15 Best Otter.ai Alternatives for Transcription in 2023

AI transcription is not a new technology in the current world. 

If you are in an online meeting and struggle with taking notes or need a text version of an audio recording, that’s where AI transcription can help. And you may think of using Otter.ai, but before making a final decision, are there better alternatives to Otter for your business?

The answer is a bold “Yes.” 

In this article, we have compiled 15 Otter.ai alternatives that will satisfy your needs. Whether you are looking for a cheaper alternative or want a more integrated meeting productivity solution, keep reading, and you will find it.

What is Otter.ai?

Otter.ai is essentially a text-to-speech software that records audio and transcribes voice conversations in real-time. 

After that, you can edit the transcript file, add comments, highlight texts, and share with other meeting participants for better collaboration. You can check this comprehensive Otter.ai review to get a better understanding.

Why you might need an alternative to Otter.ai?

Otter.ai seems to have a good range of features for business needs; however, it fails in a number of ways that some of its alternatives excel in. Below are some reasons why we need a better alternative:

• You want multilingual transcription. Otter.ai only supports transcription in English. So if you need to transcribe more than English, you may want an Otter.ai alternative, like Airgram (which supports 8 languages).

• You don’t like its transcription limits. With the free version of Otter, you get a maximum transcription duration of 30 minutes per meeting. Longer than that, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

• You want better customer support. After going through the Otter.ai website, they only provide email support, which is not timely. Nowadays, most services offer other ways to get support, like live chat, phone calls, or video conferences.

So, to help you make better choices, we will look at 15 Otter.ai alternatives you can choose from. To help you go through the list a bit easier, I have put these Otter.ai alternatives into two categories: for live transcription and for audio/video file transcription. Now, let’s check out.

8 Best Otter.ai Alternatives for Live Meeting Transcription

#1 - Airgram: multilingual transcription with video recording

If you are looking for an Otter.ai alternative that keeps Otter’s benefits while making an amendment to its shortcomings, then Airgram is objectively a great option. And that’s why we put it on top of our list.

Airgram is an all-in-one meeting assistant for video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. It has a built-in transcription algorithm that records conversations and turns them into editable and sharable text. 

More than meeting transcription, Airgram is, in fact, designed specifically to make every part of meeting planning, running, and following up on a meeting easier, more productive, and more collaborative. Using Airgram, you can schedule a meeting from your Google Calendar, outline your meeting agenda with timers, and share it with other participants before the meeting. This way, you can map out and stick to your goals for the meeting.

But that’s not all Airgram can do. If you have a scheduled meeting but can’t attend it yourself, don’t worry, you can send the Airgram assistant to automatically join a meeting without your presence.  The assistant can live-transcribe and record meetings so you can review them when available.

Top Features

• Automatically transcribe Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams meetings.

• Eight transcription languages are available, including English, French, and Spanish.

• Video recording with timestamps and speaker identification.

• An integrated notepad allows you to take meeting notes and assign action items. Airgram also has both collaborative and private note-taking options so that you can work on your meeting notes with others and/or by yourself.

• Assign action items with due dates so that you can follow up on the tasks in one workplace.

• Extract key information out of a lengthy transcript effectively with an AI.

• App integration with Slack, Notion, etc., to share the meeting video clips, notes, and transcripts with anyone involved easily.

 Cons

• It has a Web app and Chrome extension but is unavailable on mobile devices.

 Pricing

Airgram offers two plans: Free (best for an individual), and Plus (best for team collaboration). The paid plan starts at $18/user per month with unlimited recordings.

Compared with other meeting transcription and management tools, Airgram is undoubtedly the most economical.

Why is Airgram a good alternative to Otter.ai?

• Multi-language transcription. Not just limited to English.

• Video recording. Otter can only record audio while Airgram will record video of the meeting, which gives a better reference.

• Better support. Apart from email support, Airgram also offers live chat and even a demo.

