Top 6 Grain Alternatives for Meeting Transcription in 2024

Grain is a great AI meeting assistant that offers a unique and powerful user experience. It can automate note-taking during virtual meetings — so you can pay attention to the speaker. But Grain isn't a flawless AI meeting assistant out there: It is expensive and does not integrate with the Webex video conferencing platform. 

Grain has such a broad feature set, but it falls short in terms of accuracy and comes with a slightly higher pricing structure. Thankfully, there are many Grain alternatives that can fill this gap. I spent over two weeks doing in-depth research and testing on all the Grain alternatives available out there — and based on my experience, these are my top 6 picks. 

Alternatives to Grain: At a glance 

Grain overview 

Grain is a meeting transcription app that's designed to automate note-taking and record-keeping. Its ‘Highlight’ feature lets you create meeting clips — which can then be shared internally with team members. Another interesting feature of Grain is the time-stamped notes that allow you to jot down your thoughts along with the transcript. 

What's even more exciting is that you can invite team members to collaborate on notes and keep them saved for future reference. Grain also creates decent AI summaries of the transcripts — saving time for everyone who doesn't need to read one-hour transcripts but just a few sentences. But all these features come at a higher cost, which makes Grain a less favorable choice for many. 

What makes a good Grain alternative? 

For this article, I've tested 30 apps before choosing the 6 best Grain alternatives. When evaluating each of these apps, I tested everything I usually use Grain for, including recording, note-taking, and summarizing. Here's what I looked for while selecting the best Grain alternatives. 

• Quality AI Features: I looked at the transcription quality, and the AI features that Grain alternatives offer, including transcription and summarization. 

• Integrations: The best Grain alternative should be easy to connect to popular video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams — and even with Google and Microsoft Calendar. 

• Automation: I prioritized apps that could automatically join meetings and record entire conversations with timestamps. 

• Collaboration Features: Once the meeting is over, it should be easier to search for the information and even share the transcripts with team members. The best Grain alternative should also offer some collaborative features to keep the entire team in the loop. 

The best 6 Grain alternatives 

I held meetings either with my team members or clients — and once these meetings were over, I went to the dashboard to check the transcript quality and see what other features were available. Here are the 6 best Grain alternatives I've found. 

#1 Notta: Best for transcribing multilingual meetings and recordings 

Notta stands out from the other Grain alternatives on this list as it's a great choice for recording and transcription audio or video files. This AI meeting assistant has Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex integration to automatically record and transcribe all your meetings. It also offers an AI summary feature that you can use to turn lengthy transcripts into short text. 

Pros 

• Notta has a high accuracy rate of around 98.86%. 

• It comes with a generous free forever plan. 

• There's a Notta bot feature that can automatically record and transcribe ongoing and upcoming Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex calls. 

• Supports 58 global languages for transcriptions.

• Translate your conversations in real-time.

Cons 

• The free plan does not offer all the features.

• You'll need an Internet connection to use Notta. 

Pricing 

• Free Plan

• Pro Plan: $14.99/user/month

• Business Plan: $27/user/month

• Enterprise Plan: Contact Sales

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#2 tl;dv: Best for AI-powered search 

Similar to Grain, tl;dv also automatically records Google Meet or Zoom calls, creates a transcript, and then shares the link with team members. There's a robust AI-powered search feature available. Whenever you write in the search term, it returns a detailed meeting breakdown and transcript excerpts that meet the entered query. 

Pros 

• tl;dv has a generous free plan. 

• It has an intuitive design and simple interface. 

• It integrates well with many apps, including Slack, HubSpot, Notion, etc. 

Cons 

• tl;dv paid plans can be a bit more expensive than many other options in this list. 

• There's no Webex integration available — yet. 

• All the features are not available in the free plan. 

Pricing 

• Free Plan

• Pro Plan: $25/user/month

• Enterprise Plan: Contact Sales

#3 Gong: Best for customer and sales teams

Both Gong and Grain act as reliable AI meeting assistants, but Gong strongly focuses on sales teams and offers more advanced features. It's like a customer success software that works by capturing customer interactions, analyzing these calls for useful insights, and even helping teams make the best decision. 

