Grain alternatives: 11 AI meeting assistants tools compared
People look past Grain when its free plan runs out after 20 meetings, when a European data location is required, or when they want a notetaker without a team-wide sales layer. Grain keeps its data in US AWS facilities only. The alternatives below include no-bot tools, EU-hosted options and per-seat transcript archives.
Short answer: MeetGeek, Jamie and Tactiq head the list of Grain alternatives drawn from our AI meeting assistants ranking. Smaller vendors fill the top three places where the category offers them, and the household names start at place 4. MeetGeek is the one to try if your team wants bot or bot-free recording and a choice between EU and US storage. Every one of the 11 products below comes from Best AI Meeting Assistants in 2026, with a note on how it departs from Grain.
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Pricing: Free plan with 20 meetings; per-seat paid plans, published; Enterprise quoted
Established in: United States
Built for: Sales and customer teams where many people read notes but few record
Not for: Teams that want transcript downloads without paying per seat
01
Why buyers look past Grain
01
The free plan counts meetings
Grain's pricing page shows the free plan with 20 meetings, and moves custom AI prompts and note templates to Pro. A team that records several calls a day can reach that figure quickly. Several tools below count minutes, transcripts or notes each month instead, and one gives unlimited transcription at no charge.
02
Hosting is in one country
Grain's security page says all software runs in Amazon Web Services facilities in the USA, and its FAQ repeats that data is hosted in the USA. It holds a SOC 2 Type II report. Neither page describes a European region, which matters for a works council, a law firm or a client whose contract names the EEA.
03
Features step up with the plan and the seat count
Per the FAQ, AI coaching, custom AI follow-up emails and team interaction insights need Business or above, and a Business workspace needs at least two paid seats. Free viewer seats are unlimited, which helps, but whoever records pays. The price table is built by script, so we do not quote tier prices.
7-day trial; Core $8, Advanced $15 per user monthly on annual billing; Enterprise quoted
Noise-cancelling voice software with a bot-free note taker
calls are noisy or accented and clean audio matters more than the library
#10
03
What each one does differently
1
MeetGeek
Romania · Free 3 hours monthly; Pro and Business each shown at two prices; 14-day Business trial
MeetGeek lets a team pick its hosting at sign-up: the EU instance is run by AIVISION PRODUCTS SRL in Buzău, Romania, with content stored in the EU, while the US instance is MeetGeek US Infra, Inc. The free plan covers 3 hours of transcription a month. It can record with or without a bot.
Switch from Grain if your team wants bot or bot-free recording and a choice between EU and US storage.
Germany · Free 10 notes monthly; Plus €21, Pro €39, Team €33 per seat, annual billing
Jamie, from wespond UG in Rösrath, Germany, runs on your device and sends no bot into the call, which also suits in-person meetings. Its site says data stays within the EEA, Switzerland and the UK, audio is never stored, and ISO 27001 applies. The free plan allows 10 notes a month and 30 minutes per meeting.
Switch from Grain if you want no bot in the call and a documented European data location.
Australia · Free 10 transcripts monthly; Pro €6.67, Team €13.33, Business €25.50 per user, annual
Tactiq is an Australian browser extension that transcribes Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams without a bot. Its free plan keeps 10 transcripts a month; Pro is €6.67 per user on annual billing. The Team plan covers 1 to 20 users and Business 20 to 200, so price steps follow headcount. It is a transcript tool first, not a call library.
Switch from Grain if one person or a small team needs transcripts from a browser tab at the lowest paid price.
Singapore · Free 120 minutes monthly; Pro $8.17, Business $16.67 monthly on annual billing; 7-day trial
Notta contracts through Notta Pte. Ltd. in Singapore, or Notta in Japan for Japanese users, and adds live translation and bilingual transcription as paid add-ons. Free allows 120 minutes a month but only 3 minutes per conversation, so it works as a trial. Pro adds 1,800 minutes at $8.17 a month on annual billing.
Switch from Grain if your meetings run in two languages and you need translation next to the transcript.
United States · Free with limited history; Business $14 and Enterprise $35 per user monthly
Granola is a notepad you type into during the call; it listens to your computer audio, adds no bot, and keeps the transcript but not the audio. Notes are held in a US-hosted AWS environment. Basic is free with limited history, Business is $14 per user a month, with shared folders for collaboration.
Switch from Grain if you take your own notes and want AI to enhance them rather than replace them.
United States · Free tier of 1 meeting hour monthly; Basic $10, Pro $20, MAX $30 per user, annual; 7-day trial
Sembly, run by Sembly AI, Inc., is organised around client accounts: Basic at $10 covers 25 clients and 50 brand packages, Pro at $20 per user covers up to 40 users, and MAX at $30 reaches 500 users. Paid plans start with a 7-day trial, and EU customers may store content in the EU.
Switch from Grain if you serve clients and want branded deliverables produced from each meeting.
Canada · Free with 5 lifetime AI notes per user; Team $7, Business $15, Enterprise $25 per user, annual
Fellow, from Fellow Insights, Inc. in Ottawa, Canada, ties notes to agendas, action items and recurring one-to-ones. Free gives each user 5 AI notes for life, Team costs $7 on annual billing, Business $15, and Enterprise $25 with a start of 10 users. It reads as a meeting-management tool with a notetaker inside.
Switch from Grain if managers want agendas, shared notes and follow-up tracking in one place.
United States · 14-day trial; Startup $19, Organization $29, Enterprise $39 per recorder seat; add-ons extra
Avoma charges only for people who record: Startup is $19 per recorder seat on annual billing, Organization $29 and Enterprise $39 with at least 10 seats, while viewers cost nothing. Conversation intelligence ($29) and revenue intelligence ($29) are separate add-ons, with a 14-day trial of the Organization plan in place of a free tier.
