Fathom vs Grain
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
Still shortlisting? Browse the best in AI Meeting Note Takers and the best in Conversation Intelligence for every option we track, with award winners called out.
The short answer
Editorial assessmentGrain compared with Fathom
Fathom is a strong free note taker with unlimited recording and adds scorecards and CRM sync on its paid tiers, which makes it the value benchmark for a small team. Grain trades that generous free plan for a deeper coaching and sharing layer, free viewer seats, and better clip workflow. If cost is the only constraint, Fathom's free tier wins; if you need the manager view and the shared library, Grain is worth the line item.
Choose Fathom if
Startups and small GTM teams that want a competent notetaker with zero budget on day one and a credible upgrade path to call coaching and CRM sync as the sales team grows past a couple of reps.
Choose Grain if
Small and mid-sized sales teams, from two reps to about fifty, who want recorded calls, coaching clips, talk-time insight, and CRM sync without an annual contract or a procurement cycle, plus customer success and product teams who need to share evidence from customer conversations across the company.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Fathom | Grain |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Meeting Notes | Call Coaching |
| Starting price | $0 (Free plan, unlimited recording and transcription) | $0 (Free, capped at 20 meetings), then about $15 per seat per month on Starter billed annually |
| Pricing model | Freemium, with individual plans and separate per-seat team plans (minimum two users); annual billing discounts run 20 to 26 percent depending on tier. | Per-recorded-seat subscription across four tiers with free unlimited viewer seats, billed monthly or annually, plus a meeting-count cap on the free plan only. |
| Free plan | Unlimited recordings and transcriptions, bot capture (bot-free capture in beta on Mac), instant AI summaries, clips, playlists, and search, with no monthly minute cap. | Free covers 20 meetings with AI notes and viewing of the team's meetings; free viewer seats cannot record, upload, or import. |
| Free trial | Free trial available on paid plans, plus a 90 day guarantee advertised across tiers | 14 days, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans |
| Best for | Startups and small GTM teams that want a competent notetaker with zero budget on day one and a credible upgrade path to call coaching and CRM sync as the sales team grows past a couple of reps. | Small and mid-sized sales teams, from two reps to about fifty, who want recorded calls, coaching clips, talk-time insight, and CRM sync without an annual contract or a procurement cycle, plus customer success and product teams who need to share evidence from customer conversations across the company. |
| Setup time | Under ten minutes. Sign up, connect Google Calendar or Microsoft 365, install the desktop app if you want bot-free capture, and the next meeting on your calendar is covered. | Under an hour. Connect the calendar, set a capture rule, invite the reps, and the next external meeting is recorded. CRM connection on Business adds maybe thirty minutes of field mapping. |
| Learning curve | Minimal for individual use. The Business features (CRM field mapping, scorecard rubrics, custom summary templates) need someone to think about the sales process for a few hours, but nothing here requires a specialist. | Low for reps, who mostly do nothing. Moderate for managers, because the value comes from building coaching playlists and reading interaction insights weekly, which is a habit rather than a feature. |
| Platforms | Web app, macOS and Windows desktop apps, iOS app, Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, Public API, MCP server | Web app, macOS and Windows desktop apps for bot-less capture, Chrome extension, Mobile access, MCP server |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA (signed BAA on Enterprise), GDPR, Passed Zoom's vendor security review | SOC 2 Type II, GDPR |
| Founded | 2020 | 2018 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Ownership | Venture-backed | Venture-backed |
Strengths and limitations
Fathom
Strengths
- The free plan is genuinely unlimited on recording and transcription, which removes the usual notetaker adoption barrier entirely for early-stage teams.
- Bot-free capture modes (in beta on Mac) alongside the bot, with speaker attribution preserved, give flexibility for client-facing work where a visible bot is a problem.
- Ask Fathom returns citations that link back to specific transcript moments, so answers are checkable rather than plausible-sounding summaries you have to trust.
- Team pricing at $15 to $19 per seat undercuts the individual Premium plan, an unusual structure that makes small-team adoption cheap.
Limitations
- 38 transcript languages is materially narrower than Fireflies or Circleback, both of which advertise 100-plus, so multilingual teams should verify their languages first.
