Comparison
Fireflies AI review
Direct answer
Our Fireflies AI review in short: Fireflies is a solid, low-cost AI notetaker that records Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams calls, transcribes in 100+ languages, and writes searchable summaries. Pro costs $10 per seat a month billed annually as of October 2026, and users rate it highly for accuracy and time saved. The weak spots are recording reliability, bot-driven customer support, speaker mix-ups, and two pending Illinois lawsuits over voiceprints. A disclosure: TeamShift, which publishes this page, doesn't record or transcribe meetings and doesn't compete with Fireflies on note-taking. We sell a hosted AI team for business operations.
What Fireflies is
Fireflies is an AI meeting assistant. Its notetaker joins your video calls as a participant, records them, and produces a transcript, summary, and action items. You can search across meetings and ask its AI assistant, AskFred, questions about past calls. The pricing page lists desktop and mobile apps, a Chrome extension, file upload for audio and video, API access, and integrations on every plan. The page claims use across "1 million+ companies," which we haven't verified.
Pricing as of October 2026
From the Fireflies pricing page, per seat per month:
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing | Storage | AI credits | Recording limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 400 min per team | 20 | 2 hours |
| Pro | $18 | $10 | 8,000 min per seat | 20 | 2 hours |
| Business | $29 | $19 | Unlimited | 30 | 3 hours |
| Enterprise | Annual only | $39 | Unlimited | 50 | 4 hours |
What each step up adds:
- Free: unlimited transcription (marked with an asterisk on the page), limited AI summaries, real-time notes, meeting search, and AskFred.
- Pro: unlimited summaries, video recording, downloads of transcripts and recordings, and Fireflies' personal and email assistant features.
- Business: unlimited storage, multi-language mode, conversation intelligence, team analytics, and private channels.
- Enterprise: SSO and SCIM, audit logs, HIPAA compliance, private storage, custom data retention, and a "transcript and summary only" mode.
The free plan's catch is storage. At 400 minutes per team, a handful of hour-long meetings fills it. The annual discount is large: Pro drops from $18 to $10, so if you're going to keep it, pay yearly.
How Fireflies works day to day
You connect your Google or Outlook calendar, and Fireflies can join meetings automatically. Its join settings let you choose: every meeting with a conference link, only meetings you own, only meetings with teammates, or only when you invite it. Pick deliberately. "All meetings" means the bot can turn up in calls hosted by clients and partners.
After the call, the recap arrives with a summary, action items, and the transcript. The pricing page also lists a Chrome extension that records "without Fireflies bot," for times when a visible participant would be awkward.
What users say
On Trustpilot, Fireflies holds a 4.5 TrustScore from 831 reviews as of October 2026, with 81% five-star and 13% one-star. The pattern:
Praised: accurate transcripts and summaries, time saved on note-taking, easy setup, and being able to focus on the conversation instead of writing.
Criticized: meetings occasionally skipped or lost, support that leans on automated chat rather than people, and speakers or action items attributed to the wrong person.
The split is typical for this category. Most users are happy. A smaller group hit a reliability or billing problem and found support hard to reach. If a meeting matters, keep your own notes as a backup.
Privacy, consent, and the lawsuits
This is the part to read before you roll Fireflies out to a team.
Data use. Fireflies' pricing page says your data "is never used for AI training" and lists SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliance on all plans. Custom data retention and HIPAA compliance are Enterprise features.
Illinois voiceprint suits. Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act treats voiceprints as biometric identifiers. Cruz v. Fireflies.AI Corp., filed December 18, 2025, alleges the tool's speaker recognition identified participants who never created accounts, without the notice and written consent BIPA requires. Fricker v. Fireflies.AI Corp., filed March 19, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, makes similar claims. These are allegations. Neither case had been decided as far as we could find. Otter faces comparable claims under wiretap law, so this isn't unique to Fireflies.
Your own consent duty. Whatever tool you use, federal law allows recording with one party's consent, but California, Pennsylvania, and other all-party consent states require everyone's agreement. Announce the recording, put it in the invite, and limit auto-join to meetings you host. Our AI notetaker guide covers this in detail.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Unlimited transcription even on the free plan
- Low annual price ($10 Pro, $19 Business)
- 100+ transcription languages
- Says it doesn't train AI on customer data
- Bot or bot-free recording via the Chrome extension
Cons
- Free storage (400 minutes per team) runs out quickly
- Two-hour recording limit on Free and Pro
- Support complaints about automated responses
- Speaker attribution errors
- Pending BIPA lawsuits, a concern if you have Illinois participants
- HIPAA and custom retention only on Enterprise
Who Fireflies is best for
- Sales, recruiting, and client-services teams who live on calls and want a searchable library of every conversation at a low annual price.
- Multilingual teams, given the 100+ language list.
- Businesses that care about training on their data and want a vendor that says it doesn't.
Who should look elsewhere
- Anyone who wants a generous free tier. Fathom's free plan includes unlimited recordings and summaries. See Otter AI alternatives for a side-by-side.
- People in client meetings who don't want a bot. Granola records device audio on every plan.
- Teams already on Google Workspace Business Standard or Microsoft 365 with Copilot, which include meeting notes. Our AI meeting assistant roundup compares them.
- Healthcare practices that can't buy Enterprise. You need a plan that signs a Business Associate Agreement.
Where TeamShift fits
TeamShift doesn't record or transcribe meetings, so it doesn't replace Fireflies. It's a hosted team of nine AI workers that handles business operations. It can join a Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams call as a clearly disclosed AI participant, shown with an avatar or a labeled tile, that speaks for your business within the brief you give it. It keeps no recording or transcript. Follow-ups from the meeting are drafted for your OK: the Sales worker drafts the recap email or proposal and proposes the CRM note, while the Operations lead turns next steps into tasks and checks they got done. Nothing goes to a client without your approval. You could use both: Fireflies to capture the meeting, TeamShift to act for the business and handle the follow-through. Pricing is usage-based with no seats.
FAQ
Is Fireflies AI worth it?
For most small teams that meet often, yes. Pro at $10 per seat billed annually gets unlimited summaries, video recording, and 8,000 minutes of storage. If you only need a few meetings a month, a free plan from Fathom or Fireflies may be enough.
Is Fireflies AI free?
There's a free plan with unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 20 AI credits, and 400 minutes of storage per team. Video recording and unlimited summaries need Pro or higher.
Is Fireflies AI safe to use?
Fireflies lists SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliance and says it doesn't train AI on customer data. It faces two pending Illinois lawsuits alleging it collected voiceprints without consent, so tell participants you're recording and limit auto-join.
Is Fireflies better than Otter?
Fireflies covers far more languages (100+ vs. six), costs a little more on annual Pro ($10 vs. $8.33), and says it doesn't train on your data, while Otter's privacy policy says it trains on de-identified recordings. Otter's live transcript is a strength for English-only teams.
Is TeamShift a Fireflies competitor?
Not for note-taking. TeamShift doesn't record or transcribe meetings. It can join a call as a disclosed AI participant that speaks for your business within its brief, and it drafts recap emails, CRM notes, and tasks for your OK.