Record, transcribe, and share insights from your meetings
Grain is a meeting recording and AI notetaking tool that captures, transcribes, and summarizes video calls.
AI Panel Score
6 AI reviews
Reviewed
AI Editor ApprovedApproved and published by our AI Editor-in-Chief after full panel analysis.Grain is a meeting recording and AI notetaking tool that captures, transcribes, and summarizes video calls on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Teams use it to record decisions, action items, and context from conversations without manual note-taking, and to clip and share key moments. Starter costs $15 per seat per month billed annually ($19 monthly), Business $29 ($39 monthly), and a free plan covers unlimited 45-minute meetings. Notable capabilities include bot-less transcription that records without a visible bot joining the call, CRM sync into HubSpot and Salesforce, an MCP server and API, and an ask-anything search across the meeting library. TopReviewed's six-seat AI review panel scored it 7.8/10, praising the bot-less capture approach while noting that AI coaching and team interaction insights are locked to the Business tier. It best fits sales teams that want meeting capture and automatic CRM notes without a bot in every call.
Grain is a meeting intelligence platform that automatically records, transcribes, and summarizes video meetings. It connects with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams to join calls as a bot recorder, producing searchable transcripts and AI-generated notes shortly after each meeting ends.
The platform is designed for sales teams, customer success managers, recruiters, and general business teams who need an accurate record of conversations. It helps reduce the manual effort of note-taking and makes it easier to review what was discussed, decided, or committed to during a call.
Key capabilities include automated meeting summaries, speaker-labeled transcripts, AI-generated action items, and the ability to create short video clips from recorded meetings. Users can highlight specific moments and share them with colleagues or stakeholders who did not attend the original call.
Grain also offers integrations with CRM tools such as HubSpot and Salesforce, enabling sales teams to log call notes and activity directly from the platform. This positions it alongside competitors like Gong, Chorus, and Fireflies.ai in the broader conversation intelligence and revenue intelligence market.
The product offers a free plan with limited recording capacity, making it accessible for individuals or small teams before committing to a paid subscription. Paid tiers unlock higher storage limits, additional AI features, and team collaboration capabilities.
Automatically generates action items and meeting summaries that can be shared or sent to the user's inbox.
Enables users to ask questions across their entire meeting library and get answers with precise citations.
Generates transcripts with participant and cross-meeting context, available in 100+ languages in clean Markdown.
Bulk downloads enriched Markdown transcripts or opens them directly in Claude or ChatGPT.
Lets users set rules for which meetings get automatically recorded without manual intervention.
Allows users to share clips, projects, and full meeting recordings with teammates and clients.
Creates teams for automatic group sharing so only the right people get access to meeting content.
Transcribes meeting audio directly from the user's computer without requiring a meeting bot to join the call.
Allows users to add notes, flags, clips, and action items during meetings that sync to the transcript.
Sends a Grain bot into meetings to capture video recordings even when the user can't attend.
Syncs notes and properties to HubSpot or Salesforce contacts and deals so reps can skip manual data entry.
Lets AI agents query transcripts, search across meetings, and access the user's full meeting history.
Quick and easy way to use Grain: unlimited meetings up to 45 minutes each
For product, design, and research teams. $15/seat/month billed annually, or $19 billed monthly
For sales and customer success teams. $29/seat/month billed annually, or $39 billed monthly
Advanced support and security for larger organizations. Pricing is by quote from sales
Zoom and Slack both invested in Grain's Series A — that's the integration moat sales tools rarely get.
“Grain closed a $16M Series A in April 2022 with Tiger Global leading and both Zoom and Slack Fund on the cap table, taking total raised to $20M. The tradeoff is segment fit — Starter at $19 per seat makes it the SMB conversation intelligence pick, not the Gong replacement.”
Zoom led the integration. Then Zoom invested. That's the kind of vendor signal that survives a board-level procurement review.
Mike Adams and team have been at this since 2018. Tiger Global led the $16M Series A in April 2022 with Zoom and Slack Fund both on the cap table, taking total funding to $20M. Starter starts at $19 per seat, Free covers unlimited 45-minute meetings — the cheapest serious option in conversation intelligence.
