Head-to-head
Fireflies.ai vs Read AI
Read AI uniquely has 23 features · Fireflies.ai uniquely has 12 features.
The verdict
Fireflies.ai or Read AI?
Section 01
Pricing, plan by plan
Every plan each vendor publishes, monthly and yearly where both are offered.
Fireflies.ai
Pro
$18/mo · $120/yr
8,000 mins of storage/seat, 20 AI Credits
Business
$29/mo · $228/yr
Unlimited storage, 30 AI Credits
Enterprise
Starts at $456/yr
Unlimited storage, 50 AI Credits
Read AI
Free
$0
5 meeting transcripts/month, unlimited search, basic integrations, 20+ languages
Pro
$19.75/mo · $180/yr
Unlimited transcripts, 100 file upload credits/mo, premium integrations (Notion, Salesforce, HubSpot, Jira, Confluence, Zapier, webhooks)
Enterprise
$29.75/mo · $270/yr
Everything in Pro plus audio/video playback, video highlights, 200 file upload credits/mo, premium support — requires 5+ licenses
Enterprise+
$39.75/mo · $357/yr
Everything in Enterprise plus HIPAA, SAML/SCIM, domain capture, custom data retention, 300 file upload credits/mo, workspace onboarding
Section 02
Pros and cons
From each tool's full review, written from the same checked facts.
Fireflies.ai
Pros
- Works across all major video conferencing platforms including Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex.
- AskFred AI assistant enables users to search across their entire meeting history and ask natural language questions against it.
- Supports direct upload of audio or video files for teams who record calls outside of live meetings.
- Offers conversation intelligence features like talk-time analysis and sentiment analysis at a fraction of the cost of competitors like Gong.
- Over one million companies use it, indicating a proven and stable product with a long track record since 2016.
- April 2025 update introduced 200+ AI Skills and a Live Assist feature with real-time coaching during calls.
- New Talk to Fireflies feature integrates Perplexity AI for live web search during meetings, pointing to a genuinely innovative product direction.
Cons
- There is a notable gap between what the homepage promises and what users actually report in real-world reviews.
- The newer Live Assist and Talk to Fireflies features lack sufficient user review data to confirm whether they work reliably.
- The product is not suitable for any voice generation, text-to-speech, voice cloning, or audio enhancement use cases.
- The broad claim of over one million companies using it is difficult to evaluate meaningfully, as the definition of a 'company' user is vague.
- The expanding feature set makes it harder to assess whether core functionality like transcription and summaries remains consistently strong.
- Sentiment analysis and conversation intelligence features position it against enterprise tools like Gong, which may create expectation mismatches for some buyers.
Read AI
Pros
- Supports all major meeting platforms including Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams seamlessly.
- Ask Read feature enables natural language search across meeting history, emails, and chat threads, which users report works well.
- Offline mode for in-person meeting recording sets it apart from most competitors who skip this entirely.
- Automatically syncs action items to tools like Jira and pushes post-meeting summaries to Slack.
- Meeting coach provides self-reflection metrics like talk-to-listen ratio during calls.
- Covers a wide surface area spanning meetings, email, and messaging through a single AI layer.
- Real-time AI-generated meeting notes with action items reduce manual follow-up work after calls.
Cons
- Ada the Digital Twin feature receives mixed user feedback and may not deliver on its ambitious promises.
- The product's rapid expansion from meeting summarizer to full AI platform creates occasional inconsistency.
- Covering meetings, email, and messaging simultaneously is an ambitious scope that introduces complexity.
- Meeting coach engagement tracking may feel intrusive or unsettling to some users and teams.
- Marketing claims around AI copilots and digital twins set expectations that the product doesn't always meet.
