Greg vs Otter: live captions vs a teammate
Otter is the name a lot of people still use for “AI notetaker”: live transcription, a bot or device recording on Zoom / Meet / Teams, and chat over the archive. Greg is in the same shopping tab, but the center of gravity is different — notes you can act on, then a phone and inbox that keep working.
What Otter is better at
Live transcription, speaker ID while you talk, and a consumer-grade mobile recorder are Otter’s home turf. The otter.ai/pricing grid also shows AI Chat query limits, meeting templates, concurrent meeting bots on paid seats, and Salesforce / HubSpot sync (with explicit per-plan user limits). Enterprise adds SSO/SCIM, an API, and sales-oriented notetaker features Otter names on that page.
If you need captions in the room, or you already have years of Otter conversations, switching for its own sake is a bad trade. Greg will not recreate that archive.
Where Greg is the better Otter alternative
Greg does not sell live captions. It sells the hour after: a structured summary, tasks with owners, a number you can call for prep, SMS and Slack that go both ways, and optional CRM notes. Pricing is a workspace fee plus credits rather than Otter’s per-user minute buckets — simpler for one operator, different math for a 25-seat caption rollout.
| Capability | Greg | Otter |
|---|---|---|
| Zoom, Google Meet, Teams | Visible bot on all three. Auto-join from Google Calendar on paid plans. Upload if the bot was not invited. | Otter’s pricing page lists Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet on every plan, plus live transcription, mobile apps, and (on higher tiers) live notes/captions and Zoom cloud-recording sync. Desktop/bot-free recording is advertised on Otter’s marketing site. |
| Notes & search | Post-call speaker-labelled transcript and structured summary; search; Slack/app Q&A with citations. Not a live-caption product. | Live transcription and speaker identification are core. Automated summaries and action items, Otter AI Chat (monthly query caps by plan), meeting templates/workflows, and iOS/Android apps. Conversation history is capped at 25 meetings on Basic. |
| Pricing model | Free 20 credits/mo (~200 minutes). Solo $97/mo + usage. Team $297/mo + usage. 1 credit = 10 minutes, live or upload. | Basic free: 300 transcription minutes/user/mo, 30 minutes max per conversation (otter.ai/pricing). Pro about $16.99/user/mo or ~$8.33–$8.49/user/mo annual, 1,200 minutes, 90-minute cap. Business about $19.99–$30/user/mo with unlimited in-app meetings and a 4-hour cap. Enterprise is custom. |
| CRM & follow-through | HubSpot or GoHighLevel on paid plans. Phone, SMS, Slack, routines, board tasks — follow-through is the product. | Salesforce and HubSpot sync are listed from Pro, with user-count limits called out on Otter’s pricing page (e.g. 1 user on Pro, 5 on Business, unlimited on Enterprise). Otter API/webhooks and sales-notetaker features are Enterprise. Otter is not a phone/SMS assistant. |
Otter figures are from their public pricing page at the time of writing (including promotional annual rates). Confirm on otter.ai before you buy.
Related comparisons
Category context: AI meeting assistant and AI notetaker. Other incumbents: vs Fireflies, vs Fathom.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Otter or Greg better for live captions?
- Otter. Live transcription and in-meeting captions are a large part of Otter’s product. Greg transcribes after (or from) the recording and does not sell live captions.
- Does Otter work on Zoom, Meet, and Teams?
- Yes — Otter lists all three on its public pricing page, as Greg does. Otter also emphasizes mobile recording and, on some tiers, Zoom cloud-recording import. Greg’s extra path is upload-any-file through the same summary pipeline.
- How do free plans compare?
- Otter Basic: 300 minutes/month and a 30-minute ceiling per conversation. Greg: 20 credits/month (200 minutes) with the same 10-minutes-per-credit rule as paid, no 30-minute conversation cap advertised. Different shapes — pick based on meeting length, not just the headline minute count.
- Who should stay on Otter?
- People who want live notes, a mature mobile recorder, and Otter AI Chat across a large existing archive — especially if Salesforce/HubSpot sync on Pro is enough. Switch the evaluation to Greg if you want to call or text an assistant that already sat in the meeting.
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