Granola
AI notepad that captures meetings through system audio with no bot in the call, then merges your typed notes with the transcript.
Updated 2026-08-10
Yes, within limits. Granola runs a free tier with paid plans above it.
Listed pricing: Freemium — Free 25 meetings, Pro $10/mo, Business $25/user/mo.
Overview
Granola listens to meetings through your computer's system audio and pairs what it hears with the notes you type while the call is happening. Nothing joins the meeting. When the call ends it merges your shorthand with the full transcript, so the summary reflects what you thought mattered instead of flattening every agenda item to the same weight.
That mechanic is why it took hold with founders, product managers and investors — people whose calls are mostly external, where a bot named "Otter.ai Notetaker" sitting in the participant list changes the temperature of the conversation. The product has widened since launch: Windows joined macOS, an iPhone app covers in-person conversations, folders and shared workspaces turn a personal notepad into something a team can use, and a chat layer queries across your whole meeting history rather than one note at a time. That last piece is the most useful addition, and the one that makes Granola a knowledge-retrieval tool as much as a notetaker.
The pressure in 2026 comes from below, not from rivals. Zoom AI Companion, Gemini's note-taking in Google Meet and Teams Copilot recap are bundled free into suites most companies already pay for, and they are good enough for internal standups. Granola's defence is the bit those cannot do: no bot, and a summary shaped by your own input. If you do not type anything during meetings, you are paying for the wrong tool. Granola is also not specific in public about which foundation models generate its summaries, which is a reasonable question in a procurement review.
Is Granola free?
Yes, within limits. Granola runs a free tier with paid plans above it.
What the free tier covers: 25 meetings total with AI note enhancement and basic templates — a lifetime allowance, not a monthly reset.
Listed pricing: Freemium — Free 25 meetings, Pro $10/mo, Business $25/user/mo.
Pricing verified . That is the date the plans were last re-checked against the vendor's own pages, not today's date. Confirm on the official site before you pay.
What the free tier leaves out
Read straight off the plan list below. Vendors move features between tiers, so check the current split before you pay.
- Pro $10/mo Unlimited meetings, all templates, cross-meeting chat, integrations
- Business $25/user/mo Shared workspaces, team meeting library, admin controls, SSO
- Enterprise Custom Custom deployment, advanced security review, dedicated support
Granola pricing
| Plan | Price | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | 25 meetings total (lifetime, not monthly), AI note enhancement, basic templates |
| Pro | $10/mo | Unlimited meetings, all templates, cross-meeting chat, integrations |
| Business | $25/user/mo | Shared workspaces, team meeting library, admin controls, SSO |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom deployment, advanced security review, dedicated support |
25 meetings total (lifetime, not monthly), AI note enhancement, basic templates
Unlimited meetings, all templates, cross-meeting chat, integrations
Shared workspaces, team meeting library, admin controls, SSO
Custom deployment, advanced security review, dedicated support
One plan carries no published number: Enterprise, recorded as “Custom”. Nothing is estimated in its place. The vendor's own pricing page is the only source for those figures.
Pricing verified . That is the date the plans were last re-checked against the vendor's own pages, not today's date. Confirm on the official site before you pay.
Is Granola worth it?
Worth it for Founders, product managers and investors running back-to-back external calls who want their own notes sharpened, without a recording bot appearing as a participant.
You can test that on the free tier before paying anything. The recorded trade-offs are listed below, and any one of them can settle the question on its own.
The 8.5/10 AI Score is an editorial read of published capability, price and shipping pace. Nobody here has hands-on hours with Granola. How we verify.
Worth it if
The strengths recorded against this entry.
- No bot in the participant list, which matters on external calls where recording changes how people talk
- Summaries are built from your own notes, so they read like something you wrote rather than a generic recap
- Cross-meeting chat retrieves what was said months ago without opening individual notes
- Now covers macOS, Windows and iPhone, closing the in-person and PC gaps that limited it at launch
- Fast native app that stays out of the way instead of a heavy Electron shell
Not worth it if
Any one of these blocks your use case.
- You have to type something during the call — with no input, the output is an ordinary transcript summary and the price premium disappears
- Free tier is 25 meetings for the lifetime of the account, so evaluation runs out fast and there is no ongoing free option
- Zoom, Google Meet and Teams now bundle free note-taking, which covers internal meetings well enough to make a second subscription hard to justify
- CRM and workflow integrations are thinner than Fireflies.ai or Fathom, which have deeper HubSpot and Salesforce plumbing
What sets Granola apart
- Captures the call through system audio instead of joining as a visible bot participant
- Enhances the notes you typed rather than summarizing the transcript on its own — the core mechanic no rival copies
- Free tier is a lifetime allowance of 25 meetings, not a monthly minute quota like Otter or Fireflies
- Native macOS and Windows apps plus an iPhone app for in-person conversations, rather than a browser extension
Key features
System Audio Capture
Records through the machine's audio output rather than joining the call. Nobody sees a participant appear, and it works on any platform that makes sound — Zoom, Meet, Teams, a browser tab, a phone on speaker.
Note Enhancement
Merges the fragments you typed during the call with the transcript, weighting the output toward what you flagged. This is the whole product thesis: your notes, expanded, rather than a machine summary you have to re-read to trust.
Cross-Meeting Chat
Asks questions across your entire meeting archive instead of a single note — what a customer said about pricing three months ago, or every objection raised in a deal cycle. Turns a folder of summaries into searchable recall.
Shared Workspaces
Folders, team workspaces and shareable links so notes from a deal or project live in one place. Paired with integrations into tools like Notion, Slack and CRMs, it moves output where follow-up actually happens.
How it compares
| Tool | Best for | Pricing | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Granola | Founders, product managers and investors running back-to-back external calls who want their own notes sharpened, without a recording bot appearing as a participant. | Freemium — Free 25 meetings, Pro $10/mo, Business $25/user/mo | 8.5/10 |
| n8n vs n8n → | Developer-adjacent ops and engineering teams who want AI agents and internal integrations running on infrastructure they control, with server costs instead of a per-task meter. | Free self-hosted + Cloud from ~$20/mo | 8.7/10 |
| Make vs Make → | Teams building multi-step, branching automations who want to see the whole flow on a canvas rather than describe it as a list of steps. | Free tier with 1,000 credits/mo; paid from $9/mo for 10,000 credits | 8.7/10 |
| Fathom vs Fathom → | Founders, consultants and small sales teams living in Zoom or Google Meet who want unlimited call recording and CRM-synced summaries without a visible bot joining client calls. | Freemium — generous free tier; paid Premium and Team plans priced per seat (check website for current rates) | 8.5/10 |
Compare head-to-head
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