• Better meeting workflow management. With Airgram, meeting collaboration is possible without switching tools. It is better suited to individuals and teams looking for tools that manage every part of their meeting, including the planning, execution, and follow-up stages. 

#2 - tl;dv

tl;dv functions majorly as a meeting documentation tool for Google Meet and Zoom.

Its goal is simple – reducing the number of meetings you attend and the number of team members required to participate in meetings. The tl;dv bot achieves this by recording and live transcribing meetings while allowing participants to highlight critical moments that would be later shared with the rest of the team.

Top Features

• Live transcriptions in over 20 languages.

• Zoom and Google Meet live recording.

• Time-stamped highlights to make reviewing meetings easier.

• Share meeting documents and outcomes to Notion, Gdocs, and more.

Cons

• Does not have a dedicated note-taking function.

• More expensive than most meeting transcription software.

• The free version only allows access to recordings for seven days.

Plans & Pricing

• Starter Plan – Free

• Pro - $25 per month

• Business - $56 per month

• Enterprise – Customized pricing for 20+ seats

Verdict

Unlike Otter.ai, tl;dv's multilingual option makes it best suited to diverse remote and hybrid teams.

While Otter.ai is suited to both individuals and teams of different sizes, most of tl;dv’s plans and prices appear to be better suited to small teams that can afford the relatively high subscription cost.

#3 - Fireflies.ai

Fireflies is a meeting assistant that allows you to audio-record and transcribe meetings on web conferencing platforms. 

Fireflies live-transcribes meetings and processes them for a few minutes. Once the processing is complete, it will give you a summary of the meeting, the audio recording, and the transcript, to which you and other team members can add comments or mark specific parts.

Top Features

• Transcribe both live meetings and audio files.

• Smart search and topic trackers.

• Uses Zapier and APIs to connect with other apps.

Cons

• No live video recording is available.

• No multilingual transcription. Transcriptions are available only in English

• No meeting agenda or follow-up.

Plans & Pricing

• Free – No cost

• Pro - $18 monthly per user

• Business - $29 monthly per user

• Enterprise - Customized pricing

Verdict

According to Fireflies, it has 90% transcription accuracy for most types of meetings, that’s better than Otter, which often gets complaints about its accuracy. Learn more on Otter vs. Fireflies.

The best part of Fireflies is its wide integration with CRM & collaboration apps like Salesforce, Hubspot, Slack, etc.

#4 - Grain.co

Grain is a meeting recording and transcription tool that helps teams plan, execute, and follow up on Zoom meetings.

With Grain’s calendar integration, you can schedule your meeting and invite other participants. You can also set your meeting to auto-record on Grain by connecting your Calendar to the app and selecting the meetings you would like to record.

Like other meeting tools, Grain also integrates with apps like Notion, Slack, and Salesforce to easily share video clips.

Top Features

• Live transcriptions in nine languages.

• Video Library that keeps all your meeting recordings.

• Work collaboratively on the transcript, edit and download it in the format of your choice.

• Meeting highlights and summary.

Plans & Pricing

• Free – No charge

• Business - $24 per month

• Enterprise – Customized pricing

Cons

• It is only available on Zoom.

• It doesn’t have meeting agenda or task follow-up functions.‍

Verdict

Grain.co is better than Otter.ai for multilingual transcription, although limited to Zoom.

#5 - Dialpad

Dialpad is not a direct alternative to Otter.ai as it is not for meeting management. Instead, it is a unified business communication platform, including calls, messaging, meetings, and customer support services. Organizations of all types use Dialpad for effective business communication. 

An outstanding feature that makes Dialpad a worthy alternative to Otter is voice-intelligent technology that allows users to live-transcribe phone calls and virtual meetings. With a single click, users start/stop recording calls and making transcripts. Post-call, these transcripts are available for references and follow-ups with team members and customers.  

Top Features

• Natural language processing with real-time voice recognition.

