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Best Transcription Tools in 2026

Tools for transcribing audio and video to text

152 tools evaluated · 10 top picks · Updated September 2026

Key Takeaways
  • Fathom is our overall pick for transcription in 2026, and our free pick.
  • We analyzed 152 transcription tools to create this ranking.
  • 8 tools offer free plans, perfect for getting started.

Transcription tools have split between meeting transcription (Otter, Fathom, Granola, Fireflies) and general-purpose audio-to-text (Descript, Rev, Trint). Most professional users adopt a meeting tool for calls and a separate tool for one-off audio files.

7 Top Transcription Tools Compared

Starting price, average user rating, and our pick for each category.

ToolOur takeStarting priceRating
Granola logo
Granola
Best overall$14/mon/a
Fathom logo
Fathom
Highest rated$18/mo4.9
Microsoft Teams Phone logo
Microsoft Teams Phone
Solid pickContact sales4.4
Ask Fellow logo
Ask Fellow
Most affordable$7/mo4.7
Chorus by ZoomInfo logo
Chorus by ZoomInfo
Solid pickContact sales4.5
Speechify Voice Typing logo
Speechify Voice Typing
Solid pick$29/mo4.5
Scratchpad logo
Scratchpad
Community favoriteFree + paid4.6

How the Top Transcription Tools Compare

The transcription category is highly competitive in 2026, with Granola and Fathom both ranking among the top choices on Toolradar's assessment, followed closely by Microsoft Teams Phone. The tight competition reflects how mature this market has become.

Pricing varies significantly among the top picks: Granola (freemium (free tier available)), Fathom (free), Ask Fellow (freemium (free tier available)) offer free access, while Microsoft Teams Phone requires a paid subscription. Teams on a budget should start with Granola, which delivers strong value despite its free tier.

Community feedback adds nuance to the editorial rankings: Granola has the most reviews (1), while Scratchpad holds the highest community score at 5.0/5. Both signals matter, volume shows adoption, while ratings reflect satisfaction.

Computed from live tool ratings, review counts, and editorial scores.Editorial policy

Top Transcription tools

01
Granola logo

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

Freemium

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.

Granola screenshot
+Transcribes computer audio directly without requiring meeting bots.
+Enhances raw notes with AI to extract key insights and action items.
+Offers customizable templates for various meeting types.
Limited meeting history and features in the free Basic plan.
Enterprise plan requires direct contact for pricing details.
Good value

Granola's pricing is fair, offering a generous free Basic tier.

Exclusive offer

New users get 100% off their first month with code TECHPRESSO

02
Fathom logo

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

Free4.9/57,187 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.

+Meeting transcription
+AI summaries
+Free tier generous
Limited integrations
Newer platform
Great value

Fathom's pricing is very generous, especially with its robust Free tier offering unlimited recordings and transcription.

Watch out

Team tier requires 2+ users minimum.

03
Microsoft Teams Phone logo

Cloud calling in Microsoft Teams

Paid4.4/519,320 ratings · Sep 2026

Microsoft Teams Phone is a cloud-based calling solution built into Microsoft Teams that replaces traditional PBX systems. It provides VoIP and PSTN calling, AI-generated call summaries, auto attendants, call queues, and real-time transcription, all managed from a single admin console with 99.999% uptime SLA.

+Native Teams integration eliminates separate phone infrastructure
+Flexible PSTN options: Calling Plans, Operator Connect, or Direct Routing
+AI features like real-time summarization reduce manual note-taking
Requires a separate Microsoft Teams license on top of phone pricing
Domestic minute caps may not suit high-volume call centers
Fair value

Microsoft Teams Phone offers a range of options, but the base 'Teams Phone Standard' at $10/user/mo is expensive given it requires a separate PSTN connection.

Watch out

Overage fees for exceeding minute bundles

04
Ask Fellow logo

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

Freemium4.7/52,240 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.