Pros 

• Gong records and transcribes calls — and even provides insights after calls. 

• It has a decent accuracy rate between 85-90%. 

• It integrates with third-party apps like Salesforce. 

Cons 

• Gong's features seem complicated to many users. 

• There's no free trial available. 

• The user interface might appear clunky and cluttered. 

Pricing 

• Customized 

#4 Avoma: Best for coaching sales team 

Avoma brings the power of an AI meeting assistant and conversion intelligence solution designed for the sales team. There's a dashboard where you can track the total conversions and even remove the filler words from the transcripts. It's like an advanced Grain alternative that offers many tools like competitive tracking, monologue-tracking statistics, and overall topic tracking. 

Pros 

• Avoma is great for coaching sales teams.

• It streamlines workflow during and after the meeting. 

• It can automatically record and transcribe Zoom, Meet, Teams, and GoToMeeting calls. 

Cons 

• Avoma is an advanced Grain alternative and might not be ideal for beginners. 

• It has a steep learning curve. 

• It is pricey and complicated. 

Pricing 

• Basic Plan: $0 

• Starter Plan: $24/user/month billed monthly

• Plus Plan: $59/user/month billed monthly 

• Business Plan: $79/user/month billed annually

• Enterprise Plan: $129/user/month billed annually

#5 Fathom: Best for receiving keyword alerts

Fathom is targeted more to users looking for a free Grain alternative but still does a good job. All the core (and basic) features are available at no cost. For example, Fathom lets you quickly create short meeting clips, add each of them to playlists, and even share the information with others — all for free. 

Pros 

• Fathom comes with a decent free plan. 

• There's a paid Team Edition plan available for large teams.

• It makes sharing meeting recordings and transcripts easy. 

Cons 

• You'll see some quirks when using Fathom with Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. 

• The interface is not as intuitive as other apps.

• The transcription might not be very accurate. 

Pricing 

• Free Plan

• Team Edition

  • Standard Plan: $32/user/month 

  • Pro Plan: $39/user/month 

#6 Fireflies: Best for topic tracking & collaboration 

When there are dozens of online meetings lined up, Fireflies can help you keep them organized. It's a decent Grain alternative that comes with a range of AI features to sort meetings by project, topic, or team. There's a sentiment analysis feature that can identify the positive, neutral, and negative tone of the meeting. 

Pros 

• There are a lot of native integrations available, like Salesforce, Slack, Dropbox, and HubSpot. 

• It has a built-in AI chatbot to get answers about the meeting and transcript. 

• The meeting summaries are quite accurate and detailed. 

Cons 

• Fireflies ai takes much longer to generate transcripts compared to other apps in this list. 

• Some Fireflies ai screens look cluttered. 

• Most of the AI features are available only on paid plans. 

Pricing 

• Free Plan

• Pro Plan: $18/user/month

• Business Plan: $29/user/month

• Enterprise Plan: Custom 

Which Grain alternative should you use? 

When you've too many meetings lined up, it can threaten your — and even your team's — productivity. The right Grain alternative for you will entirely depend on which AI features you need most. Since most of these apps have free plans, you can try out the ones that might seem a great fit for you. If you're still unsure, check out the Notta AI meeting transcription tool. It's easy to use and comes with a decent free forever plan to test all the Notta features.

FAQs 

What is the best app to record a meeting? 

Notta is a great app to automatically record Zoom, Google Meet, Webex, or Microsoft Teams meetings — and even transcribe spoken words into text. You can simply integrate the Notta Web App with Google or Microsoft Calendar, and the Notta bot will automatically join the upcoming meetings. 

Can AI write my meeting minutes? 

Yes, there are many note-taking and transcribing apps that can record, transcribe, and summarize meetings. Some of these apps include Notta, Fathom, Fireflies, etc. These AI meeting assistants can record meetings and create time-stamped meeting minutes for easy and quick sharing.