• Broad integration library with built-in app marketplace.  

• Works on all devices, including Mac, Windows PC, iOS, Androids, and web browsers.

• Works as a standalone video conferencing tool 

Cons

• Standard Plan has no customer support via phone call

• Maximum of 10 participants Standard Plan

• Does not work in some countries

Plans & Pricing

• 14-day free trial

• Standard-  $15 user/mo ($23 USD if billed monthly)

• Pro - $25 user/mo ($35 USD if billed monthly)

• Enterprise- Contact support for custom pricing

Verdict

Dialpad is best suited for businesses that often use phone calls, video meetings, or other communication channels. Transcription is just an add-on feature.

#6 - Vowel

Vowel is a video conferencing tool for small and mid businesses that want to surmount the limitation of household platforms like Zoom, Google meets, and Teams.  

While other tools restrict meeting to mere hearing and seeing, Vowel allows users to transcribe, record, and share meeting agendas in one place. It also offers direct emailing via the app for follow-up.

Top Features

• One-click recording and transcription. 

• Create clips and organize them by folder.

• Agenda templates available for various meeting types.

• Members can work together on the meeting agenda, and edit and comment on meeting notes.

• Meeting analytics available.

Plans & Pricing

• Free plan available

• Pro- $8.49 per member/month, billed annually

• Business- $16.49 per member/month, billed annually

• Enterprise- Pricing available on request

Cons

• Not very stable when used on mobile devices. 

• Flakey playback of recordings of meeting with multiple participants. 

Verdict

Vowel is most suitable for businesses looking for more collaborative and inclusive meetings at an affordable price.

 Like Otter, Vowel is basically a video conferencing and meeting transcription tool.   Teams can delegate tasks, share files,  engage in group and private chat, and take minutes of meetings, either audio or video.

#7 - Avoma

Avoma is a meeting assistant for collaboration, customer success, and engagement management. Businesses use Avoma to analyze sales and support processes and customer interaction. 

Intelligent enough to auto-extract action items, identify objections in speeches, and highlight positive moments and gestures in meeting conversations, Avoma is a business-moving tool.

Other features

• Automatically identify topics and speakers.

• Advanced transcript search to locate topics and watch recordings fast.

• In-depth analytics of calls and meetings.

• Integrates with sales engagement platform, CRMs, and Video conferencing tools. 

Cons 

• A bit expensive

• Can be more user friendly  

Plans & Pricing 

• Free: Collaboration & Listening

• Starter: $20 /user/mo - Limited AI Meeting Assistant

• Plus: $35 /user/mo - Unlimited AI Meeting Assistant

• Premium: $60 /user/mo - Conversation Intelligence

• Business: $ 80 /user/mo - Revenue Intelligence

• Enterprise: $105 /user/mo - Strategic Partnership

Verdict

An easier boarding and support program gives it an edge over Otter. Avoma is best for businesses looking to enter new local and international markets.

#8. Tactiq

Tactiq is a chrome extension for live-transcribing Google Meet and Zoom meetings. Primed as a productivity tool, it allows users to get the most out of meetings without getting distracted by bulky add-ons.

Want to take notes, transcribe meetings, highlight action items, and share meeting notes? Tactiq does strictly that and a few more things. 

Top Features

• Record meetings and get transcripts with speaker identification and timestamps. 

• Auto-save meeting notes to Slack, Quip, Notion, and Google Docs. 

• Automatically enable captions on the call.

Cons

• Voice capturing and recognition are not fully developed.

• It only works for Zoom and Google Meet.

Plans & Pricing 

• Free -10/mo meetings

• Pro - $8/mo unlimited meeting plus basic team collaboration 

• Team $16/mo unlimited meeting plus advanced team collaboration 

Verdict

Tactiq is a nice alternative to Otter.ai as it encompasses almost the same features and supports more languages. Although there are few glitches in transcribing non-native speakers' English.