Ask Fellow screenshot
+Strong emphasis on privacy and security (AI not trained on user data, granular controls)
+Comprehensive AI capabilities for transcription, summarization, and insights
+Automates post-meeting tasks like CRM updates and email follow-ups
Free tier has limited AI notes and recordings (5 lifetime per user)
Advanced features like unlimited recordings and CRM integration are in higher-paid tiers
Good value

Ask Fellow's pricing is quite generous, especially with its robust Free tier offering 5 lifetime AI notes and recordings.

Watch out

Enterprise tier starts at 10 users

05
Chorus by ZoomInfo logo

Boost sales with AI-powered call insights and coaching

Paid4.5/52,994 ratings · Sep 2026

Chorus by ZoomInfo is conversation intelligence for sales teams. Automatically record and transcribe customer calls and meetings. AI identifies winning behaviors and coaching opportunities. Deal insights highlight risks and next steps. Integrations with CRM update records automatically. Help reps improve by showing them what works in successful deals.

+Part of ZoomInfo
+Good call analysis
+Team performance tracking
Requires ZoomInfo ecosystem
Complex pricing
Fair value

Chorus by ZoomInfo's custom pricing for both Business and Enterprise tiers makes it difficult to assess fairness without specific quotes.

Watch out

Likely high minimum seat count

06
Speechify Voice Typing logo

Free Voice Typing Dictation. Just Talk.

Freemium4.5/52,895 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.

Speechify Voice Typing screenshot
+High accuracy across accents and languages
+Real-time text generation with voice commands
+Seamless integration with multiple apps
Premium features require subscription
Internet needed for advanced AI processing
Fair value

Speechify's pricing is on the expensive side for its Premium tier at $29/month, especially when compared to other dictation or text-to-speech services.

07
Scratchpad logo

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

Freemium4.6/51,560 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.

+Significantly reduces sales admin time (e.g., 455 hours/month saved for one team).
+Improves CRM data accuracy and completeness, leading to better forecasting.
+Increases seller adoption of Salesforce due to a more user-friendly interface.
Specific credit usage for AI features might require monitoring for higher usage teams.
Enterprise features like unlimited AI credits and white-glove services are only available on custom plans.
Good value

Scratchpad's pricing is fair, offering a generous Free tier with 10 hours of call recording and 100 AI credits.

08
Avoma logo

AI meeting assistant for revenue teams

Freemium4.6/51,370 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.

Avoma screenshot
+Automates note-taking, follow-up emails, and CRM updates, saving over 4 hours per week.
+Increases qualified meetings by 2x through effortless scheduling and instant lead routing.
+Reduces ramp time and increases win rates by 40% with automated call scoring and personalized coaching.
The product's 'all-in-one' nature might lead to a steep learning curve for new users trying to utilize all features.
Reliance on AI for critical functions like call scoring and risk alerts may introduce biases or inaccuracies if not properly configured or monitored.
Good value

Avoma's pricing is fair, offering a generous free Basic tier.

09
Descript logo

Edit audio and video like a doc

Freemium4.6/51,106 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.

+Revolutionary editing approach
+Great AI features
+Good transcription
Learning curve
Can be resource intensive
Good value

Descript's pricing is generally fair, offering a generous Free tier and a well-structured progression.

Watch out

Overage fees for exceeding media minutes

10
Fireflies.ai logo

AI meeting transcription and search

Freemium4.7/5753 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.

+Automatic meeting transcription
+Works with Zoom, Meet, Teams
+Searchable meeting archive
Accuracy drops with accents/noise
Privacy concerns recording meetings
Good value

Fireflies offers good value for meeting transcription.

Watch out

Storage caps on lower plans

Why these transcription tools didn't make our top 10.

We evaluated 152 transcription tools and these 20 ranked 11 through 30. They're solid options that fell short on one or two axes (review depth, pricing transparency, feature parity), but worth a look if the leaders don't fit your stack or budget.

