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Best Free Transcription Tools in 2026

The 15 best free transcription tools we track: 1 completely free and 14 with a free plan alongside paid tiers. No credit card needed to start.

free tools screened
117
free tools screened
100% free
1
100% free
free plan + paid
14
free plan + paid

Ranked by public user ratings (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot), not vendor pitches. Every rating shows its date.

As featured in
  • TechCrunch
  • Forbes
  • Bloomberg
  • The Verge
  • Business Insider
Key Takeaways
  • Granola ranks #1 on our free transcription list for 2026.
  • We evaluated 117 transcription tools to create this ranking.
  • 15 tools offer free plans, perfect for getting started.

Top 5 free transcription tools at a glance

Top 5 free transcription tools: free plan type, user rating and best use, as of October 2026
ToolTypeRatingBest for
GranolaFree plann/a
The AI notepad that transforms raw meeting notes into actionable insights.
Fathom100% free4.9 (7,187) as of Sep 2026
AI notetaker that summarizes your meetings so you can focus on the conversation.
Ask FellowFree plan4.7 (2,240) as of Sep 2026
Secure AI meeting assistant to record, transcribe, and summarize every meeting with privacy in mind.
Speechify Voice TypingFree plan4.5 (2,895) as of Sep 2026
Free Voice Typing Dictation. Just Talk.
ScratchpadFree plan4.6 (1,560) as of Sep 2026
The AI workspace for sales that removes admin work and boosts productivity.

Ratings from G2, Capterra, and other public review sites. Each cell shows the snapshot date so a cited number is never an undated one.

Toolradar data

The transcription tools market in numbers

Toolradar data: Toolradar tracks 166 transcription tools as of October 12, 2026. 70% of the transcription tools on Toolradar are free, freemium or open source. The median cheapest paid plan for transcription tools is $12/mo, across the 63 that publish a price. Toolradar re-checked the pricing of 80% of transcription tools in the last 90 days. Toolradar aggregates 53,312 public user reviews (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot and other review sites) across 77 rated transcription tools. The most cross-shopped transcription tool is Descript, listed as an alternative to 104 other tools on Toolradar. The most compared transcription tool on Toolradar over the last 90 days is Descript, with 705 side-by-side comparisons. Computed from the Toolradar catalog and on-site activity.

  • 166 transcription tools tracked
  • 70% are free, freemium or open source
  • $12/mo median cheapest paid plan, across the 63 transcription tools that publish one
  • 80% of prices re-checked in the last 90 days
  • 53,312 public user reviews aggregated across 77 rated tools
Most cross-shopped transcription tools on Toolradar, as of October 2026 Listed as an alternative to the most other tools on Toolradar
Rank Tool Listed as an alternative to
1 Descript 104 tools
2 Otter.ai 87 tools
3 Fireflies.ai 82 tools
Most compared transcription tools on Toolradar, last 90 days to October 2026 Side-by-side comparisons by visitors, last 90 days
Rank Tool Comparisons
1 Descript 705
2 Otter.ai 349
3 Fathom 335

Source and method: live transcription tools statistics · Toolradar Research report

Free tier limits compared

The quotas, length caps and watermark policies vendor pricing pages often hide. 11 of 15 transcription tools verified.

Free tier limits of transcription tools, from vendor pricing pages
ToolFree quotaLanguagesSpeaker IDExport formatsMode
FathomUnlimited recordings + transcriptionsNot specifiedNoNot specifiedNot specified
Ask Fellow5 AI notes (lifetime) / user, 5 AI recordings (lifetime) / user, 5 audio/video uploads per user lifetime99NonotesUpload only
Scratchpad10 hours/month call recording, 100 AI credits/user/monthNot specifiedNoNot specifiedNot specified
Avoma14-day free trial of Organization plan70+Yes
Descript60 min (1 hour) per editor per monthn/an/an/aUpload + screen recording (web app)
Fireflies.ai800 mins of storage/seat100+Notranscripts, summaries, recordingsBoth (live + upload)
Riverside.fm2 hours of multi-track recordingsn/an/an/an/a
tl;dvUnlimited recordings & transcriptions30+n/a
Otter.ai300 min/month6 (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese)YesMP3, TXTBoth (live + 3 lifetime file imports)
Deepgram$200 credit then pay-as-you-go45+NoBoth (live + upload)
GrainFree viewer seats only; cannot record/upload/import meetingsNot specifiedNoNot specifiedView only (no recording)

Descript: Media minutes are 'imported or recorded' minutes, they count once even if edited multiple times. Compare to Hobbyist 600 min, Creator 1800 min, Business 2400 min.