But the tradeoff is segment fit. Gong owns the enterprise revenue-intelligence story with hundreds of millions in funding, and Bot-less Transcription plus MCP Server land best with AI-forward teams, not 5,000-seat call centers. Pilot ten reps on Business for one quarter before standardizing the revenue org.
Priced well below Gong and Chorus but the conversation intelligence depth is mid-market, not enterprise.
SOC 2 Type II, AWS dedicated VPC, and Zoom-as-investor make this an easy board-room defense.
Free tier with unlimited meetings plus $19 Starter gets a pilot live inside a quarter without procurement friction.
CRM Sync to HubSpot and Salesforce plus MCP Server make Grain a credible AI-agent substrate for revenue teams.
Eight years in market with $20M raised and Zoom plus Slack Fund on the cap table signals durability.
Sales and CS leaders who need conversation intelligence without enterprise pricing.
Enterprise revenue teams who require Gong-scale coaching analytics.
Grain bets revenue teams want quiet capture, not another bot — but coaching depth still belongs to Gong.
“Grain ships bot-less transcription, CRM sync to HubSpot and Salesforce, and Ask Anything queries on $15-per-seat unlimited recording. For a VP of Sales standardizing 40 AEs through 2029, the call is whether quiet capture beats Gong's coaching depth.”
Grain's wager: revenue teams don't want another bot in the call. Bot-less Transcription captures audio from your machine — no Otter or Fireflies avatar in the gallery view, no IT ticket to whitelist a recorder.
Paid seats start at $15 monthly for unlimited recording, CRM Sync writes to HubSpot and Salesforce deal records without manual logging, and Ask Anything Inside Grain queries the full meeting library with citations. Founded 2018 under Mike Adams, Grain hit roughly $10M ARR in 2024 — small against Gong-scale incumbents.
But the catch is the coaching ceiling. AI Coaching sits on the Business tier and trails Gong's deal-execution layer and Granola's $1.5B enterprise push in March 2026. Fine for an SMB or mid-market sales org wanting CRM hygiene plus searchable transcripts; thinner for a 200-rep org grading rep performance.
Sits between Fathom's free tier and Gong's enterprise ceiling — a credible mid-market pick in a hot category.
CRM Sync to HubSpot and Salesforce plus action-item generation matches how AE managers actually work.
MCP Server, One-click AI Export to Claude or ChatGPT, and HubSpot plus Salesforce sync covers the modern revenue stack cleanly.
At ~$10M ARR in 2024 under Mike Adams, vendor durability is real but smaller than Gong or the Granola unicorn track.
Bot-less capture and Ask Anything show real product thinking, but AI Coaching is newer than Gong's deal-execution layer.
SMB and mid-market sales orgs who need quiet CRM-synced meeting capture.
Enterprise revenue teams who need Gong-grade coaching analytics.
Starter at $15/seat undercuts Gong, but Business jumps 1.9x for coaching that Fireflies.ai bundles cheaper.
“Grain's Starter runs $15/seat/month with unlimited recordings — below Gong's enterprise floor by a wide margin. Business nearly doubles to $29/seat for AI coaching and team insights, where Fireflies.ai Business at $19/seat undercuts the same workflow.”
Pricing is two flat tiers, both visible on the page. Starter is $15/seat/month annual, unlimited recordings, Slack integration, Clip and Share. Business jumps to $29 — 1.9x — for AI coaching, custom AI follow-up emails, team interaction insights. No SSO tax disclosed at Starter; SAML lives in Enterprise, custom-quoted.
A 20-seat revenue team on Starter lands at $3,600/year. Move them to Business for coaching and it's $6,960. Compare Fireflies.ai Business at $19/seat — $4,560/year for the same 20 seats with coaching included. Grain wins on the Starter floor, loses on the coaching ladder.
The catch is the all-or-nothing rule. Every paid seat on a workspace must sit on the same tier. Free viewer seats stay free — non-recording teammates don't count. Founded 2018, $16M Series A led by Tiger Global April 2022. MCP Server ships an AI-agent path Gong hasn't matched.
