Is Otter.ai free? Yes, with a 30-minute catch

Yes, Otter.ai has a free plan, called Basic. It gives you 300 transcription minutes a month. The limit that matters more is the other one: each conversation stops at 30 minutes.

So an hour-long meeting gets transcribed for its first half and that’s it. In practice the free plan covers about ten short calls a month, and anything longer pushes you toward Pro at $8.33 to $16.99 a month.

Below is every free-plan limit from Otter’s pricing page, checked October 2026, what the paid plans add, and the free alternatives if you’ve hit the wall. I build one of those alternatives, TranscribeX, so I’ll be specific about where Otter is still the better tool.

Otter.ai free plan limits, explained

300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation

Both limits apply together. 300 minutes sounds like five hours of meetings, but because every conversation is capped at 30 minutes, the most you can fully transcribe is ten half-hour calls. Two or three standups a week fit. A weekly one-hour team meeting doesn’t.

3 file imports, ever

If you want to upload existing recordings, such as an interview or a lecture, the free plan allows three imports in total. Not three a month: three for the account. Pro raises it to 10 a month.

Only the 25 most recent conversations

Older conversations drop out of reach once you pass 25. If you record daily, that’s about five weeks of history. Pro keeps everything.

20 AI Chat questions a month

Otter’s AI Chat lets you ask questions about a meeting. The free plan allows 20 a month and 3 per conversation, which runs out quickly if you use it to draft follow-ups.

What Otter Pro and Business cost

From otter.ai/pricing, checked October 2026. Prices are per user. Students and educators get 20% off Pro. “–” means not listed for that plan.

Note that Pro still has limits: 1,200 minutes is 20 hours a month, and conversations stop at 90 minutes. Unlimited meeting transcription starts at Business, which is $239.88 a year per person when billed yearly.

How Otter records, and why it matters on the free plan

Otter’s Notetaker joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet as a participant, and reviewers report that it auto-joins calendar meetings by default. Everyone in the call sees it. Otter also has a Mac and Windows desktop app that records without a bot. Either way, the audio is transcribed in Otter’s cloud; I found no offline or on-device option on Otter’s site.

That auto-join default has caused trouble. In August 2025 a class action was filed against Otter (Brewer v. Otter.ai), alleging that its bot recorded participants without their consent and used the recordings to train its models, as NPR reported. I don’t know how the case has progressed. Whichever tool you use, it’s worth checking its auto-join setting and telling people when you record.

Free alternatives to Otter

If the 30-minute cap is the problem, these tools have free plans without it.

Fathom is the closest like-for-like swap: a cloud note taker whose free plan doesn’t cap recording time.

TranscribeX is the option if you’d rather keep audio off the internet. The free version transcribes any recording or file on your Mac with no minute limit, including files from the macOS 27 screen recorder or your own Zoom recordings (here’s how to record your Mac’s audio). If you want meetings detected, recorded, summarized and emailed automatically, that’s Pro at $39 once, which costs less than three months of Otter Pro billed monthly.

Where Otter is still the better choice

• You need it everywhere. Otter runs on the web, Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android. TranscribeX is Mac only.
• You want notes from meetings you don’t attend. A bot can join without you; a local app can only record calls on your own Mac.
• Your team shares transcripts. Otter has shared channels and workspaces. A local app gives you files to share yourself.