Otter.ai: File imports capped at 3 LIFETIME on free. PDF/DOCX/SRT export is paid-only. No accuracy SLA disclosed.

When you'll outgrow the free tier

The exact ceiling each tool hides on its pricing page. If your usage crosses these lines, plan for an upgrade.

  • Descript: Media minutes are 'imported or recorded' minutes, they count once even if edited multiple times. Compare to Hobbyist 600 min, Creator 1800 min, Business 2400 min.
  • Otter.ai: File imports capped at 3 LIFETIME on free. PDF/DOCX/SRT export is paid-only. No accuracy SLA disclosed.
Granola logo
1.

Granola

Free plan

The AI notepad that transforms raw meeting notes into actionable insights.

Granola is an AI-powered notepad designed to help individuals and teams, particularly product teams, get more value from their meetings. It transcribes computer audio directly, eliminating the need for invasive meeting bots, and allows users to take their own notes during calls. After a meeting, Granola uses advanced AI models to enhance these raw notes, extracting key themes, insights, action items, and even generating follow-up emails or summaries. The tool is particularly beneficial for product teams, enabling them to turn customer conversations into actionable product insights, validate roadmap decisions, and build a searchable library of user research. It integrates with popular tools like Notion, Slack, HubSpot, and Zapier, streamlining workflows and ensuring that insights are easily shared and acted upon across different departments. Granola aims to help users stay present in meetings while ensuring no critical information is missed, ultimately boosting productivity and decision-making.

Fathom logo
2.

Fathom

100% free

AI notetaker that summarizes your meetings so you can focus on the conversation.

4.9/5 across G2 and Trustpilot · 7,187 ratings, Sep 2026

Fathom is an AI notetaker that automatically transcribes, summarizes, and extracts action items from your virtual meetings. It aims to eliminate the need for manual note-taking, allowing users to stay fully present during conversations. The tool provides shockingly accurate transcripts, instant summaries, and action items, which are delivered directly to your inbox. Fathom integrates seamlessly with popular communication and productivity tools like Slack, Salesforce, HubSpot, Notion, and Asana, automatically syncing meeting notes, insights, and action items. It also features an "Ask Fathom" capability, allowing users to search meeting content and get customizable AI summaries tailored to their team's workflow. This helps teams move work forward faster by reducing time spent on searching and follow-up. Fathom is designed for various teams including sales, marketing, operations, HR, and product & engineering, helping them improve collaboration, track progress, and gain actionable insights from every meeting.

Ask Fellow logo
3.

Ask Fellow

Free plan

Secure AI meeting assistant to record, transcribe, and summarize every meeting with privacy in mind.

4.7/5 on G2 · 2,240 ratings, Sep 2026

Fellow.ai is an AI meeting assistant designed to securely record, transcribe, and summarize meetings across various platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. It prioritizes privacy by ensuring AI models are never trained on user data and offers robust control settings for who can access recordings and notes. The platform centralizes all meeting assets, making them searchable and actionable. Beyond basic transcription and summarization, Fellow.ai includes an AI agent called AskFellow that can answer questions about meetings, generate documents, automate email follow-ups, create memos, and update CRM systems. It also provides collaborative agendas for pre-meeting preparation and offers integrations with over 50 tools, including project management platforms, Confluence, Notion, Salesforce, and HubSpot. Fellow.ai is built for entire organizations, offering enterprise-grade features like advanced recording permissions, domain control, user provisioning, and org-wide analytics, making it suitable for teams across customer success, marketing, engineering, sales, product, HR, and IT. This tool is ideal for individuals and organizations looking to enhance meeting productivity, ensure data privacy, and streamline post-meeting workflows. It helps teams stay organized, informed, and efficient by automating tedious tasks associated with meeting management and follow-up.

Speechify Voice Typing logo

Free Voice Typing Dictation. Just Talk.

4.5/5 across G2 and Trustpilot · 2,895 ratings, Sep 2026

Speechify Voice Typing is an AI-powered speech-to-text tool that converts spoken words into accurate, editable text in real time. It supports multiple languages and accents, offers voice commands for punctuation and formatting, and integrates with popular apps like Google Docs and email clients. The adaptive AI learns from usage patterns to improve accuracy over time.

