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Otter.ai pricing: what the free plan allows, and what Pro, Business and Enterprise add

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Otter.ai pricing starts at free: the Basic plan gives 300 transcription minutes a month, up to 30 minutes per conversation and 3 file imports per account, and Pro costs $16.99 a month, or $8.33 a month billed annually, which is $99.99 a year, on otter.ai as of October 5, 2026. Pro raises the allowance to 1,200 minutes a month. Business is the plan for teams, and Enterprise is priced through Otter's sales team. Every plan transcribes in Otter's cloud, because Otter is a meeting assistant first.

I built YapToText, a free dictation app for the Mac that also transcribes recordings, so read the last sections with that in mind. YapToText is not a meeting recorder, and I say plainly below where Otter is the better buy. Everything about Otter here comes from otter.ai and Otter's help center, read on October 5, 2026, and each source is listed at the end of the page.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreDownload for free. No account, nothing locked, macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. Source on GitHub.

On this page: 11 sections
  1. Steps
  2. Every Otter.ai plan and price
  3. What the Basic free plan allows
  4. What Pro, Business and Enterprise add
    1. Pro
    2. Business
    3. Enterprise
  5. Monthly, yearly or the student price
  6. Where Otter is the better buy
  7. Where a free on-device app fits
  8. Transcribe a recording without spending minutes
    1. Step 1: Install YapToText
    2. Step 2: Put the recording on your Mac
    3. Step 3: Choose the mode, then drop the file
    4. Step 4: Take the text
  9. What each one cannot do
    1. Otter
    2. YapToText
  10. The short version
  11. Questions

Steps

  1. Install YapToText from the Mac App Store and open it.
  2. Save the recording as a file on your Mac; drag a Voice Memos recording to a Finder window.
  3. Open the Utility page and, in the Transcribe a file card's mode menu, pick Raw Transcription or Note.
  4. Drop the file on the card, or click Choose File.
  5. Click Copy, or Insert to type the text into the app you were last using.

Every Otter.ai plan and price

Checked October 5, 2026, on otter.ai and help.otter.ai. Prices are in US dollars per user. Prices change, so check before you buy.

PlanBilled monthlyBilled annuallyWhat it includes
Basic$0$0300 transcription minutes a month, up to 30 minutes per conversation, and 3 audio or video file imports per account, not per month. Exports are TXT only.
Pro$16.99 a month$8.33 a month, or $99.99 a year1,200 transcription minutes a month, and exports as DOCX, PDF and SRT as well as TXT.
BusinessCheck its pricing pageCheck its pricing pageFor teams: unlimited file imports and admin features such as usage analytics.
EnterpriseCustomCustomSingle sign-on and SCIM, admin control, audit logging and company-wide security controls, priced through Otter's sales team.

I have left the Business price out on purpose. The Otter pages I read on October 5, 2026, gave it as two different amounts, so I would rather leave it out than print the wrong one; check Otter's pricing page before you budget for a team. Pro's yearly price works out to $8.33 a month, and Otter's Pro purchase page gives the year as $99.99. For one person, the real choice is Basic or Pro, and the difference is minutes.

What the Basic free plan allows

Basic is a working plan, not a trial, and it does not run out after a set number of days. What it limits is time. Otter's help center lists these limits for the Basic plan:

  • 300 minutes a month. Transcription minutes, counted across recordings and imports. When you use them up, Otter's help center says you cannot record or import until your next monthly cycle.
  • 30 minutes per conversation. On Basic, a longer recording keeps going, but you can open only the first 30 minutes of its transcript until you upgrade.
  • 3 file imports, in total. You can import up to three audio or video files per account, not per month. Each file can be up to 5 GB, and imports count toward your minutes.
  • 25 recent conversations. You can open your 25 most recent conversations, and older ones are archived.
  • 3 Otter AI Chat prompts per conversation. Otter Chat answers questions about a meeting, and Basic allows three prompts in each one.
  • TXT exports. Basic exports a plain text file. DOCX, PDF and SRT need a paid plan.

For a file you already have, the limit that bites first is 3 imports per account, ever. For live meetings, it is the 30 minutes. Otter's help center also says live transcription needs an internet connection; if the connection drops, Otter keeps recording on the device and uploads when it reconnects.

If your Otter use is mostly recordings you already have, rather than live meetings, the free Otter.ai alternative page covers that switch in detail.

What Pro, Business and Enterprise add

The paid plans buy more time first, and team controls after that. Pro is the plan for one person; Business and Enterprise are for a company.

Pro

  • 1,200 minutes a month. Four times Basic's allowance.
  • Better exports. DOCX, PDF and SRT as well as TXT, with speaker names and timestamps as options.
  • The price. $16.99 a month, or $99.99 a year billed annually, which Otter shows as $8.33 a month.

Older Otter help pages give Pro its own per-conversation and import limits, and I could not confirm the current numbers on the pricing page, so check there if a long recording or a stack of files is the reason you are upgrading.