Rev AI logo
Rev AI
The world's most accurate API for AI- and human-generated transcripts and speech insights.
tl;dv logo
tl;dv
AI meeting recorder for sales and product
Vonage Business logo
Vonage Business
Unified communications for voice, video, messaging, and SMS
Nabla logo
Nabla
Ambient AI for clinical notes and EHR dictation
Otter.ai logo
Otter.ai
AI meeting notes and transcription
Deepgram logo
Deepgram
Enterprise Voice AI: STT, TTS & Agent APIs for accurate, realistic, and cost-effective voice solutions.
CoRecruit logo
CoRecruit
AI assistant for recruitment agencies, automating notes, ATS updates, and candidate submittals.
Grain logo
Grain
AI meeting notes and highlights
Bubbles logo
Bubbles
AI meeting notetaker and screen recorder that turns every meeting into action and enables async collaboration.
Bluedot logo
Bluedot
The most accurate AI note taker that captures, transcribes, and summarizes every meeting, bot-free.
CallMiner logo
CallMiner
Analyze 100% of customer conversations for CX, compliance, and performance
MeetGeek logo
MeetGeek
AI meeting assistant for recording and summaries
Rewatch logo
Rewatch
Centralize, organize, and share your team's video knowledge asynchronously.
Notta logo
Notta
AI-powered notetaker for transcribing, summarizing, and translating meetings and audio in real-time.
Trint logo
Trint
AI transcription and translation for global content creation
Sonix logo
Sonix
Automated transcription service
AssemblyAI logo
AssemblyAI
Speech-to-text API with high accuracy transcription
Podcastle logo
Podcastle
One AI platform for audio, video & voice: record, edit, dub, subtitle, clone voices, and build voice agents.
Metaview logo
Metaview
AI agents for recruiting to source, engage, and hire better with intelligent automation.
Happy Scribe logo
Happy Scribe
AI and human transcription, captions, and translation in 120+ languages

Popular transcription comparisons

See how the leading transcription tools stack up head-to-head.

Transcription pricing, compared

Real plans and the hidden costs for each tool.

Browse all transcription tools

152 tools
AI Video Interviewer logo
AI Video Interviewer
Automate and scale candidate interviews with human-like AI
paid· Web
Wisecut logo
Wisecut
Transform long videos into engaging, viral clips using AI-powered editing.
freemium· Web
Kapwing logo
Kapwing
Browser-based video editor with AI features
freemium· Web
Vegas Pro logo
Vegas Pro
Professional video editing software for faster, more creative, and endless possibilities.
paid· Web
Nylas logo
Nylas
Integrate email, calendar, and meetings into your application with universal APIs.
paid· Web
Speechmatics logo
Speechmatics
AI speech technology powering voice AI agents, real-time transcription, and text-to-speech across 55+ languages.
freemium· Web
Airgram logo
Airgram
AI-powered meeting assistant for transcription, summarization, and action item tracking.
freemium
Verbit logo
Verbit
Unlock the value of verbal intelligence with AI-powered transcription and captioning.
paid· Web
Screenloop logo
Screenloop
Automate the mundane in hiring, amplify human intelligence with AI-powered ATS and interview tools.
paid· Web
Castos logo
Castos
Podcast hosting for WordPress and beyond
paid· Web
Voiser logo
Voiser
Convert text to speech and speech to text using AI in over 70 languages.
paid· Web
Mathpix logo
Mathpix
Convert PDFs and images to searchable text, equations, and more
freemium
Ellis logo
Ellis
Capture, transcribe, and summarize in-person meetings automatically
freemium
Tomedes logo
Tomedes
Professional human and AI-powered translation, localization, and interpretation services for global businesses.
paid· Web
Whisper logo
Whisper
Open-source speech recognition
free
Sembly AI logo
Sembly AI
AI meeting assistant for teams
freemium· Web
Supernormal logo
Supernormal
AI-powered meeting assistant that transcribes, summarizes, and identifies action items.
freemium· macOS, Windows, Web
Wispr Flow for Android logo
Wispr Flow for Android
The voice-to-text AI that turns speech into clear, polished writing in every app.
freemium· macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, Web
Voicenotes logo
Voicenotes
Capture thoughts and meetings with AI-powered voice notes and transcriptions.
freemium· macOS
Gladia logo
Gladia
The speech-to-text backbone for voice agents, customer support, and meeting assistants.
freemium· Web
Maestra logo
Maestra
AI-powered platform for transcription, subtitling, and dubbing in over 125 languages.
freemium· Web
Read.ai logo
Read.ai
AI copilot for transforming meetings, emails, and messages into summaries, insights, and instant answers.
freemium· Web, iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Chrome
DeepScribe logo
DeepScribe
Automate oncology notes and save hours daily
paid
Freed logo
Freed
AI scribe for independent and mid-size clinics
paid

