Fireflies.ai vs Grain Comparison 2026
Fireflies joins a call, transcribes it and pulls out the action items, free forever with unlimited transcription capped by 400 minutes of team storage, then $18 a month, or $10 billed annually, per seat. Grain does the same job and adds clipping, sharing a moment without anybody rewatching the recording, free with unlimited meetings and unlimited notetaker seats capped at 45 minutes each, then $15 a seat a month billed annually. Fireflies rations by storage. Grain rations by call length, and only Grain lets a moment be clipped and shared on its own.
Meeting notes that write themselves
Notes and clips from calls, free tier included
At a glance
- Grain starts cheaper, at $15.
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Fireflies.ai | Grain | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $18 | From $15 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | None | Not stated |
| API | Yes |
Fireflies.ai
Meeting notes that write themselves
Fireflies joins a call, records it, and hands back a transcript and a summary with the action items pulled out, which turns a sponsor call into a record you can search later. The free plan gives unlimited transcription and an API, which is unusually generous. Storage is what it rations, and the free tier's 400 minutes covers a few weeks at most.
Only on this side
- Covers ai content tools
Grain
Notes and clips from calls, free tier included
Grain records and transcribes meetings, writes notes and lets a moment be clipped out and shared without anybody rewatching the recording. Its free plan carries unlimited meetings and unlimited notetaker seats, capped at forty-five minutes each and thirty days of history, which is a real working tier rather than a demo. Paying removes both limits and adds custom prompts. The conversational intelligence in the higher tiers is aimed at sales teams and does nothing for a solo creator.
Our note
The 45-minute limit rather than the seat count is what decides whether the free plan works, so check your typical call length before anything else. Against tl;dv, Grain gives away seats and caps duration while tl;dv gives away duration and caps the AI, which makes the choice a question about your calls rather than about the products.
Why people weigh these two
- Grain instead of Fireflies.ai
- Grain turns calls into notes and shareable clips from $15 with a free tier, if the clip is what you actually send on.
- Fireflies.ai instead of Grain
- Fireflies.ai writes meeting notes automatically from $18 with a free tier, the same job with less emphasis on clipping.
Which one should you pick
Pick Fireflies if you take brand calls and want a searchable record, with generous free transcription and an API included on every tier. If your meetings are casual and your deals are on email, this solves a problem you do not have.
Pick Grain if you want everybody on a team recording without a per-seat bill, and your calls mostly run under 45 minutes. The clipping feature is what separates it: a shared moment travels further than a shared recording. Anybody whose calls routinely run long will hit that free ceiling every time and should price the paid tier from the start.
Common questions
- Which is cheaper?
- Fireflies, on both cadences: $18 a month against Grain's $19 paying month to month, or $10 against $15 if both are billed annually. The bigger difference is in what each free tier rations.
- What actually limits each free plan?
- Different things. Fireflies rations by storage: transcription itself is unlimited, but a team gets 400 minutes of it stored. Grain rations by call length instead, capping every meeting at 45 minutes with 30 days of history, though it gives unlimited notetaker seats.
- Which one lets me clip and share a moment from a call?
- Grain. Clipping a moment out without anybody rewatching the whole recording is one of its central features. Fireflies is built around the transcript and the summary rather than shareable clips.
- Does either include an API on its free plan?
- Fireflies does, which is unusually generous for a free tier. Grain's API access is not on its free plan; it is one of the features Starter adds at $15 a seat a month billed annually.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.