Spellar AI vs Fireflies.ai (2026)

Spellar AI

by Spellar LTD

Fireflies.ai

by Fireflies.ai

Pros

• ✓No bot joins calls -- Spellar records natively on Mac, iPhone, and iPad audio without sending a participant into the meeting, eliminating the privacy concern and awkward presence that bot-based tools introduce.
• ✓Cross-meeting memory lets users query what was said across all past recordings with cited, sourced answers linked to the exact moment in the original transcript, rather than searching through individual notes manually.
• ✓Every premium AI model is included in the base subscription -- GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity are all available without additional cost and are switchable per meeting, per template, or per individual question.

Limitations

• ⚠No free tier -- Spellar Pro starts at $11.99 per month with no permanent free plan, unlike Fathom and Fireflies.ai which both offer free tiers with meaningful usage limits.
• ⚠No SOC 2 Type II or ISO 27001 certification -- Spellar covers UK GDPR and CCPA compliance but has not completed third-party security audits, which limits enterprise procurement in regulated industries.
• ⚠Teams plan pricing is not published and requires a sales conversation to obtain a quote, making total cost of ownership difficult to assess for teams above five seats before engaging the vendor.

Pros

• ✓Most comprehensive free tier in the meeting intelligence category with unlimited transcription, 100+ language support, API access, and mobile app at $0 -- enabling enterprise-level evaluation before commitment
• ✓SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA compliance (Enterprise with BAA) covers the widest range of regulated industries including healthcare, finance, and legal -- broader compliance coverage than most direct competitors
• ✓200+ AI apps for post-meeting automation including sales call analysis, objection tracking, content calendar generation, and user research recording provide workflow depth well beyond simple transcription

Limitations

• ⚠AI credits are a one-time shared workspace pool that does not reset monthly on any plan -- heavy users of AskFred and advanced AI summaries exhaust the allotment and face unexpected upgrade pressure or additional credit purchases
• ⚠Visible Notetaker bot joins meetings as a named participant on all plans, which can create friction in sensitive client-facing calls; the Chrome extension bot-free alternative is available but less capable than the primary bot experience
• ⚠Video recording is locked behind Business at $19/seat/month annual -- teams needing to review what was shown on screen as well as what was said must upgrade past Pro even for moderate usage