Transcription · replacement recipe

Go from Otter.ai to Fathom

The job: AI meeting notes (Live transcription, Meeting bot (Zoom/Meet/Teams), AI summaries). Pick where you are today and where you want to land; the move below follows your pick.

From · what you pay for now
Otter.ai
Otter.ai Pro · $16.99/mo
Year one+$154modeled
To · your pickBest fit
Fathom
Free plan · $0 a month
Change where you land

The money

$16.99/mo today $0/mo

Otter.ai Pro

Year one, net+$154
Pays back in2.9 months

Modeled from public list prices, with your time at $50 an hour. Show the math

Does it do the job? 2 of 3 covered

  • Live transcription
  • Meeting bot (Zoom/Meet/Teams)
  • AI summaries

The work

Setup
About 1 h
Upkeep
None
Watch out
Doesn't cover: Live transcription

Make the move in four steps

  1. Export from Otter.ai

    One conversation's transcript or audio. Format: TXT on the Basic plan; DOCX, PDF, SRT and MP3 audio on paid plans

    Export steps

  2. Set up Fathom

    Fathom Free offers unlimited recordings and basic summaries.

    Details

  3. Switch links and integrations

    Point links, embeds and integrations at Fathom, then send a test through every one.

  4. Cancel Otter.ai

    Turn off renewal before your renewal date, once the new setup works. Access runs until: The end of the billing cycle.

    How to cancel Otter.ai
Open FathomHow to cancel Otter.ai
Modeled, not measured. Savings use public prices and planning assumptions: the bill you stop paying, minus the new tool, your upkeep time and your setup time at $50/hour, over the first 12 months. Paths marked Tested by Stackcut were run end to end by us on our own products. They're our tests, not customer results. Check the must-haves in each recipe before you switch.

The whole recipe: 3 ways out, best first

What you use

  • Live transcription
  • Meeting bot (Zoom/Meet/Teams)
  • AI summaries

Not covered

  • Action items
  • Search transcripts
  • Import audio files
  • AI chat over meetings

Check before switching

  • You only rely on: Live transcription, Meeting bot (Zoom/Meet/Teams), AI summaries
  • Export your data from Otter.ai before canceling

Agents: get_recipe("replace-otter") on the Stackcut MCP server.

3 ways out, best first

Switch vendorFathom (free tier)Saves $154 in year one
$16.99/mo today → $0/mo · setup 1 h · then $204/yr · payback 2.9 mo
If your use fits the free tier (Free forever: unlimited recordings and transcriptions, instant AI call summaries, clips and search (no numeric caps published)).
Covers 67% of the core features (not: Live transcription)
Fathom Free offers unlimited recordings and basic summaries.
How we got this
You pay now: Otter.ai Pro$16.99/user/mo × 1 user$16.99/mo
New cost: Fathom (free tier)free plan$0/mo
Difference each month$16.99 − $0+$16.99/mo
Over 12 months+$16.99 × 12+$204
Setup, once1 h × $50/h−$50
Year one+$204 − $50+$154
  • Not counting your time (1 h in year one): saves $204 in year one.

Year one = 12 × (what you pay now − the new cost − upkeep) − setup, with your time at $50/hour. Prices are public list prices; hours are Stackcut’s planning estimates. Price it for your team

Sources: otter.aifathom.ai
Open sourceMeetilySaves $154 in year one
$16.99/mo today → $0/mo · setup 1 h · then $204/yr · payback 2.9 mo
Covers 67% of the core features (not: Meeting bot (Zoom/Meet/Teams))
Suits privacy-minded users who can run a desktop app: live local transcription, file import and AI summaries with no minute caps, but no meeting bot or cross-meeting search.
License: open_source
How we got this
You pay now: Otter.ai Pro$16.99/user/mo × 1 user$16.99/mo
New cost: Meetilyruns on your own machine$0/mo
Difference each month$16.99 − $0+$16.99/mo
Over 12 months+$16.99 × 12+$204
Setup, once1 h × $50/h−$50
Year one+$204 − $50+$154
  • Not counting your time (1 h in year one): saves $204 in year one.

Year one = 12 × (what you pay now − the new cost − upkeep) − setup, with your time at $50/hour. Prices are public list prices; hours are Stackcut’s planning estimates. Price it for your team

Sources: otter.aimeetily.aigithub.com
Agent skillVexa (open-source meeting bots and transcription, with an MCP server)Priced by usage
Free to install; needs Vexa hosted plan, or a self-hosted stack with your own speech-to-text (vexa.ai/pricing (read 2026-09-29): Individual $12/seat/month for MCP use (one concurrent bot, transcription and 12-month audio storage), or pay as you go at $0.30 per bot-hour plus $0.20 per hour of transcription. Self-hosting is free only with the bundled transcription service on your own GPU (a CPU variant is slow) or another OpenAI-compatible speech-to-text you run; the hosted transcription token is metered.)
A meeting-notetaker seat: a bot joins Google Meet, Teams or Zoom, streams a speaker-labelled transcript and saves the recording; your agent reads the transcript over MCP and writes the summary and action items.
Covers 100% of the core features
Assumes you already pay for an agent that runs skills (any MCP client; a Vexa API key (hosted) or a self-hosted Docker/Kubernetes stack); that agent's cost isn't counted. Needs Vexa hosted plan, or a self-hosted stack with your own speech-to-text: priced by usage, so this way isn't priced here. Setup (2 h) and upkeep (0.5 h a month) are Stackcut's estimates; not tested by Stackcut.
License: Apache-2.0
Install: Hosted: open vexa.ai/connect, sign in and paste the setup prompt into your agent (it configures the MCP endpoint https://api.cloud.vexa.ai/mcp). Self-host: git clone https://github.com/Vexa-ai/vexa && make all (the gateway serves MCP at /mcp; transcription needs a hosted STT token or your own GPU faster-whisper unit, README).
Sources: github.comraw.githubusercontent.comotter.ai

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