SOC 2 Type II with AWS dedicated VPC and A+ Qualys/SSL Labs rating keep procurement review short.
No hidden fees or long-term contracts per Grain's pricing FAQ; free viewer seats remove forced seat inflation.
Starter at $15/seat is public; Business at $29 surfaces on the pricing page but Enterprise SAML is custom-quoted.
AI coaching and CRM sync to HubSpot and Salesforce are measurable, but no published team productivity benchmark.
Flat per-seat with no add-on invoices at Starter — predictable year-3 modeling for a 20-seat team at $3,600/year.
Revenue teams who want flat per-seat meeting recording without add-on creep.
Solo operators who need only occasional recording beyond the free plan's 45-minute cap.
Bot-less Transcription lets Grain capture calls without the 'Notetaker has joined' bubble that derails discovery.
“Grain captures calls without injecting a recorder bot, then syncs summaries and properties to Salesforce and HubSpot deal records automatically. Starter runs $15 per seat annually and Business $29, so revenue ops can model the whole ladder without a sales call.”
Bot-less Transcription is what AEs notice first. It pulls computer audio without injecting a bot, so the prospect's screen stays clean — no 'Grain Notetaker has joined' bubble during a discovery call. Capture Rules then decide which meetings actually save.
CRM Sync pushes summaries to HubSpot and Salesforce contacts and deals automatically. The MCP Server endpoint is the unusual move — Claude or ChatGPT can query a meeting library directly, which Gong and Fireflies.ai don't expose. Free caps each meeting at 45 minutes; paid seats start at $19/month.
But the wall is tier gating, not price opacity — the pricing page lists $15 Starter and $29 Business per seat on annual billing. AI coaching and team interaction insights sit on Business, so a team that wants call grading budgets the upgrade, not the entry seat. The docs read like someone uses the tool.
Bot-less Transcription and Capture Rules remove the manual start-stop ritual most assistants still demand.
QA entries cite SOC 2 Type II auditor, AWS VPC hosting, and SSL Labs rating — written by someone close to ops.
Free tier caps meetings at 45 minutes and CRM sync waits for Business, but seat prices are public, so the buying lap is short.
Custom AI prompts, Ask Anything Inside Grain with citations, and the MCP Server scale the tool past basic note-taking.
CRM Sync covers HubSpot and Salesforce deal records; MCP Server opens the transcript library to outside AI agents.
Sales reps who run discovery calls and want CRM notes synced automatically.
Teams that need SAML SSO, which only arrives in quote-only Enterprise.
Grain skips the meeting bot and quietly walks past Otter and Fireflies.ai on the way in.
“Grain records, transcribes, and summarizes Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams calls with AI notes, action items, and CRM sync. The Free tier gives you unlimited 45-minute meetings with AI notes, paid seats start at $15/month per the docs, and Bot-less Transcription is the feature that actually matters.”
A meeting bot named after a furry mascot joins the call. Otter, Fireflies.ai, the whole crowd. Grain doesn't do that. Bot-less Transcription captures your computer's audio silently — no awkward intro, no robot watching from the gallery.
Free plan is unlimited 45-minute meetings with AI notes; paid seats start at $15/month per user per the docs. CRM Sync into HubSpot and Salesforce is the sales-team hook, and Ask Anything Inside Grain lets you query your meeting library with citations. Founded 2018, $16M Series A from Tiger Global in 2022 — durable enough.
But the catch is the billing toggle. That $15 seat price is the annual rate; month-to-month Starter is $19. For a tool pitching itself as the friendly alternative to Gong, the numbers are all on the page — you just have to read which column you're in. Mobile is web-only too. Day-thirty, that adds up.
Clean Markdown transcripts, in-meeting Notes and Flags, and one-click AI export show daily-use thinking.
Twelve named features but Capture Rules and Teams make the meeting-to-CRM flow discoverable.
Platforms listed as web only — no iOS or Android app despite meeting capture being mobile-friendly by nature.
Free tier with unlimited 45-minute meetings and AI notes lets you evaluate without a sales call.
