Speak AI and Fireflies both turn speech into searchable text and AI insights, but they come at it from different angles. Fireflies is an AI meeting note-taker: it joins your video calls, records and transcribes them, and produces summaries, action items and analytics for the team. Speak AI is a transcription and analysis platform that grew out of research work: you upload or capture recordings, transcribe them in bulk and analyse what was said, with an option to have Speak build a white-label application for you. I compared both from their pricing pages on 27 October 2026. Speak AI showed its subscription price in pounds for my UK visit.
Fireflies overview
Fireflies says it is used across more than 1 million companies. Its free plan includes unlimited transcription (with limits), limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team and 20 AI credits, plus the core features: joining Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and other platforms, transcription in 100+ languages, real-time notes and live transcription, meeting search, the AskFred AI assistant, file uploads, desktop and mobile apps, a Chrome extension and API access. Pro adds unlimited summaries, video recording, downloads, a personal assistant, an email assistant, AI skills, voice agents, action items and unlimited integrations. Business adds multi-language mode, conversation intelligence, team analytics and user groups. Enterprise adds a rules engine, SSO and SCIM, audit logs, HIPAA compliance and private storage.
Speak AI overview
Speak AI describes itself as one platform for transcription, analysis, meeting capture, agents and white-label, and says it has 300,000+ individuals and teams using it. Pay as you go users buy credits (1 credit is US$1) and spend 2 credits an hour on standard transcription, 3 on premium languages and 4 on meeting transcription, with translation and AI chat charged by usage. API, MCP and CLI access, webhooks, Zapier and embeds are included even at that level. The paid seat plan adds 25 credits a user each month (about 25 hours of transcription), 10GB storage, unlimited data retention, AI chat with multi-model routing, a shared team library, automations, a branded recorder and surveys, usage analytics and priority email support. A custom build tier covers white-label apps with tone of voice and video analysis, AI interviewers, unlimited seats and compliance agreements.
Meeting transcription and note feature comparison
For everyday meetings, Fireflies is the more complete note-taker. It joins calls automatically, captures notes in real time, extracts action items and makes every meeting searchable for the team. Speak AI does capture meetings, but its pricing charges meeting transcription at double the standard rate, and its feature list is aimed more at analysing a library of recordings than at running a team’s meeting workflow.
Research and analysis tool features
Speak AI is stronger for qualitative research. Interviews, focus groups and recorded calls can be transcribed in bulk, organised in a library with folders and tags, analysed with AI chat and shared with a team. Its MCP server means AI clients such as Claude or ChatGPT can read your transcripts and analyses directly. Fireflies’ conversation intelligence on Business is aimed at sales and customer calls (talk time, topics and trends) rather than research coding.
Transcript workflow, collaboration and integration options
Day to day, the workflow is what separates the two. With Fireflies, the note-taker joins the meeting, and afterwards each person gets the transcript, a summary and action items, with the conversation searchable later. Pro adds downloads of transcripts, summaries and recordings, and unlimited integrations to push notes into the tools your team already uses. The email assistant and AI skills extend this into follow-up work.
With Speak AI, the workflow starts from a library. Recordings come in from uploads, the branded recorder, surveys or meeting capture, each transcript is stored with unlimited retention, and you analyse across many recordings at once with AI chat and automations. Webhooks, Zapier and the API move data into other systems, and the MCP server lets AI assistants work with your transcripts directly.
Neither pricing page gives detail on speaker identification or highlight clips, so if you need to tag speakers or share short highlights of a conversation, check how each tool handles that during the trial. Also check how many minutes of audio you expect each month, as that drives the cost on Speak AI’s credits.
Pricing compared
| Plan | Speak AI | Fireflies |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 7-day trial; pay as you go from 10 credits (US$10) | Free forever: unlimited transcription with limits, 400 mins storage |
| Individual | Pay as you go: about US$2 an hour of standard transcription | Pro $10/seat/month yearly ($18 monthly) |
| Team | £16/user/month yearly (£190 a year): 25 credits each | Business $19/seat/month yearly ($29 monthly) |
| Enterprise | Custom build with white-label and compliance | Enterprise $39/seat/month, annual only |
Fireflies saves up to 44% on annual billing. Speak AI’s annual billing saves 20%. For a sales or operations team of five who meet all day, Fireflies Business at $19 a seat is likely the cheaper and more practical option. For a researcher who transcribes a few hours of interviews a month, Speak AI’s pay as you go credits avoid a subscription altogether.
Accuracy, privacy and trust
Neither vendor publishes independent accuracy figures on its pricing page, and accuracy will depend on audio quality, accents and jargon. Run a few of your own recordings through each before committing. On privacy, Fireflies keeps HIPAA compliance, private storage and custom data retention for Enterprise. Speak AI offers BAAs, NDAs and data residency options on custom builds.
Ease of use
Fireflies is the simpler tool to roll out: connect your calendar, let the note-taker join Zoom, Google Meet or Teams calls, and the notes appear without anyone changing how they work. Speak AI asks a little more of you up front, because you decide what goes into the library and how to analyse it, but that is the point for research work. Both have apps and extensions, and both offer a way to try before paying.
Limits and drawbacks
- Speak AI needs a card after the trial, and meeting transcription costs double the standard credit rate.
- Speak AI’s subscription is priced per user, so large teams get expensive.
- Fireflies’ free plan limits AI summaries and storage, and video recording needs Pro.
- Fireflies’ compliance features (HIPAA, SSO) are Enterprise only.
Verdict
I would pick Fireflies for a business that wants an AI note-taker in every meeting, with summaries and action items shared across the team. The free plan is a good test.
I would pick Speak AI if you run research interviews, analyse recordings in bulk, want pay as you go pricing or need a branded application built for clients.
Alternative note-takers, including Otter
- Otter.ai: another popular AI meeting note-taker often compared with Fireflies.
- ElevenLabs Scribe: a speech to text API if you only need transcription.
- Granola: an AI notepad for meetings that Speak AI can connect to.