Scratchpad logo
5.

Scratchpad

Free plan

The AI workspace for sales that removes admin work and boosts productivity.

4.6/5 across SourceForge and G2 · 1,560 ratings, Sep 2026

Scratchpad is an AI-powered workspace designed for sales professionals to streamline their workflow, reduce administrative tasks, and improve CRM data quality. It acts as a modern interface between sales teams and Salesforce, offering a fast and flexible environment for managing deals, taking notes, and updating records. The platform integrates various tools like sales sheets, a notetaker with call recording and AI transcription, and AI agents that automatically update Salesforce fields. By automating mundane tasks and providing real-time data synchronization with Salesforce, Scratchpad helps sellers focus more on selling, leading to higher adoption of CRM, better data accuracy, and improved team alignment. It's ideal for sales teams and RevOps leaders looking to enhance sales execution and scale revenue.

Avoma logo
6.

Avoma

Free plan

AI meeting assistant for revenue teams

4.6/5 across G2 and Capterra · 1,370 ratings, Sep 2026

Avoma is an AI meeting intelligence platform for revenue teams. It provides meeting recording, transcription, notes, and conversation intelligence to help sales and customer success teams improve performance.

Descript logo
7.

Descript

Free plan

Edit audio and video like a doc

4.6/5 across G2 and Capterra · 1,106 ratings, Sep 2026

Descript is an all-in-one video and podcast editor with text-based editing, AI voice cloning, transcription in 25+ languages, and Underlord AI tools for automated editing and content creation.

Fireflies.ai logo
8.

Fireflies.ai

Free plan

AI meeting transcription and search

4.7/5 on G2 · 753 ratings, Sep 2026

Fireflies.ai transcribes meetings and extracts insights. Automatic call recording, AI transcription, and smart summaries-meeting content captured and made searchable. Integration with major meeting platforms is automatic. The search finds topics across conversations. Action items surface automatically. Busy professionals use Fireflies to never lose meeting context and always find what was discussed.

Riverside.fm logo
9.

Riverside.fm

Free plan

Record podcasts and videos remotely

3.7/5 across Trustpilot, G2 and SourceForge · 3,908 ratings, Sep 2026

Riverside is an AI-powered platform for recording, editing, and distributing professional video and audio content remotely. It captures studio-quality recordings locally at up to 4K video and 48kHz audio, independent of internet quality. The platform includes a text-based video editor, AI-driven noise removal, filler word removal, eye contact correction, automatic transcription, and Magic Clips that generate short-form social content automatically. Riverside supports live streaming in full HD to multiple destinations simultaneously, podcast hosting with analytics, and direct publishing to YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Used by Spotify, Microsoft, The New York Times, and TED.

tl;dv logo
10.

tl;dv

Free plan

AI meeting recorder for sales and product

4.7/5 on G2 · 537 ratings, Sep 2026

tl;dv records and transcribes meetings so you never have to take notes again. AI generates summaries with key moments and action items. Timestamp and clip important parts for easy sharing. Search across all your meeting recordings. Integrates with Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. Never say 'can you repeat that?' again.

Nabla logo
11.

Nabla

Free plan

Ambient AI for clinical notes and EHR dictation

4.5/5 on G2 · 700 ratings, Aug 2026

Nabla is an ambient clinical AI assistant used by health systems to capture the patient-clinician conversation and generate structured notes. It also offers clinical-grade dictation inside Epic and other major EHRs, plus E/M and ICD-10 coding suggestions that stay under the clinician. Nabla cites a large number of health organizations, clinicians, and patient encounters. HIPAA, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR are listed. Partners can embed via Nabla Connect or an API. A free trial is on the site; enterprise rollouts are quote-only.

Otter.ai logo
12.

Otter.ai

Free plan

AI meeting notes and transcription

4.4/5 across G2 and Capterra · 608 ratings, Sep 2026

Otter.ai is an AI-powered meeting assistant that automatically transcribes, summarizes, and extracts action items from your meetings. With up to 95% accuracy, it works seamlessly with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, joining your meetings as a participant to capture everything. Beyond transcription, Otter uses AI to generate summaries, identify key topics, and assign action items to team members. The AI Chat feature lets you query past conversations-ask "What did we decide about the Q4 budget?" and get instant answers. With integrations to Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, and Notion, Otter fits into existing workflows. Used by major companies including Salesforce, Harvard, Amazon, and IBM, it is consistently rated as one of the most accurate transcription tools available.

