Granola
Bot-free AI notetaker that turns your own meeting notes into client-ready write-ups
Granola transcribes meetings from your own device, with no bot joining the call, and does not keep the audio or any video. You jot rough notes during the meeting and Granola's AI enhances them into structured summaries, action items and follow-ups afterwards. Because the summary is shaped by what you flagged as important rather than a generic transcript dump, the output reads closer to how a communications professional would write up a client call. We have used it increasingly through 2026 in live consultancy work, on the Mac for calls and on the iPhone for voice notes and in-person conversations, all on the free plan.
For comms teams: consultants and agency leads with heavy external meeting loads.
Best for
- • Consultants and agency leads with heavy external meeting loads
- • In-house comms advisors who want client-ready notes without a bot in the room
- • Practitioners who want meeting notes to feed Claude or ChatGPT through MCP
- • Capturing voice notes and in-person conversations on the move
- • Anyone uncomfortable with a visible bot in sensitive external meetings
Pricing
Basic: free, with 30 days of meeting history, AI chat within and across meetings, and MCP access to your own notes from the last 30 days. Business: $14/user/month for unlimited history, advanced AI models, Notion, HubSpot, Attio, Affinity and Zapier integrations, and full MCP and API access. Enterprise: $35/user/month, adding SSO, admin controls for sharing and API access, org-wide auto-deletion and a team-wide model-training opt-out (USD).
Verified September 2026 on granola.ai/pricing, which does not say whether Business is billed monthly or annually. The free plan has been enough for our own use as a single practitioner.
Pricing last verified Sep 2026 – check vendor site for current rates.
What works well
- + Summaries are generally strong on outcomes and actions, which is what most comms follow-up needs
- + Keeps no audio or video recording, which answers a common privacy objection to meeting tools
- + One tool for calls on the desktop and for voice notes and in-person conversations on the phone
- + MCP connection lets Claude or ChatGPT pull notes into scheduled summaries and other workflows
- + The free plan covers a single practitioner's regular use
- + Notes-first model produces summaries shaped by your priorities
- + Quick to adopt
Watch out for
- - Transcripts often do not show who said what, with speakers labelled only 'Me' and 'Them' when speaker tags are not available
- - Nobody else in the call can see it is running unless you switch on its chat notice or watermark, so tell people at the start
- - Anonymised data is used for Granola's own model training by default on Free and Business, so opt out before client calls
- - Free plan keeps only the last 30 days of meeting history, in the app and over MCP
- - Data is stored in the US only, with no UK or EU region
- - Fewer integrations than Fireflies, and the advanced ones need the Business plan
- - Bot-free capture is now contested (Fathom and others ship it too)
When to choose this
Choose Granola when you want strong summaries of calls, voice notes and in-person conversations without a bot in the room, and want those notes to feed Claude or ChatGPT. Start on the free plan and move to Business when 30 days of history is not enough.
Who should look elsewhere
If you need reliable speaker attribution for quotes or minutes, test a tool with full speaker identification on your own calls first. If your organisation needs UK or EU data residency, Granola stores everything in the US. If you want an unlimited free tier with broad CRM integration, Fathom is the stronger free option, and if you want cross-call conversation intelligence across a large team and 50+ integrations, Fireflies covers more ground. Granola is at its best for the individual practitioner who lives in external meetings and already works with AI assistants.
Key features
- • Bot-free transcription on Mac and Windows, with no audio or video kept
- • iPhone and Android apps for voice notes and in-person conversations
- • Hybrid workflow that enhances your live notes into structured summaries
- • Action items and follow-ups generated automatically
- • AI chat within and across meetings, and searchable meeting history
- • MCP server that connects your notes to Claude, ChatGPT and other AI tools
- • Optional meeting-chat notice and camera watermark to tell participants you are transcribing
Governance & data
Governance information is based on publicly available vendor documentation. Verify with your vendor before procurement decisions.
Integrations
Available on
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