Fathom vs Fireflies vs Otter: Which AI Meeting Assistant Should Small Agencies Use?

Side-by-side comparison

Five criteria that matter most for small agency teams: cost, transcription quality, CRM fit, summary usefulness, and how fast you can get set up.

Fathom

Best for: Zoom-primary teams who want clean, free meeting notes

Strengths

Fathom has the cleanest free tier in this category — unlimited meetings at no cost. It integrates natively with Zoom and joins calls automatically, producing organised summaries with highlights and action items separated from the transcript. Output quality is consistently high with minimal cleanup required.

Weaknesses

Fathom is Zoom-first. Support for Google Meet and Teams exists but relies on a browser extension rather than native integration, and reliability is less consistent. If your team runs meetings across multiple platforms, Fathom's coverage becomes a liability. The searchable archive is also shallower than Fireflies.

Best-fit use case

Small agencies running client calls primarily on Zoom. If you want a no-cost, no-friction meeting note system and Zoom is your default platform, Fathom is the right starting point.

Fireflies

Best for: Teams that need a searchable archive across all meeting platforms

Strengths

Fireflies is the most feature-complete option here. It joins meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, and more without needing extensions — just a calendar connection. Every meeting is stored in a searchable database. You can query past calls by keyword across your entire history, which is valuable if clients frequently revisit decisions from earlier calls.

Weaknesses

The free tier limits storage heavily — it becomes a paid product quickly for active teams. The interface is denser than Fathom's, and the volume of features can slow down teams that just want clean notes fast. Summary quality is good but action item extraction can be inconsistent on shorter calls.

Best-fit use case

Agencies running many meetings per week across multiple platforms who need to search past calls for context. If you frequently need to revisit what was agreed in previous client meetings, Fireflies pays for itself.

Otter

Best for: In-person meetings and hybrid environments

Strengths

Otter.ai has the strongest transcription accuracy in noisy or in-person environments. The mobile app is mature — you can record an in-person client meeting, a workshop, or a site visit and get a clean transcript without setting anything up. It has been around the longest of the three and handles mixed audio well.

Weaknesses

Action item extraction is less reliable than Fathom or Fireflies — you'll often need to review and edit the output manually. The free tier caps monthly minutes at 300, which limits usage quickly for active teams. Integrations are thinner than competitors, and the AI summary features have improved but still lag behind the others.

Best-fit use case

Agencies with a mix of remote and in-person client meetings. If you do on-site work, workshops, or client sessions that aren't on video calls, Otter covers ground that Fathom and Fireflies don't.

Which should you choose?

The right tool depends on how your agency runs its meetings and what you need from the output.

Solo founder: Start with Fathom. It's completely free, requires no configuration, and produces clean summaries immediately on Zoom. There's no reason to pay for a meeting assistant at this stage — Fathom's free tier handles unlimited meetings without compromise.

Small team (2–5 people): Fireflies Pro at $10/user/month makes sense once your team is running multiple client calls per week. The searchable archive means anyone on the team can find what a client said three months ago without digging through notes. The Zapier integration also makes it easy to push summaries into your existing workflows.

Client-facing agency work: If your team runs discovery calls, strategy sessions, and regular check-ins with clients, Fathom is the default recommendation — the summary quality and CRM integrations on paid plans are strong. Add Otter only if you frequently meet clients in person or in hybrid settings where mobile recording matters more than integrations.

Related resources