Switch from Grain if sales or customer-success staff record while the rest of the company only reads.
United States · Free forever with limited summaries; Pro $10, Business $19, Enterprise $39 per seat, annual
Fireflies.ai Corp. is US-based and sells per seat: Pro $10 and Business $19 on annual billing, Enterprise $39 annual only. The free plan gives unlimited transcription with limited AI summaries and 400 minutes of storage per team. It supports 100+ languages and adds an assistant for email and voice agents on paid tiers.
Switch from Grain if you want a free transcript archive across many meeting apps and languages.
United States · Free 5 meetings monthly; Pro $15, Enterprise $22.50, Enterprise+ $29.75 per user, annual
Read AI measures meetings as well as transcribing them, with sentiment and engagement scores and a coach. Free allows 5 meetings a month of up to 1 hour. Pro is $15 on annual billing, Enterprise $22.50 for five or more licences, and Enterprise+ $29.75 adds EU and Canadian hosting, SAML and SCIM.
Switch from Grain if you want engagement metrics and a coach next to the transcript.
United States · 7-day trial; Core $8, Advanced $15 per user monthly on annual billing; Enterprise quoted
Krisp, a Berkeley, California company, started as noise cancellation and added a bot-free notetaker on top. There is a 7-day trial, then Core at $8 and Advanced at $15 per user a month on annual billing. Accent conversion and Salesforce sync sit in Advanced; choice of data centre appears under Enterprise.
Switch from Grain if calls are noisy or accented and clean audio matters more than the library.
Grain remains the better choice when the main reader is a sales, customer-success or research team that wants a shared library: clips, projects, CRM sync to HubSpot or Salesforce, and unlimited free viewer seats for everyone who only watches. It records with or without a bot on Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex and Slack huddles, offers a 14-day trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee, and exposes an MCP server and API so transcripts reach Claude or ChatGPT. If data location is not a constraint, that is a coherent package.
05
What moving off Grain involves
01
Export the library before the plan ends
Grain says you can bulk download enriched Markdown transcripts, so take them along with clips and shared projects before cancelling. Decide which customer calls need keeping and which can lapse, since a new tool starts with an empty history.
02
Re-create prompts, templates and sharing rules
Custom AI prompts, note templates and each team's auto-record and auto-share settings do not travel. Write them down per team and rebuild them in the new tool. Check whether the replacement joins calls with a bot, and update your recording-consent wording to match.
03
Move the CRM and agent connections last
Grain syncs notes to HubSpot or Salesforce and feeds agents through its MCP server. Run the two tools side by side for a fortnight, reconnect the CRM only when the new summaries are trusted, and then close the old workspace.
06
Questions about replacing Grain
6 answers
What is the best alternative to Grain as an AI meeting assistant?
MeetGeek ranks first in our list of Grain alternatives for teams, followed by Jamie, Tactiq and Notta.
MeetGeek has a free plan of 3 hours of transcription a month and lets you pick an EU or a US instance. Jamie costs €21 to €39 per seat a month on annual billing and sends no bot into the call.
Which Grain alternative keeps meeting data in Europe?
Jamie states that storage and processing stay within the EEA, Switzerland and the UK, and MeetGeek's EU instance stores customer content in the EU under Romanian law.
Sembly offers EU storage to EU customers, and Read AI offers EU and Canadian hosting on its Enterprise+ plan.
Is there a free replacement for Grain with no bot?
Granola and Tactiq both work without a bot. Granola has a free Basic plan with limited history, and Tactiq's free plan keeps 10 transcripts a month in a Chrome extension.
Jamie also uses no bot, on a free plan of 10 notes with meetings capped at 30 minutes.
Which alternative to Grain suits a sales team?
Avoma is priced for it: you pay only for recorder seats, from $19 on annual billing, viewers are free, and conversation and revenue intelligence are add-ons at $29 each.
Fellow Business at $15 and Fireflies Business at $19 per seat are cheaper starting points, with less sales-specific scoring.
Do these tools handle meetings in several languages?
Notta adds bilingual transcription and translation as paid add-ons and Fireflies lists 100+ languages. Jamie and MeetGeek each list 99 or more languages, Sembly 45+, and Read AI 20+.
Grain itself offers its enriched transcripts in 100+ languages, so a switch does not need to cost coverage.
Can I try a Grain alternative before paying?
Most can be tried without a card: Fireflies, Read AI, Tactiq, Jamie, MeetGeek and Fellow have free plans, and Sembly has a free tier plus a 7-day trial.
Notta gives a 7-day Business trial, Avoma a 14-day trial of its Organization plan, and Krisp a 7-day trial. Granola's Basic plan is free with limited history.
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Sources
Checked 5 November 2026
Grain home page: Bot-less and bot capture, MCP server and API, bulk Markdown export, HubSpot and Salesforce sync, 100+ language transcripts, 14-day trial.
Grain pricing: Free plan with 20 meetings, Pro, Business and Enterprise, two paid seats minimum on Business, unlimited free viewer seats, AI feature gating, 30-day money-back guarantee, supported platforms.
Grain security: Hosting in AWS facilities in the USA, SOC 2 Type II certification, SAML for enterprise.
MeetGeek pricing: Free 3 hours monthly, Pro and Business prices, bot and bot-free recording, 14-day trial.
MeetGeek terms of service: EU instance AIVISION PRODUCTS SRL in Buzău, Romania with EU storage; US instance MeetGeek US Infra, Inc.
Jamie pricing: Free 10 notes, 30 minute limit, Plus, Pro and Team prices, Enterprise ISO 27001.
Jamie security: EEA, Switzerland and UK data residency, no bot, no stored audio, ISO 27001.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Sebastiaan Smits wrote and checked this page, most recently on 7 November 2026. See how we review.
