Fathom vs Scribbl
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
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The short answer
Editorial assessmentScribbl compared with Fathom
Fathom sends a bot but gives you a famously generous free tier with unlimited recording, plus CRM field sync and sales scorecards on paid plans, and it is a far larger and better-resourced company. Scribbl's answer is the absence of the bot: no vendor-named attendee in a client call. If your calls are internal or your clients do not care, Fathom is the stronger product; if the bot is the objection, Scribbl is the cheapest way around it.
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 Scribbl if
Small agencies, sales teams, and consultants who want a recording they can rewatch and clip without a bot embarrassing them in front of a client, and individuals who need unlimited meetings with video for thirteen dollars a seat.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Fathom | Scribbl |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Meeting Notes | Meeting Notes |
| Starting price | $0 (Free plan, unlimited recording and transcription) | $0 (Lite), then $13 per user per month billed annually (Pro) |
| 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. | Freemium credit-based subscription where one credit equals one meeting, with per-seat pricing on paid tiers and a steep annual discount. |
| 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. | Lite covers 10 meetings a month with unlimited meeting length, AI notes and action items, sharing with up to 5 people, and video recordings that expire after two months. |
| Free trial | Free trial available on paid plans, plus a 90 day guarantee advertised across tiers | No separate trial; the free Lite plan runs indefinitely and needs no credit card |
| 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 agencies, sales teams, and consultants who want a recording they can rewatch and clip without a bot embarrassing them in front of a client, and individuals who need unlimited meetings with video for thirteen dollars a seat. |
| 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. | Five minutes. Install the Chrome extension, sign in, and the next browser meeting is captured. There is nothing for IT to package and no bot to whitelist in your meeting platform's admin console. |
| 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. | Minimal. The post-call tab opens automatically with notes already generated, and the only habit worth building is marking moments during the call so the key exchanges are pre-flagged. |
| Platforms | Web app, macOS and Windows desktop apps, iOS app, Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, Public API, MCP server | Chrome extension (Google Meet), Desktop app for Zoom and Teams (Mac, Windows), Web app |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA (signed BAA on Enterprise), GDPR, Passed Zoom's vendor security review | No SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification published, No published GDPR data processing agreement, Stated policy of not training models on customer conversations |
| Founded | 2020 | 2022 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | United States |
| Ownership | Venture-backed | Privately held, independent |
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.
Scribbl
Strengths
- The only genuinely cheap way to get bot-free capture and retained video in the same product, which is a combination almost nobody else offers.
- Transcript-to-video seeking makes finding the exact moment in a call trivial, and it is the feature users cite most in reviews.
- One credit equals one meeting regardless of length, so a three-hour workshop costs the same as a fifteen-minute stand-up.
- Chrome extension and desktop app install with no bot and no meeting-platform approval, which routes around IT friction.
Limitations
- No SOC 2, no ISO 27001, no published data residency, and no SSO, which disqualifies Scribbl from most formal procurement processes.
- Language support is explicitly inherited from Google Meet's caption list rather than owned, so non-English quality is not something Scribbl controls or publishes figures on.
- No mobile app and no in-person meeting recording; Zoom and Teams capture needs the desktop app, which requires a paid plan after 7 days.
- The Team plan has no published price, so team budgets need a sales conversation.
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.
Scribbl
Freemium credit-based subscription where one credit equals one meeting, with per-seat pricing on paid tiers and a steep annual discount.
- Lite$0
- Pro$13
- TeamCustom
For the specific person who wants bot-free capture and video playback, Scribbl is the cheapest route by a wide margin and there is barely any competition. Model 20 meetings a week: that is roughly 80 calls a month, all covered by Pro's unlimited allowance at $13 per user per month, or $156 a year per seat, with a year of video retention included. Fathom's paid tiers or tl;dv give you more platform, but both put a bot in the room. Granola at $14 is the closer comparison on price and loses on media entirely. What you are trading away is certification and scale: no SOC 2, no SSO, no residency, no mobile, and language coverage borrowed from Google. If none of those appear on your requirements list, the price is excellent. If any of them do, no discount makes it work.
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 profileScribbl
Ease of UseScribbl is a narrow product that is very good at the one thing it chose. If you want a recording you can rewatch and clip, but you refuse to put a bot in front of a client, there is almost nothing else at this price that does both, and transcript-to-video seeking makes the archive genuinely usable rather than nominally searchable. At $13 a seat with unlimited meetings and unlimited length, the arithmetic works for anyone in constant calls. The problem is everything around the product: no SOC 2, no SSO, no residency, no mobile, borrowed language support, a Team tier that is half built, and a company small enough that its own site disagrees about the size of the free plan. Buy it as an individual or a small unregulated team where the buyer is the user. Do not put it in front of a procurement department, because it will not survive the first page of the questionnaire.
Read the full Scribbl profileFathom profile last reviewed 2026-09-27; Scribbl last reviewed 2026-09-27. 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.
Frequently asked questions
6 questionsWhat is the difference between Fathom and Scribbl?
Fathom sends a bot but gives you a famously generous free tier with unlimited recording, plus CRM field sync and sales scorecards on paid plans, and it is a far larger and better-resourced company. Scribbl's answer is the absence of the bot: no vendor-named attendee in a client call. If your calls are internal or your clients do not care, Fathom is the stronger product; if the bot is the objection, Scribbl is the cheapest way around it.
Is Fathom or Scribbl cheaper?
Fathom starts at $0 (Free plan, unlimited recording and transcription). Scribbl starts at $0 (Lite), then $13 per user per month billed annually (Pro). 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. Scribbl pricing model: Freemium credit-based subscription where one credit equals one meeting, with per-seat pricing on paid tiers and a steep annual discount.
Does Fathom or Scribbl 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. Scribbl has a free plan. Lite covers 10 meetings a month with unlimited meeting length, AI notes and action items, sharing with up to 5 people, and video recordings that expire after two months. Trial terms: No separate trial; the free Lite plan runs indefinitely and needs no credit card.
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 Scribbl?
Small agencies, sales teams, and consultants who want a recording they can rewatch and clip without a bot embarrassing them in front of a client, and individuals who need unlimited meetings with video for thirteen dollars a seat.
What are the best alternatives to Fathom and Scribbl?
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). Every profile is compiled from primary sources, so a shortlist can be built from pricing, limitations, and fit rather than from star ratings.