SOC 2 Type II, dedicated AWS VPC, A+ Qualys rating, and a seven-year operating history read solid.
Sales teams who want meeting capture without a bot in every call.
Solo users who won't record enough to justify a $19 month-to-month seat.
Zoom-backed, $16M Series A, but commoditized by ChatGPT — Grain's lane is narrow and prosumer-shaped.
“Grain raised a $16M Series A led by Tiger Global in April 2022, with Zoom and Slack Fund participating. The catch is that ChatGPT and Otter commoditized AI notetaking faster than expected, leaving Grain a narrow prosumer lane against Gong and Fireflies.ai.”
Zoom invested. Then OpenAI made notetakers a commodity. Zoom backed Grain in 2020 and again at the $16M Series A led by Tiger Global in April 2022. That's the lineage. Now ChatGPT handles meeting summaries natively, and the category got commoditized faster than anyone expected.
The pivot tells: MCP Server & API, One-click AI Export to Claude or ChatGPT. They're conceding the wrapper layer and selling the data layer. Starter sits at $15/seat, Business at $29, free tier caps each meeting at 45 minutes. Honest pricing.
But Gong owns enterprise revenue intelligence, Fireflies.ai owns the cheap lane, and Otter has been there since 2016 too. Grain's narrow lane is the prosumer who wants clip-sharing. Exit is clean — transcripts download as Markdown. Hedged buy.
Sits between Gong's enterprise depth and Fireflies.ai's cheaper entry — a narrow lane against Otter too.
Enriched Markdown transcripts and CRM syncs export cleanly, so reverting to another notetaker is mostly file moves.
Series A was April 2022 and no public Series B yet; MCP Server pivot signals adaptation but not safety.
Pricing tiers and feature lists read plainly; no aspirational claims about replacing humans.
Zoom, Slack Fund, and Tiger Global backing in 2022 is real, but the commoditization curve is steep.
Prosumer sellers who share meeting clips with stakeholders.
Enterprise revenue teams who need Gong-grade call coaching.
Common questions answered by our AI research team
Grain has a free forever plan, and paid plans start at $15/month per user for unlimited meetings, advanced AI, and conversational intelligence. The pricing page also lists a Starter tier at $19/seat/month billed annually, with no required annual contracts.
The free plan includes unlimited recordings, transcripts, basic AI notes, a collaborative workspace, and desktop capture, with a 45-minute meeting limit and 90-day meeting history.
No. Grain offers bot-less transcription that captures your computer's audio without a meeting bot joining the call, though you can also use a bot for video recording when you can't attend.
Yes. Grain holds SOC 2 Type II certification, hosts data on AWS in a dedicated VPC in the USA, and undergoes annual third-party penetration testing.
Yes. Grain syncs notes and properties to HubSpot or Salesforce contacts and deals, and also integrates with Pipedrive and other CRM platforms.
Who Grain competes with, and how each one differs
Otter.ai leans toward consumer and individual-productivity transcription with a broad freemium tier, while Grain focuses on go-to-market teams needing CRM-synced clips and coaching workflows.
Granola targets individual note-taking with an on-device, bot-free recorder and has moved upmarket with Spaces and a public API/MCP server, whereas Grain is built around team-shared conversation data as a CRM-connected system of record.
Fireflies.ai competes on breadth of third-party integrations and a searchable transcript library across many meeting platforms, overlapping directly with Grain on transcription and clip-sharing for GTM teams.
Fathom offers a free AI meeting recorder aimed at broad individual and team adoption, undercutting Grain's paid-tier CRM sync and coaching features on price.
tl;dv targets sales and customer-success teams with meeting recording plus direct CRM logging, closely overlapping Grain's core go-to-market use case.
Gong is an enterprise revenue-intelligence platform bundling call analytics, forecasting and coaching at a much higher price point and deal size than Grain's per-seat meeting-notes product.
Company
GrainFounded
2018Pricing
From $15/moFree Trial
AvailableFree Plan
AvailableGrain is a San Francisco-based AI meeting recorder that transcribes, summarizes, and clips video meetings from Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.
