Grain vs tl;dv Comparison 2026
Grain and tl;dv both give away a real free tier and draw the line in different places: Grain caps each meeting at 45 minutes but allows unlimited meetings and seats, while tl;dv allows unlimited recording length but caps the AI notes at ten meetings and ten questions a month. Grain's Starter is $15 a seat a month billed annually against tl;dv's Pro at $18. Which free tier lasts longer depends on whether your calls are long or simply frequent.
Notes and clips from calls, free tier included
Recordings and notes from every call, free to start
At a glance
- Grain starts cheaper, at $15.
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Grain | tl;dv | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $15 | From $18 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes |
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.
tl;dv
Recordings and notes from every call, free to start
tl;dv records Zoom, Meet and Teams calls, transcribes them in more than thirty languages and writes the notes, with the recording and the transcription uncapped even on the free plan. What the free plan meters is the AI on top: ten meetings of notes and ten questions. Paying removes that ceiling and adds templates, action items and a search across every transcript. This is aimed at calls rather than at published audio, so a podcaster wants a transcription service instead.
Why people weigh these two
- tl;dv instead of Grain
- tl;dv records and summarises every call, free to start and $18 paid, and is the nearest match for clips out of a recording.
- Grain instead of tl;dv
- Grain turns calls into notes and clips from $15 with a free tier, the nearest match if the clip is what you send on.
Which one should you pick
Pick Grain if your team has many meetings that mostly run under 45 minutes, since duration is the only thing the free plan meters and seats are unlimited. Starter is $15 a seat a month billed annually, three dollars cheaper than tl;dv's equivalent tier, once calls start running long.
Pick tl;dv if your calls run long but you do not need AI notes on every single one, since recording and transcription are uncapped even on the free plan and only ten meetings of AI notes and ten questions are metered. Pro is $18 a seat a month billed annually, and most people discover they only want AI notes on a fraction of their calls anyway, so staying free longer is realistic here.
Common questions
- What is the actual difference between the two free plans?
- Grain caps meeting length at 45 minutes but gives unlimited meetings and notetaker seats. tl;dv caps the AI layer, ten meetings of notes and ten questions a month, but places no limit on recording length or the number of calls transcribed.
- Which free plan suits long calls better?
- tl;dv, since recording and transcription are unlimited regardless of how long a call runs. Grain's free plan cuts off at 45 minutes per meeting, so a team with routinely long calls will hit that ceiling every time.
- Which free plan suits a team with many short meetings better?
- Grain, since it allows unlimited meetings and unlimited seats with no monthly AI cap, only a per-meeting duration limit. tl;dv doles out AI notes across only ten meetings a month before Pro is needed, regardless of how short each one is.
- Which is cheaper once both teams are paying?
- Grain's Starter, at $15 a seat a month billed annually against tl;dv's Pro at $18. Both remove their respective free-tier limits at that price: Grain lifts the duration and history caps, tl;dv lifts the AI-notes ceiling.
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.