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2026 AI Meeting Notes Free Plans: 6 Tools Including Otter and Tinrec Compared
It's 3 PM on a Friday, and a 50-minute Google Meet project meeting just ended. You flip through scattered keywords in your notebook and remember that three action items didn't have owners assigned, and the price range the client mentioned was only half-written.
Now that remote meetings have become the norm, the meeting itself isn't the most time-consuming part—post-meeting organization is.
This article reviews 6 common AI meeting note tools, including free plans and paid pricing, and explains the difference between Otter's team plan and Tinrec, which many people ask about.
Option 1 | Tinrec – The Most Complete AI Meeting Notes and Collaboration Assistant
Tinrec is an AI meeting notes and collaboration tool for individuals and teams. It doesn't just convert audio to text; it turns meetings into searchable, queryable, and reusable data.
Record online meetings without a meeting bot. Tinrec's desktop version directly captures computer system audio, so it can handle Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and other online meetings without inviting an extra bot into the meeting room.
There's more to use after the transcript. After the meeting, it automatically generates summaries, chapters, key points, and action items. You can also ask AI questions about the meeting content, then generate reports, tables, or documents, or export to Notion, Google Docs, OneNote, Dropbox, and other tools for further processing.
Chinese and multilingual meetings. Supports Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and multilingual meeting scenarios. Mixed Chinese-English content can also be organized, with real-time translation and original/translated/bilingual views. Teams can also maintain a glossary to improve recognition of internal technical terms.
The team plan is a separate space, not a shared account. Meeting data belongs to the team. You can manage members, roles, and seats, view usage trends and activity logs, and access an audio recycle bin. Note that members without a seat can view, play, and read team data, but only after obtaining a seat can they record, upload, edit, and export.
For plans, the personal version includes a free version (basic quota), weekly pass (short-term high frequency), Pro monthly, and Pro annual. The team version offers a 7-day trial for first-time eligible users, 1 free seat, and 300 minutes of shared team import quota. Team monthly is USD 29.80 per paid seat per month, annual is USD 199 per paid seat per year (about USD 16.58 per month). Each paid seat gets 2,000 minutes of shared team import quota per month. Under an active team plan and seat, real-time recording currently does not deduct minutes. Actual prices are subject to the official purchase page.
Who it's for: Office workers and project teams who need Chinese meeting notes, don't want to add a meeting bot, and want to turn meetings into team data.
Option 2 | Otter.ai – A Mature Choice for English Business Meetings
Otter is a mature AI meeting assistant that supports Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, with real-time transcription, speaker identification, AI Chat, workflows, and team management. Pricing: Basic free plan offers 300 minutes per month; Pro annual is about USD 8.49 per user per month, including 1,200 minutes of in-app recording per month and 10 file imports; Business offers unlimited meetings and in-app recording, more imports, and management capabilities.
If your meetings are mainly in English and you want the meeting tool to automatically join various online meetings, Otter's team plan is worth considering. If you mainly handle Chinese meetings, it's best to test the transcription results yourself before deciding.
Option 3 | Notta – Multilingual Transcription and File Processing
Notta overlaps significantly with Tinrec, covering multi-platform transcription, meeting notes, file import, translation, and team plans. The free plan offers 120 minutes per month, up to 3 minutes per session; Pro annual is about USD 8.17 per month, 1,800 minutes per month; Business annual is about USD 16.67 per seat per month, offering unlimited transcription, role permissions, and usage reports.
Suitable for those who need multilingual transcription and subtitle processing. Note the free plan's 3-minute per-session limit.
Option 4 | Fireflies.ai – Meeting Automation and Team Analytics
Fireflies excels in meeting automation, AI summaries, AskFred, team analytics, and extensive third-party integrations. Annual pricing: Free USD 0, Pro USD 10 per seat per month, Business USD 19 per seat per month, Enterprise USD 39 per seat per month.
Stop organizing recordings by hand
Upload audio or video and automatically get a transcript, summary, and action items
Note that the official "unlimited transcription" is still subject to storage, file upload speed, and AI Credit rules, and cannot be directly understood as all capabilities being completely unlimited.
Option 5 | TurboScribe – A Cost-Effective Choice for Bulk File Transcription
TurboScribe is closer to a file transcription tool, focusing on long files, batch uploads, subtitles, and translation. The free plan allows 3 files per day, up to 30 minutes per file; Unlimited annual is USD 120 (about USD 10 per month), with a maximum of 10 hours or 5 GB per file, and up to 50 files per upload.
Suitable for those with many recording files to process in batches, but real-time meeting notes and team collaboration are not its focus.