- The features that make Fathom useful to a sales org (CRM field sync, Deal View, scorecards) all live on the Business tier, so the cheap reputation stops applying the moment you buy it for revenue reasons.
- Conversation intelligence depth is mid-tier: it will tell you talk-time ratios and score calls against a rubric, but it does not do pipeline-wide forecasting or deal-risk modelling.
- No published data residency options outside the US, which is a blocker for some EU buyers regardless of GDPR compliance statements.
Grain
Strengths
- Genuinely self-serve: published prices, a free tier, a 14-day trial, a money-back guarantee, and no mandatory annual contract, in a category where almost every competitor gates the number behind a demo.
- Supports both bot-based and bot-less capture, so the same account can record demos on video and capture sensitive calls without a visible notetaker.
- Free unlimited viewer seats make company-wide access to the call archive affordable, which is how conversation intelligence actually changes behavior outside the sales team.
- The clip and playlist model is the best-executed part of the product and remains the fastest way to turn a call into a coaching asset or a piece of internal evidence.
Limitations
- The free plan's 20-meeting cap makes it an extended demo, not a usable free tier, unlike Sybill's free plan or Fathom's unlimited recording.
- AI coaching and interaction insights sit on Business, so the coaching layer that justifies the category costs about double the entry price.
- No published weighted scorecard engine with custom rubric criteria; coaching is AI-generated commentary and aggregate insight rather than the structured scoring Avoma and Demodesk offer.
- No forecasting or deal board with pipeline risk scoring, so revenue leaders looking for the Gong or Clari feature set will find Grain incomplete.
Pricing compared
Fathom
Freemium, with individual plans and separate per-seat team plans (minimum two users); annual billing discounts run 20 to 26 percent depending on tier.
- Free$0
- Premium$20
- Team$19
- Business$34
- EnterpriseCustom
Nobody in this category matches Fathom's price-to-capability ratio at the bottom. Unlimited recording and transcription for zero dollars means the burden of proof is on every competitor charging for the same thing, and a two-person startup on the Team plan gets shared search and playlists for $30 a month. The economics get ordinary at the top: Business at $25 to $34 per seat is priced against real conversation intelligence tools, and the coaching and deal features, while decent, are lighter than a dedicated revenue intelligence platform. Buy Fathom for the free and Team tiers with clear eyes; evaluate Business on its merits rather than on brand loyalty earned downstream.
Grain
Per-recorded-seat subscription across four tiers with free unlimited viewer seats, billed monthly or annually, plus a meeting-count cap on the free plan only.
- Free$0
- Starterabout $15
- Businessabout $29
- EnterpriseCustom
Grain is one of the two or three genuinely self-serve entry points into this category, and at roughly $15 to $29 per recording seat it undercuts Jiminny by a factor of three and Gong by considerably more. The free viewer seats matter more than most buyers realize: the practical cost of giving a whole company access to customer calls is the number of people who record, not the number who watch. What you give up is depth. There is no forecasting engine, no weighted scorecard rubric, and no deal board of the kind Sybill or Avoma's revenue intelligence add-on provide. For a team under about fifty reps that wants recording, coaching clips, talk-ratio visibility, and CRM sync, the capability per dollar is excellent. For a team that wants the pipeline inspected, it is the wrong purchase at any price.
Editorial verdict on each
Fathom
Best ValueFathom won the bottom of this market by refusing to charge for the thing everyone else charges for, and the strategy still holds: unlimited free recording and transcription, bot-free capture in beta on Mac, and a Team tier that costs less per seat than the individual plan. For a startup choosing a notetaker this week, it is the default recommendation and the burden falls on rivals to justify their price. The picture is less commanding higher up: 38 languages is thin, the Business tier is priced against tools with deeper revenue intelligence, and there is no data residency story for EU buyers who need one. Start free, upgrade to Team when there are two of you, and evaluate Business on evidence rather than habit.
Read the full Fathom profileGrain
Ease of UseGrain is the easiest way for a small sales team to start doing conversation intelligence at all. You can sign up with a card, record every external call within an hour, and be running coaching sessions off real clips by the end of the week, for roughly what one rep's lunch budget costs. The free viewer seats are the underrated part: they make the call archive a company asset rather than a sales tool. Be clear about what you are not getting. There is no forecasting, no deal board, and no weighted scorecard rubric, so if the problem you are solving is pipeline inspection rather than rep development, Avoma with the revenue intelligence module or a genuine enterprise platform is the correct answer. But for the two-to-fifty-rep team that has never listened back to a single call, Grain is the right first purchase, and the coaching tier at about $29 a seat is one of the better deals in this category.
