Fireflies vs tl;dv (2026): Which AI Meeting Notes Tool Is Worth It?
Fireflies and tl;dv both transcribe your meetings. Which one's worth paying for? We compare pricing, free tiers, and AI features for 2026.
Most meeting notetakers look identical on the pricing page. Fireflies and tl;dv are not identical, and the gap matters most at the free tier and the business tier, which is exactly where most buyers are shopping. The honest read: Fireflies is the better fit for individuals who need unlimited transcription at no cost; tl;dv is stronger for sales teams once you’re willing to pay for it.
| Fireflies.ai | tl;dv | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | Free | Free |
| Price | $0 | $0 |
| Free tier | ✓ | ✓ |
| Key limit | 400 minutes of storage per team; 20 one-time AI credits | Up to 10 meetings with AI notes/month; up to 10 Ask AI queries/month; mobile app (iOS, Android) included |
Which Plan Is Cheapest?
Fireflies wins on free, and it isn’t particularly close. Its free plan offers unlimited transcription and unlimited AI summaries with no monthly cap on meetings, constrained only by 400 minutes of total team storage and 20 one-time AI credits. tl;dv’s free tier caps you at 10 AI-noted meetings per month and 10 Ask AI queries per month, which is a real ceiling for anyone in back-to-back calls. If you’re a solo user who just wants transcripts without paying, Fireflies is the clearer starting point.
What Does Pro Actually Get You?
At the Pro tier, the pricing crosses. Fireflies charges $18/seat/month (or $10/seat/month billed annually); tl;dv charges $29/seat/month (or $18/seat/month billed annually). That number matters because the annual rates land within $8 of each other, which changes the comparison significantly from how it looks month-to-month.
For that price, tl;dv’s Pro plan removes all meeting limits, adds unlimited storage, and connects to 5,000+ integrations. Fireflies Pro gives you 8,000 minutes of storage per seat, video recording, and access to AI Skills for automations like CRM updates and follow-up emails. Both are usable; neither is obviously dominant at this tier. It comes down to whether you need video recording (Fireflies) or a deeper integration library (tl;dv).
Where Fireflies Fits
Fireflies is built around breadth. Its bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and other platforms, and the free plan’s unlimited transcription means you can run it on every meeting without watching a clock. The AskFred AI assistant and AI Skills automations are available on paid plans, with CRM integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot) gated to Business tier at $29/seat/month monthly or $19/seat/month annually.
Here’s what the pricing page won’t say: Fireflies’ “one-time AI credits” system, used for AskFred and certain AI features, is a soft ceiling inside each plan. You start with 20 credits on Free and Pro, 30 on Business, 50 on Enterprise. Once those are spent, the AI assistant stops working until you buy more. That’s a meaningful constraint if AI querying is part of your daily workflow, not just occasional use.
Where tl;dv Fits
tl;dv is more explicitly built for sales and customer-facing teams. The Business tier at $98/seat/month (or $59/seat/month annually) adds AI playbook monitoring, objection handling, and scheduled AI email reports — features with no equivalent in Fireflies’ lineup. Multi-meeting AI queries, which let you ask questions across your entire call library at once, are also Business-only on tl;dv.
The global transcript search and unlimited multi-meeting AI analysis make tl;dv’s Business plan something a revenue team would actually build workflows around. The tradeoff is price: at $59/seat/month annually, it costs more than three times Fireflies’ annual Business rate of $19/seat/month.
Teams stacking AI tools should also budget for the production side — Jasper vs Copy.ai covers what content generation costs at comparable seat counts.
Is Enterprise Worth Contacting Sales For?
For Fireflies, Enterprise is billed annually at $39/seat/month, with unlimited storage and 50 AI credits per seat. tl;dv doesn’t publish Enterprise pricing at all — it’s custom, contact sales. If budget predictability matters to your procurement team, Fireflies’ published rate is a real advantage in the evaluation process.
Verdict
For freelancers and small teams on a tight budget, Fireflies is the default pick. The free plan’s unlimited transcription is genuinely useful, and the Pro annual rate of $10/seat/month is hard to argue with.
For sales teams who need coaching tools, multi-meeting AI analysis, and deep CRM workflows, tl;dv Business justifies its higher price, provided the team is large enough that the per-seat cost doesn’t become the whole conversation. A three-person team at $59/seat/month annually is a different decision than a thirty-person team with a negotiated contract.
Your AI usage pattern decides this one. Occasional querying makes Fireflies’ credit system a non-issue and its price unbeatable. Daily querying across many calls turns those same credits into a wall you hit mid-week, and tl;dv’s unlimited model earns its premium.
Methodology. Pricing and feature data was taken from the official pages of Fireflies.ai, tl;dv, collected on 2026-07-25. We did not test the products’ APIs for this article. Figures come directly from those sources; where a value was unavailable it is marked ”—”. Prices change often — confirm on the provider’s site before buying.
This article may contain affiliate links. They do not affect the prices you pay or our assessment.