Granola vs Otter.ai: Languages, Free Limits and Replay

The short answer: if any of your meetings run in Dutch, Italian or Portuguese, Otter.ai drops out before price comes up, because it transcribes six languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese) while Granola handles 31 on desktop, Dutch among them (Otter language list, Granola language list). In English, the split is the replay: Otter keeps audio you can play back, from $8.33 a user a month on Pro billed annually or $16.99 monthly; Granola keeps none and charges $14 per member per month for Business, invoiced monthly (Otter pricing, Granola billing article, checked on 26 October 2026).

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What Otter.ai changes is who has to be in the meeting. Its Notetaker joins Zoom, Google Meet and Teams from your synced calendar, records and transcribes, and can go to a meeting you skip, so you catch up from the notes afterwards (Notetaker overview). The desktop app for Mac and Windows records without a bot when you would rather not send one (desktop app article). That is the job Otter wins: an English-speaking team that wants a replayable record of meetings, including the ones nobody from the team attended.

Granola wins a narrower job. You attend, you type a few lines, and it writes up your notes from those lines plus a live transcript of whatever your computer plays and hears, with no bot and no audio saved (transcription guide). It never stands in for you; it makes your own notes better.

Before you install either:

1. Run your month through the free plans. For example, 8 meetings a week of 45 minutes is 8 x 45 = 360 minutes a week. Otter Basic gives 300 minutes a month and 30 minutes per conversation, so the first week runs dry and every one of those meetings passes the cap (Otter free plan article). Granola sets no daily transcription limit on any plan and shows Basic users their last 30 days (billing article).
2. Sort last month's calendar by language. Any meeting outside Otter's six languages is a meeting it cannot transcribe. Otter Chat can translate an English transcript afterwards, which helps readers, not speakers (Otter language list).
3. Count the replays after two weeks. If nobody pressed play on a single Otter recording, the audio was not the reason to choose Otter, and Granola's lighter record will do.

The two, row by row

Three differences that decide it

Language comes first

Otter's own help page answers "No" when asked about other languages such as Portuguese (Otter language list). Granola's desktop app can switch between its supported languages within one meeting when multi-language transcription is on (Granola language list). For a Dutch or Belgian team that speaks English with clients and Dutch inside, only one of these covers the whole week.

What the free plan lets you see

Otter Basic does not stop a recording at 30 minutes. It records the whole conversation and shows the first 30 minutes of transcript, and the rest becomes available once you move to a paid plan (Otter free plan article). A 90-minute workshop is captured in full and a third of it reaches your screen, so Otter makes its case for Pro at minute 31, with the rest of your meeting already recorded. Granola's free plan limits the other end: history older than 30 days is hidden, not the length of a meeting.

The record left behind

Otter keeps audio, with playback on every plan, Basic included, and video replay for Zoom and Meet on Enterprise (pricing). Granola keeps a transcript you can search and copy, and nothing to replay (transcription guide). Where a misheard number matters, Otter lets you listen again. Where a stored voice is a liability, Granola gives you nothing to store.

Prices, side by side

Checked on 26 October 2026, in US dollars per user a month, from the Otter pricing page, the Granola pricing page and the Granola billing article:

An AI step with a person in it

Both connect to Claude and ChatGPT through MCP, and Otter's server is listed on the free Basic plan (pricing). Otter's setup article recommends setting each tool's permission to Always allow (Otter MCP article). Leave it on asking instead. Then a request such as "list the commitments I made in this week's client calls, with the meeting and time" pauses for your approval each time the assistant reads a transcript, and you check each commitment against the playback before it goes into a follow-up.

On Granola, the same request works through its MCP server, but the tool that returns raw transcripts is for paid plans, and Basic reaches only the last 30 days (Granola MCP article).

Telling people they are recorded is the same duty on both. Otter emails every invitee before Notetaker records only on Enterprise (notification article); Granola's chat message and camera watermark are switched on per user. Before a recording feeds anything beyond your own notes, the customer calls use case lists what people need to hear first.

Choose Otter.ai if your meetings are in English, you want to replay what was said, or you need a notetaker to attend when you cannot.

Choose Granola if your meetings mix English with Dutch or another language outside Otter's six, you attend your own meetings, and you would rather keep a transcript than a recording.

FAQ

Does Otter.ai transcribe Dutch?

No. Its supported languages are English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese (Simplified), per the language article.

Can Otter.ai record a meeting without its bot?

Yes. The desktop app records botless meetings on macOS 12.3 or later and Windows 10 or later, and works with headphones on (desktop app article).

What happens to a long meeting on Otter's free plan?

The recording continues past 30 minutes, but only the first 30 minutes of the transcript are visible until you upgrade, and deleted conversations still count toward the 300 monthly minutes (free plan article).