Granola vs Fathom: Free Plans, Bot or No Bot, and Which Notetaker to Pick (2026)

Which is better, Granola or Fathom?

If you want no recorder on your calls, Granola. If you want the best notetaker you can get for $0, or a team that can share and search every call, Fathom. They are closer than the usual “bot vs no bot” framing suggests, because Fathom now sells a bot-free mode too.

Both record a call, write a summary, pull out action items and let you ask questions about past meetings. Granola listens to your computer’s audio and never joins. Fathom sends a bot by default and, per its pricing page, offers a bot-free option that is still a beta feature for Mac. The price gap is bigger than the feature gap: Fathom’s free plan has no history cutoff, while Granola’s free plan hides meetings older than 30 days.

How does each tool record your call?

Granola uses no bot. Its security page says it “won’t auto-join or auto-record anything”: you start it for each meeting. It transcribes in real time on desktop and does not store audio, only the transcript and your notes. On mobile it caches audio temporarily after the meeting. Because it announces nothing by default, you decide whether to tell the other people on the call.

Fathom works the other way round. It joins calendar-synced Zoom, Google Meet and Teams calls and records them, and everyone sees the participant. Its homepage says “bot or no bot” and “now available bot-free”. The pricing page lists bot-free recording as a beta feature for Mac. If you use Windows, treat Fathom as a bot tool for now.

Our Fathom review mentions recurring complaints of the bot failing to show up on calendar-synced calls. That risk exists only with a bot. A tool you start yourself cannot miss the meeting, though you can forget to press the button.

What do the free plans give you?

Fathom’s is the larger one. The pricing page says “Free forever” and lists unlimited recordings and transcription, instant AI summaries, clips, playlists and search across calls. AI action items, AI follow-up emails and Ask Fathom are marked limited use, and the page does not publish the limits.

Granola Basic is $0 and includes AI notes, AI chat (auto model selection only), shared folders, customizable templates, voice typing and multi-language support. The limit is time. You see 30 days of meetings, and Slack is the only integration. Notion, Zapier and HubSpot need Business.

If you take a few calls a week and read the notes within days, both free plans work. If you want to look up something from three months ago, Granola’s free plan cannot do it and Fathom’s can.

What do Granola and Fathom cost?

Granola is cheaper for one person and for small teams. Fathom is cheaper at zero.

Granola’s pricing page lists no annual billing or discount. Fathom’s Enterprise price is shown with strikethrough formatting that we could not read reliably, so we leave it out.

For two people, Fathom Team costs $38 a month, or $30 billed annually. Two Granola Business seats cost $28. Fathom Business, the tier with CRM field sync, Deal View and coaching metrics, costs $68 for two seats monthly or $50 annually. A solo user cannot buy Fathom’s Team or Business plans at all. Run your seat count through the true cost calculator before you decide.

Fathom shows a “90 day guarantee” on every plan card, including Free, without describing terms. Treat it as unproven until you read the terms at checkout. Granola’s pricing page lists no trial or refund terms; its line is “Try Granola for a few meetings today. It’s free to get started.”

Who writes better notes?

We did not run a head-to-head test and neither vendor publishes accuracy figures, so this is about method.

Granola merges what you type with the transcript. Write “follow up on pricing” and the final note expands it using what was said around that moment. The notes read like yours. Fathom generates summaries and action items from the recording with no input from you, which suits people who do not want to type during a call and prefer to stay hands-off.

Pick by habit. If you already jot notes, Granola builds on them. If you never do, Fathom’s automatic summary asks less of you.

Which is better for CRM sync and teams?

Fathom, if the team is the point. Its Team plan adds a shared workspace with folders, comments, mentions and playlists, plus trackers, team-wide Ask Fathom and HIPAA with a standard BAA. Business adds CRM field sync, Deal View, coaching metrics and AI scorecards. The integrations list names Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Notion, Asana, Zapier, Claude and ChatGPT. One caveat: basic CRM syncs are capped at 3 users per domain.

Granola’s Business plan at $14 connects Slack, Notion, Zapier, HubSpot, Attio and Affinity, and includes API access and an MCP connector. Salesforce arrives only on Enterprise at $35 per user, and the FAQ says SSO is available for workspaces of 50 or more users.

A solo consultant who logs deals in HubSpot gets there for $14 with Granola. A sales team of five on Salesforce is better served by Fathom Business or a tool built for it; our Claap review covers one.

What about privacy, AI training and consent?

Both claim SOC 2 Type II. Granola says it reached full SOC 2 Type 2 in July 2025; Fathom’s homepage lists “SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, HIPAA Compliant, SSO / SCIM”. These are vendor claims and we have not audited either.

Training works the same way on paper. Granola trains on anonymized data to improve its product and lets you opt out in Settings; Enterprise accounts have training off by default. Fathom’s privacy policy says it may use de-identified meeting content to train its in-house models and that you can opt out in account settings. The policy does not say whether the default is on or off, and our Fathom review states it as on by default. We could not confirm that wording, so check the setting yourself. Both say third parties such as OpenAI and Anthropic may not train on your content.

Retention differs. Granola stores notes and transcripts indefinitely unless you delete them, and says account deletion removes your data within 30 days. Fathom keeps personal information “for as long as necessary” and says it will use commercially reasonable efforts to delete recordings within 30 days of account deletion.

On consent, a bot is a notice and no bot is not. A proposed class action against Granola was filed July 30, 2026 in the Northern District of California, alleging it recorded calls without every participant’s consent; the claims are allegations, and we found no ruling. We did not search for litigation against Fathom. Whichever you pick, tell participants you are recording. Granola’s help center documents an optional chat notice and a video watermark in Settings.

How do Granola and Fathom compare with Fireflies and Otter?

Most people weighing this pair also look at one of the two bot-first rivals. Fathom sits between them and Granola.

Fathom’s free plan beats both on volume: unlimited recordings and transcripts, against 400 stored minutes at Fireflies and 300 minutes a month at Otter. Fireflies is the stronger pick when you want automation and field updates, and Otter when you want a browser app. The full pairings are in Granola vs Fireflies and Granola vs Otter.ai. Otter’s page also shows Pro promo prices valid only with an India-issued card; ignore those unless that is you.

So which should you pick?

Start with Fathom’s free plan if you only want recordings, transcripts and search and do not mind a bot. It costs nothing and keeps everything.

Start with Granola’s free plan if you take your own calls, work on Windows or want no recorder in the room. Upgrade to Business at $14 when you need history past 30 days or the HubSpot and Notion links.

Take Fathom if a team of two or more needs shared libraries and CRM sync. If neither fits, read our best AI meeting note takers guide, plus Circleback and Claap.