Showing the top 24 of 152. Filter to narrow down.

In-depth: why these tools made the cut

Ask Fellow logo

Fellow combines meeting transcription with structured meeting agendas, action items, and 1:1 templates. For engineering managers and team leads who run frequent 1:1s and recurring meetings, Fellow provides more workflow than pure transcription tools.

For sales call analysis or general transcription needs, Fellow is over-specialized. Use Fathom or Fireflies for general transcription; use Fellow when meeting management is the bigger problem.

How to choose transcription software

  1. Identify primary source

    Recurring meetings (Zoom/Meet/Teams): Otter, Fathom, Granola, Fireflies. One-off audio files (podcasts, interviews): Descript, Rev, Happy Scribe. Both: Descript covers it but feels heavier than meeting-specific tools.

  2. Audit accuracy on your accent/domain

    Transcription accuracy varies by speaker accent, jargon density, and audio quality. Run a 5-minute sample through any tool you're considering before subscribing — quality differs more than marketing claims suggest.

  3. Plan for AI features beyond transcription

    Summaries, action items, speaker labels, and integrations to CRM/notes are increasingly standard. Fathom's free tier has been aggressive on AI-summary quality; Otter's been investing in real-time experience. Test the features you'd actually use.

Honorable mentions

Tools that didn't crack the headline list but deserve a look depending on what you optimize for.

  • Fellow logo
    FellowSame as Ask Fellow above — first-class entry

    Both DB slugs point to Fellow. Treat as one product.

Best Transcription for

How we ranked these transcription tools

We rank by real-world signal: verified user ratings aggregated from G2, Capterra, and our own community, the volume and recency of media coverage, and hands-on editorial review for the tools we cover in depth. Pricing is re-checked and the ranking refreshed monthly. We do not sell placement in this list.

Tools reviewed
152
With free tier
69%
Last updated
September 2026

Toolradar Research

The data behind transcription

First-party analyses built from our full catalog, methodology published.

All Toolradar research

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best transcription tool in 2026?

Based on our analysis of 152 transcription tools, Fathom is our overall pick. The next tools on the list are Fathom, Microsoft Teams Phone, Ask Fellow. Rankings use G2/Capterra review strength, media mentions, and editor-featured picks — the same verdict as /best/free/transcription and our comparison pages.

What are the top 3 transcription tools?

The top 3 transcription tools in 2026, ranked by Toolradar, are: 1) Granola, The AI notepad that transforms raw meeting notes into actionable insights.. 2) Fathom, AI notetaker that summarizes your meetings so you can focus on the conversation.. 3) Microsoft Teams Phone, Cloud calling in Microsoft Teams. Our named overall pick is Fathom.

Are there free transcription tools?

Yes. Fathom is our free pick (100% free, no paid upgrade path). 8 of the tools on this page offer a free or freemium plan.

How do I choose the right transcription tool?

Start by defining your team size, budget, and must-have features. Fathom is our overall pick. Compare all 152 options side-by-side on Toolradar.
Transcription statisticscatalog size, ratings and pricing data, updated monthly

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