7 Best Otter.ai Alternatives for Audio/Video File Transcription

#1 - Notta

Notta is also an AI transcription tool that can convert audio to text in a few seconds. Whatever the audio source - live recordings from the microphone, web meetings, audio files, and webpages audio - Notta can transcribe them all. After that, you can edit, organize, or export the transcript as you like.

Notta is widely available on Windows, Mac, and mobile devices and also has a Chrome extension.

Top Features

• Support up to 104 transcription languages.

• Real-time transcription with edit and highlight feature.

• Export the transcript text to TXT, DOCX, SRT, and PDF format for better accessibility.

Cons

The web portal works perfectly, but the design is very user-friendly.

Pricing

• Basic - Free

• Pro - $8.25 per month

• Team - $18 per seat

Verdict

Notta is a top-rated voice-to-text software in the current market. It performs better than Otter.ai in terms of multilingual transcription and easy editing.

#2 - Descript

Descript is majorly an audio and video editor with screen recording and transcription functions. It allows you to record or upload videos and audio for immediate transcription. You can then edit the video and audio files by simply making changes to the transcript generated.

However, as far as meetings go, Descript can help you record and transcribe sessions on web conferencing platforms.

Top Features

• Live video recording and transcription that is editable

• Speaker identifafication 

• Multi-user collaboration

Plans & Pricing

• Free - No charge

• Creator - $15 monthly per user or $12 monthly/annually

• Pro - $30 monthly per user or $34 monthly/annually

• Enterprise - Customized pricing

Cons

• No copy and paste function for video clips.

• Only three hours of transcription in its basic plan‍

Verdict

• Descript’s best use case is video and audio editing and transcription.

• If you mainly want transcriptions for your podcast or videos, then Descript is a better alternative to Otter.ai. 

#3 - Happy Scribe

Happy Scribe is an audio transcription and subtitle service that allows you to convert speeches to texts and add subtitles to video documents in over 60 languages, dialects, and accents.

With Happy Scribe, you can choose between machine-generated or manual transcription. The machine-generated option is estimated to have up to 85% accuracy, while the manual option, which is completely human-made, is estimated to have 99% accuracy.

Top Features

• Advanced voice recognition.

• Automatic subtitle and transcription are available in over 60 languages (manual subscription supports 11 languages).

• Audio-file joiner function that helps you merge all kinds of audio files.

Plans & Pricing

• Automatic transcriptions and subtitles - €0.20/minute

• Human-made transcriptions and subtitles - €2.00/minute

• Human translation (for subtitles) - €20.85/minute

• Enterprise - Custom pricing

Cons

• Manual transcription is more expensive than other transcription apps.

• There are no subscription plans - tasks are paid per minute and only run up to 30 hours per month.

• The average turnover time for transcriptions and subtitles could take a while is longer than most apps providing similar services. 

Verdict

Happy Scribe’s best use case is transcription and subtitles for individuals with limited transcription needs. 

Happy Scribe’s transcriptions are, on average, more accurate than Otter.ai’s. But Otter.ai has a faster turnaround time.  So, people whose tasks depend on accuracy, like journalists, and are likely to prefer paying on a per-project basis might find Happy Scribe more suitable, while those who require faster output might find Otter.ai more useful. 

#4 - Rev

Rev is a powerful speech-to-text solution for business organizations of all sizes. Trained with over 50,000+ hours of human-transcribed content across a wide range of topics and industries, Rev produces highly accurate transcripts from your videos and audio. If you will be transcribing loads of prerecorded and real-time speeches, Rev is the app for you. Rev also offers human transcription services with a 24-hour turnaround.

Top Features

• Auto detect video or audio speech in 22 languages

• Offers transcripts, captions, and subtitles service

• Allows audio tagging and video extraction

• Video conferencing software integration

Cons

• There is no free version. Only free trial with limited features available.

• Does not allow team collaboration.

