflies’ Chrome extension are your recording paths; Fathom’s Mac-only beta lags behind.

How We Compared

We compared the three notetakers on transcription accuracy and language coverage, note and action-item quality, CRM sync depth, and real cost for a 10-seat team — weighting team cost and bot-environment survival highest, because in 2026 a notetaker that can’t join the meeting is the wrong notetaker at any price. Pricing was checked against each vendor’s pricing page in October 2026; seat-based plans change frequently, so confirm before you buy.

Frequently Asked Questions