Option 6 | Built-in Platform Transcription (Zoom/Google Meet/Teams) – A Zero-Budget Entry Option
If you don't want to install any tools, Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams all have basic transcription and subtitle features. The advantage is it's completely free, with no extra authorization or installation.
The limitation is that data is scattered across platforms, and cross-platform organization, querying, action item extraction, and export capabilities are limited. Finding a specific discussion from a past meeting can be more difficult. Suitable for users who occasionally need subtitles or just want basic records.
With So Many Options, How Should You Choose?
- Want Chinese meeting notes + AI Q&A + automatic post-meeting output → Tinrec
- Don't want a meeting bot to join, want to record system audio directly → Tinrec
- Need to turn meeting data into team assets, manage members and seats → Tinrec team plan
- Meetings mainly in English, need cross-platform auto-join → Otter.ai
- Need multilingual transcription and subtitle processing → Notta
- Have many existing recording files for batch transcription → TurboScribe
- Zero budget, only need basic subtitles and records → Built-in platform transcription
3 Things to Know Before Using AI Meeting Note Tools
First, confirm consent before recording. Different regions have different regulations on recording and transcription. Informing participants and obtaining consent before the meeting is a safer practice.
Second, understand the limits of free quotas. Otter Basic offers 300 minutes per month, Notta free plan is 3 minutes per session, TurboScribe free plan is 3 files per day. Tinrec's free plan lets you experience the basic quota first. If you only have short-term intensive meetings or interviews, a weekly pass is more suitable than upgrading directly.
Third, don't expect fixed accuracy numbers. Transcription quality is affected by audio quality, accents, background noise, overlapping speakers, and technical terms. A better approach: treat AI-generated summaries and action items as a starting point, and verify important numbers and commitments against the transcript timestamps and recording playback.
FAQ
Q1: What's the difference between Otter's team plan and Tinrec's team plan? Otter's team capabilities are built on English business meetings and automatic meeting joining. The Business plan offers unlimited meetings and in-app recording plus more management capabilities. Tinrec's team plan is a separate team space where meeting data belongs to the team, and provides members, roles, seats, shared benefits, usage analytics, audit logs, and an audio recycle bin. If your team meetings are mainly in Chinese, Tinrec's organization workflow will be more aligned with your needs.
Q2: Is Tinrec's free plan enough? The free plan provides a basic quota, suitable for experiencing recording, import, summary, and transcription workflows. If you have regular meetings every week or need to import many files, consider Pro or the team plan.
Q3: Do I need to invite a meeting bot? Tinrec's desktop version captures computer system audio, so no extra bot needs to be invited. However, the user must actively start recording; it does not automatically join all meetings on your calendar.
Q4: Which one should I choose for Chinese meetings? If your meetings are mainly in Chinese or mixed Chinese-English, Tinrec covers Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and multilingual scenarios, and supports real-time translation and team glossary. Otter excels in English business meetings. We recommend testing with a real meeting recording from your team.
Q5: If a team member leaves, will meeting data be taken away? No. Team resources belong to the team. When a member leaves, is removed, or loses their seat, their team resources need to be handed over to other active members.
Q6: Can team audio be recovered after deletion? After audio enters the team recycle bin, it can be restored before permanent cleanup begins. The recycle bin retention period is currently 30 days; action items are not within the recycle bin's scope.
Conclusion
There is no absolute best meeting note tool—only the one that best fits your meeting language and workflow. If your meetings are mainly in English and you need automatic joining across platforms, Otter is a mature choice. If your meetings are often in Chinese, you don't want a meeting bot, and you want post-meeting summaries, action items, AI Q&A, and a team database, Tinrec will be a smoother path.
We recommend running a real meeting with a free plan or team trial first to see if the transcript and notes can directly fit into your workflow before deciding whether to pay.
References
- Tinrec vs Otter.ai: 2026 Hands-On Comparison of Google Meet Recording & Transcription Tools – Which Captures Complete Meeting Notes? - Official Tinrec Blog
- 2026 Google Meet Meeting Transcription Tools: Tinrec vs Otter.ai vs Built-In – Which Saves You Time? - Official Tinrec Blog
- 2026 Comparison: Otter.ai vs Tinrec for Google Meet – Which AI Saves More Time and Money? - Official Tinrec Blog
- 5 Best Free Teams Meeting Recording Tools in 2026: How to Save 60-Minute Meetings - Official Tinrec Blog
- 3 Ways to Check In to Microsoft Teams Online Meetings in 2026: A Hands-On Comparison for Student Group Discussions - Official Tinrec Blog
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