 Plans & Pricing 

• Machine Transcription- $0.023 / minute

• Human Transcription- $1.50 / minute

• Enterprise- Custom volume-based pricing

Verdict

Rev shares many features with Otter, text editor, real-time transcription, annotations, and more.

Rev is not a meeting management platform so it lacks core features like speaker detection and identification. However, it stands out for its voice-to-text transcription precision. 

#5 - Amberscript

Amberscript is an on-demand transcription service for audio and video files. It uses voice recognition technology to automatically transform audio into text and subtitles. With the help of its online editors, users can easily review the generated text or employ Amberscript professional transcriptionists to edit to perfection.

Amberscript is one of the go-to tools for academic institutions that need to transcribe lectures and research on the go. 

Other features

• Provides both automatic and manual transcription with a fast turnaround.

• Add captions and subtitles to the video.

• Businesses can integrate the workflow via API.

Plans & Pricing

Amberscript has a flexible pricing option for its transcription service.

• Pre-paid - it charges $8 for 1 hour of audio or video uploaded

• Subscription - 5 hours per month. US$ 25/ Month 5 hours of audio or video uploaded

• Manual transcription - From US$ 1 / per minute 1 minute of audio or video

Cons

• Has integration limitation 

• Supports only the English Language 

#6 - Sonix

Sonix is best known for automated subtitling, translation, and speech-to-text transcription. With Sonix, users can easily transcribe audio, lectures, and speeches in minutes. Thanks to an advanced speech-to-text algorithm. 

Unlike Otter.ai, Sonix does not transcribe virtual meetings. But it does offer multilingual transcription (up to 35+ languages),  transcript sharing, comment, and editing for collaborators.

Top Features

• Searchable and editable transcripts 

• Speaker recognition and word-by-word timestamping

• Real-time video transcription and subtitle

• Publish transcripts directly to users' website 

Plans & Pricing 

• Standard: Pay-as-you-go transcription - $10 / hour 

• Premium: Subscription transcription - $5 / hour plus $22 per user/month

• Enterprise High volume transcription- Custom Pricing  

Cons

• Does not support Microsoft Teams meetings. 

• No Mobile app.

7.  oTranscribe

oTranscribe is a free, open-source web application for transcribing recorded audio and videos.

Note: Unlike other software that offers automatic transcription, oTranscribe is aimed to help users do manual transcription more easily.

Its text editor and video player are on the same window, so users can easily operate without having to switch tabs. oTranscribe is designed to allow users to start, pause, stop, rewind, and fast-forward players with their keyboards. 

The app generates interactive transcripts with timestamps for easy navigation. It automatically stores the transcript in your browser storage which you can instantly export as plain text, markdown, or Google doc. 

Top Features 

• Private and secure with an MIT license 

• Integrated player for video files 

• Autosave to web browser storage 

• Add reminders to specific parts of video or audio

Plans & Pricing

• Free

Cons

• Only works on Desktop

• Manual uploading of audio and video files

• No customer service or other support

Verdict 

oTranscribe is ideal for anyone looking for a decent audio-to-text tool for free.  The obvious downside of oTranscribe is that it works only on desktops. However, if you are pleased with uploading your pre-recorded meetings to get your meeting notes, it’s a cool tool at no cost.  But for live-captioning and real-time note-taking, Otter.ai is better.

How to Select the Right Transcription App

All these apps we have looked at have really cool features that distinguish them from Otter.ai. But the decision on which is a good fit for you and your team is up to you.

However, we have a few pointers on what things you should consider before making your decision. 

• On your team end, you should consider your team size and constitution, technical expertise, goals, and budget. 

• On the app side, look closely at the interface, features, pricing, language options, customer support, and integrations.

Putting all these into consideration will help you choose what works best for your team. And if what you need is more than live transcription, but a tool that can manage the meeting workflow from plan to action to follow-up, then I would recommend the Airgram tool for more productive and enjoyable meetings.