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Fireflies.ai vs Sembly 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. Fireflies.ai starts at $10, Sembly AI at $17. Only Fireflies.ai has a free tier. Only Fireflies.ai ships a public API.

Fireflies.aiMeeting recorder that files notes into your CRMSembly AIMeeting recorder producing summaries, tasks and searchable transcripts

Side by side

FactFireflies.aiSembly AI
CategoryMeeting AssistantsMeeting Assistants
Pricing modelFreemiumPaid
Starts at$10 month$17 month
Public APIYesNo
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, Chrome Ext, API, Slack AppWeb
CompanyFireflies.ai Corp.Sembly AI, Inc.
Launched20162019
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Fireflies.ai

Unlimited transcription on the free tier is the hook and it is genuinely unlimited — the meter sits on storage and AI credits, which is where any team of real size ends up on a paid seat.

Pros

  • Transcription minutes are unlimited on every tier, including Free
  • API access is not paywalled — it starts on the free plan
  • Pro at $10/seat undercuts most rival meeting assistants
  • Storage becomes unlimited from the $19 Business tier

Cons

  • Monthly billing is about 1.8x the annual rate on Pro and 1.5x on Business
  • AI credits, not transcription, are the real ration — 20 a month on both Free and Pro
  • Free storage is 400 minutes for the entire team, not per person
  • Enterprise is annual-only at $39/seat

Sembly AI

Worth the premium when you need meetings turned into structured commitments — tasks, risks, decisions — rather than a searchable transcript. If a transcript plus a summary paragraph is all you want, this is priced well above what you need.

Pros

  • Extracts risks, decisions and tasks as separate items rather than one summary blob
  • Multi-meeting chat, AI-generated documents and insights from the Pro tier upward
  • Captures Zoom, Teams, Meet and Webex rather than a single platform
  • MCP access on Pro and MAX lets external agent clients reach the meeting data

Cons

  • No standing free tier — every plan's free option is a time-limited trial
  • Single-user Basic at $17/month sits above several competitors' entry price
  • The differentiating features all start at Pro, so Basic is a weak comparison point
  • No public developer API; the /api path resolves to a sales demo form

Which one fits

Choose Fireflies.ai if you need

  • Sales and success teams who want call notes landing in the CRM by themselves
  • Distributed teams searching across months of past meetings
  • Developers pulling meeting data out through an API on any plan

Choose Sembly AI if you need

  • PMOs and consultancies tracking commitments across dozens of calls
  • Teams that need to interrogate several meetings at once, not one at a time
  • Regulated environments needing HIPAA handling, custom SSO and audit logs
  • Recruiters and sales teams reviewing call sentiment at volume

More comparisons

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