Equal Time vs Otter.ai

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors.

The short answer

Entry price: Equal Time from $15/mo, Otter.ai from $8.33/seat/mo — different billing units, so no direct winner
Free plan: Only Otter.ai (Equal Time has paid plans only)
Public API: Otter.ai has one; not confirmed by us for Equal Time
Higher Trust score: Otter.ai — 94 vs 89 for Equal Time
Best fit: Equal Time: Teams actively trying to measure and improve who gets airtime in meetings · Otter.ai: Teams that live in Zoom, Meet or Teams and want notes without a note-taker

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

Equal TimeAI notetaker for Zoom, Meet and Teams that also scores who talked, who got interrupted, and flags condescending re-explaining.

Otter.aiMeeting transcription with per-plan minute and length caps

Side by side

Fact	Equal Time	Otter.ai
Category	Meeting Recording & Notes	Meeting Assistants
Pricing model	Paid	Freemium
Starts at	$15/mo	$8.33/seat/mo
Public API	Not confirmed	Yes
Trust score	89 / 100	94 / 100
Platforms	Web	Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, Chrome extension, API
Company	Equal Time	Otter.ai
Launched	2021	2016
Last verified	Oct 15, 2026	Oct 15, 2026

What our research says

Equal Time

Equal Time is a meeting notetaker built around participation fairness: it tracks who talked, who got interrupted and flags moments that read as condescending re-explaining, on top of a standard transcript and action items. A single seat now costs $15 a month on annual billing, and the five-seat Team plan adds admin oversight and team-wide inclusion trends.

Pros

Tracks talk time, interruptions, and monologuing per speaker, not just a transcript
Includes a detector for condescending re-explaining with timestamps and involved speakers
Integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Notion and thousands more apps via Zapier
Works across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams

Cons

Team-wide inclusion metrics and admin oversight start at the 5-seat Team plan, $80 a month on annual billing
Month-to-month billing costs more than the annual rate ($18 vs $15 per seat for Premium)

Otter.ai

Still the default for English-language meeting notes, and the free tier is unusually usable. What determines the right plan is not features but the per-conversation ceiling: 30 minutes on Basic and 90 on Pro means a standard hour-long review truncates on the free tier and a workshop truncates on Pro. Pick the tier by your longest recurring meeting.

Pros

300 free minutes a month makes evaluation real rather than token
Annual Pro at $8.33 is roughly half the month-to-month rate
An MCP server is exposed from the free tier, so assistants can query transcripts without the paid API
Business removes the minute cap entirely rather than raising it

Cons

The API and webhooks require Enterprise, which is quote-only
Per-conversation ceilings (30 min free, 90 min Pro) cut recordings mid-meeting
Basic allows three file imports in total, not per month
Month-to-month pricing is roughly double annual at both self-serve tiers

Which one fits

Choose Equal Time if you need

Teams actively trying to measure and improve who gets airtime in meetings
Organizations already invested in DEI or inclusive-meeting initiatives wanting data to back it up

Choose Otter.ai if you need

Teams that live in Zoom, Meet or Teams and want notes without a note-taker
Accessibility use, where live captions matter as much as the transcript
Recruiters and researchers who need searchable interview records across a workspace