Fathom vs Granola

Quick answer: do you need the recording?

Start with what you'll do after the call. If you want to rewatch a demo, clip a customer quote for the product team or send a colleague the moment a client agreed to a price, Fathom keeps the recording and Granola doesn't. Granola deletes audio once it has transcribed it and stores the transcript plus your notes. That's a feature for some firms and a deal-breaker for others.

If the recording isn't the point, Granola's approach has two practical advantages: nobody sees a bot join, and you can type a few rough notes during the meeting that it expands into a structured write-up. We read both pricing pages on 11 November 2026 and haven't tested either tool hands-on, so this comparison is about documented limits and prices, not about which one writes better summaries.

Who should pick which

Example situations, not customer stories

A solo consultant who wants a free tool and keeps client calls for reference fits Fathom Free: unlimited recordings and transcripts with no 30-day cut-off. The same consultant on Granola Basic would lose sight of notes older than a month unless they upgrade, though Granola says older notes are hidden rather than deleted.

A three-person agency running workshops in client offices, or calls where a visible bot would feel awkward, fits Granola better. It works from laptop and phone audio, so it also covers in-person meetings, and Business at $14 a user has no seat minimum. A sales team that wants notes written into specific CRM fields after every call should look at Fathom Business ($25 annually); Granola's Business plan syncs notes to HubSpot, Attio and Affinity records, but Salesforce currently runs through Zapier, with a native connector in early access and listed under Enterprise's advanced integrations.

Pricing differences that change the bill

On annual billing Fathom Team is $15 a user and Granola Business $14, so the difference is a dollar per person. The minimums matter more. Fathom's Team and Business plans need at least two users; a solo buyer on Fathom pays Premium at $16 annually or $20 monthly. Granola has no seat minimum on any plan. Its help center says Business is billed monthly only, with annual terms reserved for Enterprise, so there's no annual discount to chase.

Both list Enterprise at $35 a user a month. Fathom marks it annual only; Granola requires 50 users for SSO. If SSO is a hard requirement for a team of 20, Fathom's Enterprise is the documented route, while Granola would need a conversation with sales.

Privacy, consent and EU questions

Both store data in the United States and both bar their AI providers from training on customer data. Both also train their own models on de-identified or anonymised data by default. Granola lets each user opt out in settings, and Enterprise turns training off for everyone. Fathom's position, from our review, is that it uses de-identified customer data to improve its own models; check the current terms if that matters to your clients.

Consent works differently. A visible Fathom bot tells attendees something is recording, unless you use the bot-free beta. Granola's bot-free capture means nobody sees a recorder, so you must get consent yourself. Enterprise admins can enforce an org-wide notice, which Granola marks as a pilot. Ask either vendor for a DPA before recording EU clients.

Migration notes

Neither vendor publishes an importer from the other on the pages we checked. If you move from Fathom to Granola, export or download the recordings you want to keep first, because Granola won't hold video. Going the other way, copy key Granola notes into your CRM or Notion before you stop paying for Business, or older notes drop out of view on Basic after 30 days.

Run them side by side for a week on different meeting types rather than in the same call. Two note-takers on one meeting confuses attendees and doubles the consent conversation.