Deepgram logo
13.

Deepgram

Free plan

Enterprise Voice AI: STT, TTS & Agent APIs for accurate, realistic, and cost-effective voice solutions.

4.6/5 on G2 · 475 ratings, Aug 2026

Deepgram is an AI speech platform with speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and voice agent APIs. Features fast, accurate transcription with custom model training.

CoRecruit logo
14.

CoRecruit

Free plan

AI assistant for recruitment agencies, automating notes, ATS updates, and candidate submittals.

4.7/5 on G2 · 404 ratings, May 2026

CoRecruit is an AI assistant specifically designed for recruitment agencies to streamline their workflow and enhance efficiency. It automates administrative tasks such as taking interview notes, updating Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), and generating candidate submittals. The platform aims to save recruiters over 8 hours per week, allowing them to focus more on placements. CoRecruit integrates seamlessly into existing recruiting workflows, capturing conversation details from various communication channels like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, mobile calls, and in-person meetings using a "botless" technology. This ensures privacy and a professional candidate experience. It then processes this data to provide multi-language transcriptions, instant summaries, and automatically updates custom fields and attachments within the ATS. The tool also facilitates the creation of branded candidate summaries and submittals, including the option to embed video snippets, and automates client follow-ups. CoRecruit is built with enterprise-grade security, including SOC 2 Type II certification and GDPR compliance, ensuring data protection and ownership for recruiting firms.

Grain logo
15.

Grain

Free plan

AI meeting notes and highlights

4.7/5 on G2 · 313 ratings, Sep 2026

Grain is a video meeting recorder that captures, transcribes, and organizes your calls. AI identifies key moments and creates shareable clips. Automatically joins Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams meetings. Search across all your meeting content. Share insights with stakeholders without forwarding entire recordings. Turn hours of meetings into minutes of actionable highlights.

Related

Why choose free transcription tools?

Free transcription tools are an excellent way to get started without financial commitment. Whether you're a startup, freelancer, or small business, these tools offer essential features at no cost.

What to look for in free transcription tools

  • Feature limitations: Understand what's included in the free tier vs paid plans
  • Usage limits: Check for restrictions on users, storage, or API calls
  • Data ownership: Ensure you own your data and can export it
  • Support: Free tiers often have community-only support
  • Upgrade path: Consider future needs if you outgrow the free tier

Free vs Freemium: what's the difference?

100% free 100% free, no payment ever

Completely free with no paid upgrades available. Best for simple, focused workflows that don't require advanced features.

Free plan Free tier + paid upgrades

Generous free tier with optional paid plans that unlock advanced features, higher limits, or team collaboration.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best free transcription tool in 2026?

Granola ranks #1 on our free transcription list in 2026. Granola offers a free plan alongside paid plans: The AI notepad that transforms raw meeting notes into actionable insights.

Is Granola really free forever?

Granola uses a freemium model: there is a permanent free tier you can use without a credit card, plus optional paid plans that unlock higher usage limits and advanced features. The free tier itself does not expire.

What does the free tier of transcription tools typically include?

Free transcription tools typically include the core workflow features needed to evaluate the product. Paid plans usually unlock higher usage limits, team collaboration, advanced analytics, integrations, and priority support. The specific cap differs per tool; see the "Free tier limits compared" table above for verified numbers.

When should I upgrade from a free transcription tool?

Upgrade when you hit one of the free tier ceilings: usage quota (output count, storage, contacts, projects), team size, or a paid-only feature your workflow depends on. The "When you'll outgrow the free tier" section above lists the verified upgrade triggers per tool.

Are there transcription tools that are 100% free, not just freemium?

Yes. We found 1 completely free transcription tool (no paid upgrade path) and 14 tools with a permanent free tier alongside paid plans. Fathom is 100% free.

Are free transcription tools good enough for business use?

Yes, for most startups, freelancers, and small teams. Granola and Fathom both offer free tiers robust enough for production workflows. Larger teams typically upgrade when they need SSO, audit logs, advanced permissions, or usage past the free quota.

Last updated: October 12, 2026

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