Side by side
| Company | ||
| Founded | 2016 | 2021 |
| HQ | San Francisco, USA | San Francisco, USA |
| AI model | Proprietary (with integrations including Perplexity AI for Live Assist) | Proprietary (multi-LLM) |
| User base | 1 million+ companies | Millions (exact number not publicly stated) |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android, Chrome Extension, Desktop App | Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS |
| Languages | 100+ | 20+ |
| Pricing | ||
| Pricing model | Freemium | Freemium |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | No — free tier available indefinitely | No — free tier available permanently |
| Starting price | $18/mo | $0/mo |
| Enterprise | Contact Us | $39.75/mo |
| All plans | Pro — $18/mo Business — $29/mo Enterprise — Starts at $456/yr | Free — $0 Pro — $19.75/mo Enterprise — $29.75/mo Enterprise+ — $39.75/mo |
| Positioning | ||
| Best for | Meeting transcription and AI summaries for individuals to large enterprises | Professionals, teams, and organizations wanting AI-powered meeting transcription, summaries, and cross-platform knowledge search |
| Differentiator | Fireflies combines high-accuracy meeting transcription with 200+ AI Skills, real-time Live Assist coaching, conversation intelligence analytics, and deep CRM/project management integrations across 1M+ companies. | Read AI acts as a unified AI copilot across meetings, emails, and messages with a 'Digital Twin' (Ada) feature that learns your work style, offering cross-platform enterprise search and insights in one agent. |
| Competitors | Otter.ai, Fathom, Chorus.ai, Gong, Grain, tl;dv | Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, Fathom, Gong, Avoma, tl;dv |
| Features | ||
| AI Summaries | ✓ | — |
| Audio & Video Playback | — | ✓ |
| Hipaa Compliance | — | ✓ |
| Hipaa Compliance | ✓ | — |
| Meeting Summaries | — | ✓ |
| Meeting Transcripts | — | ✓ |
| Premium Integrations (Notion, Salesforce, Hubspot, Jira, Confluence, Zapier) | — | ✓ |
| Saml & Scim | — | ✓ |
| SSO + Scim | ✓ | — |
| Unlimited Transcription | ✓ | — |
| Video Recording | ✓ | — |
| Voice Agents | ✓ | — |
| AI Assistant | — | ✓ |
| API Access | ✓ | — |
| Audio Enhancement | ✕ | — |
| Batch Processing | ✓ | — |
| Browser Extension | — | ✓ |
| Calendar Integration | — | ✓ |
| Commercial Rights | ✓ | — |
| Document Creation | — | ✓ |
| Email Management | — | ✓ |
| Languages Supported | ✓ | — |
| Meeting Summary | — | ✓ |
| Mobile App | ✓ | ✓ |
| Music Generation | ✕ | — |
| Noise Removal | ✕ | — |
| Note Taking | — | ✓ |
| Offline Mode | — | ✓ |
| Podcast Editing | ✓ | — |
| Presentation Builder | — | ✕ |
| Project Management | — | ✓ |
| Research Assistant | — | ✓ |
| Spreadsheet AI | — | ✕ |
| Task Automation | — | ✓ |
| Team Collaboration | — | ✓ |
| Text to Speech | ✕ | — |
| Transcription | ✓ | — |
| Voice Cloning | ✕ | — |
| Voice Styles | ✕ | — |
| Integrations | ||
| Adobe Audition | ✕ | — |
| API Access | ✓ | ✓ |
| Browser Extension | — | ✓ |
| Garageband | ✕ | — |
| Google Calendar | — | ✓ |
| Google Drive | — | ✓ |
| Key Integrations | Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Notion, Aircall, RingCentral, Greenhouse, Lever, Asana, Zapier, Chrome Extension | Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Gmail, Outlook, Notion, Salesforce, HubSpot, Jira, Confluence, Zapier, webhooks, ChatGPT, Claude, MCP Server |
| Microsoft 365 | — | ✓ |
| Slack Integration | — | ✓ |
| Zapier | ✓ | ✓ |
Section 03
Fireflies.ai vs Read AI: common questions
Is Fireflies.ai or Read AI cheaper?
Fireflies.ai's cheapest paid plan is $18/mo and Read AI's is $0/mo. Compare what each plan includes below before going on price alone.
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