Read the full Grain profileFathom profile last reviewed 2026-09-27; Grain last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.
The best in AI Meeting Note Takers
23 trackedAI meeting note takers join calls to record, transcribe, and summarize them, turning conversations into searchable notes, action items, and CRM updates without anyone typing.
The broadest platform in meeting AI: transcription, search, AI apps, and integrations that reach every corner of the small-business stack.
A free plan with unlimited recording and transcription that forced every paid notetaker in the category to justify its price.
A ten-person team out-writing the funded competition on note quality, then automating what the notes say.
Abandoned the meeting bot entirely for a local notepad that finishes what you type, a mechanism the rest of the category is now copying.
A five minute Chrome extension install with no bot to whitelist, and notes open automatically in a post-call tab the moment you hang up.
The best in Conversation Intelligence
16 trackedConversation intelligence platforms record sales calls, transcribe them, and analyze the content for coaching, deal risk, and competitive mentions, turning the call archive into a searchable and scoreable dataset.
Gong's feature list unbundled into modules a ten-person team can buy, from scheduling through coaching.
Most of Gong's job from $19 a seat, built by a nine-person bootstrapped company.
An AI assistant that fills the CRM after every call moved Sybill from notetaker to the fastest-spreading rep-side tool in the category.
Practice the call against an AI buyer before you burn a real prospect: a coaching mechanism nobody else in the category ships.
Connect a calendar, set a capture rule, and the next meeting records itself; reps do nothing and the free tier covers 20 meetings.
Frequently asked questions
6 questionsWhat is the difference between Fathom and Grain?
Fathom is a strong free note taker with unlimited recording and adds scorecards and CRM sync on its paid tiers, which makes it the value benchmark for a small team. Grain trades that generous free plan for a deeper coaching and sharing layer, free viewer seats, and better clip workflow. If cost is the only constraint, Fathom's free tier wins; if you need the manager view and the shared library, Grain is worth the line item.
Is Fathom or Grain cheaper?
Fathom starts at $0 (Free plan, unlimited recording and transcription). Grain starts at $0 (Free, capped at 20 meetings), then about $15 per seat per month on Starter billed annually. The billing models differ, so the entry price is rarely the whole cost. Fathom pricing model: Freemium, with individual plans and separate per-seat team plans (minimum two users); annual billing discounts run 20 to 26 percent depending on tier. Grain pricing model: Per-recorded-seat subscription across four tiers with free unlimited viewer seats, billed monthly or annually, plus a meeting-count cap on the free plan only.
Does Fathom or Grain have a free plan?
Fathom has a free plan. Unlimited recordings and transcriptions, bot capture (bot-free capture in beta on Mac), instant AI summaries, clips, playlists, and search, with no monthly minute cap. Trial terms: Free trial available on paid plans, plus a 90 day guarantee advertised across tiers. Grain has a free plan. Free covers 20 meetings with AI notes and viewing of the team's meetings; free viewer seats cannot record, upload, or import. Trial terms: 14 days, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans.
Who should choose Fathom?
Startups and small GTM teams that want a competent notetaker with zero budget on day one and a credible upgrade path to call coaching and CRM sync as the sales team grows past a couple of reps.
Who should choose Grain?
Small and mid-sized sales teams, from two reps to about fifty, who want recorded calls, coaching clips, talk-time insight, and CRM sync without an annual contract or a procurement cycle, plus customer success and product teams who need to share evidence from customer conversations across the company.
What are the best alternatives to Fathom and Grain?
SaaSTracker profiles 23 products in AI Meeting Note Takers. The Summer 2026 awards in the category went to Fireflies.ai (Category Leader), Circleback (Momentum), Granola (Innovation). SaaSTracker profiles 16 products in Conversation Intelligence. The Summer 2026 awards in the category went to Avoma (Category Leader), Rafiki (Best Value), Sybill (Momentum). Every profile is compiled from primary sources, so a shortlist can be built from pricing, limitations, and fit rather than from star ratings.