Business

  • Unlimited file imports. The main change for anyone with a backlog of recordings.
  • Team admin. Admin features such as usage analytics.
  • The price. Check Otter's pricing page; I found it stated two ways.

Enterprise

  • Identity and control. Single sign-on and SCIM, admin control, audit logging and company-wide security controls.
  • The price. Custom, through Otter's sales team.

Monthly, yearly or the student price

Pro is the same plan however you pay, so the choice is only about how long you will use it. Otter also runs a Student & Teacher discount program for Pro. Its help center says it takes 20 percent off Pro, monthly or annual, for individual students, faculty and full-time staff at eligible schools, with an email address ending in .edu.

Worked out from otter.ai and help.otter.ai prices, checked October 5, 2026, before any tax.

Pro, paidPriceAfter 1 yearAfter 2 years
Monthly$16.99 a month$203.88$407.76
Annually$99.99 a year$99.99$199.98
Student or teacher, monthly$13.59 a month$163.08$326.16
Student or teacher, annually$79.99 a year, which works out to $6.67 a month$79.99$159.98

The yearly plan costs less than half of twelve monthly payments, so monthly only makes sense for a short burst, such as one busy semester or a single project. If you know you will use Pro for a year, pay yearly. To claim the education price, Otter's help center says to sign up for Basic with your .edu address, choose Upgrade plan, and follow the Student & Teacher Discount link.

Climb this ladder, smallest commitment first:

  1. Otter Basic. Free, 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes at a time, 3 imports in total. Enough to see if Otter suits your meetings.
  2. Pro, monthly. $16.99 for a month you know will be busy.
  3. Pro, yearly. $99.99 a year, or $79.99 with a .edu address.
  4. Business or Enterprise. When a team needs unlimited imports, admin tools or single sign-on.

Where Otter is the better buy

Otter calls itself a meeting agent, and that is what you are paying for. If your recordings are meetings with other people, Otter does jobs that YapToText does not do at all. It is the better choice if you need any of these:

  • A notetaker in the call. Otter Notetaker joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams meetings, automatically if you connect your calendar, and transcribes them live. The Otter desktop app for Mac and Windows records meetings without a bot joining.
  • Who said what. You tag speakers, and Otter can recognize each one you tag in later conversations. Exports can show speaker names and timestamps.
  • Summaries and questions. Summaries, action items and Otter AI Chat, which answers questions about a meeting.
  • Every device. The web, desktop apps for Mac and Windows, and iPhone and Android apps that record a conversation in the room. The Mac app needs macOS 12.3 or later.
  • A team. Admin tools on Business, and single sign-on on Enterprise.

To be fair to Otter on privacy, its help center says it stores data on AWS in the US West region, encrypted with AES-256, trains its models only on de-identified data, and has a person review a recording only with your explicit permission. It transcribes English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Simplified Chinese.

Where a free on-device app fits

YapToText is free with no paid tier, no minute cap and no account. Tips are optional and add no features. It does two jobs: it types what you say at your cursor in any app, and its Transcribe a file card turns a recording you already have into plain text. Both happen on your Mac, so your audio never leaves it, and the only network use is a model download you start yourself. YapToText is not a meeting recorder: it does not join calls, label speakers or add timestamps.

  • Files with no count. Any audio or video file macOS can decode, recognized by what is inside rather than its name. A recording over 4 minutes is cut at quiet moments into pieces of about 2 minutes, so a long lecture is fine.
  • A tidy draft. Pick Note in the card's mode menu and the transcript comes back as short headings and bullets, with action items pulled into a list and nothing added that you did not say.
  • Your own words. A lot of what people record is one person thinking out loud. Dictate it instead, and it is text already. The guide to dictating into any app goes app by app.
  • Offline. The App Store build ships both models, so it works with Wi-Fi off from the first launch. The offline dictation guide shows how to test that.
App Store poster headed Nothing leaves your Mac, over YapToText's AI Models page with both models marked Included.
Figure 1. No minutes to count and no upload: both models show as Included on the AI Models page, so a recording is transcribed on the Mac it is already on.

The trade is real. It runs only on an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 14 or later, the download is about 2.9 GB, it lists 29 languages plus auto-detect, and a transcribed file is plain text with no speaker labels, timestamps or subtitles. My hands make typing difficult, so I dictate every day, and file transcription grew out of the same need: a recording is a dictation that happened somewhere else. If you need subtitles or speaker recognition on the Mac instead, MacWhisper's free version exports subtitles and Pro adds speaker recognition for €64 once, as the MacWhisper pricing page explains, and the roundup of transcription apps for Mac ranks seven tools for recordings.

Transcribe a recording without spending minutes

Four steps, with no account and no upload. Pick the mode, drop the file, take the text.

Step 1: Install YapToText

  • You: Get YapToText from the Mac App Store and open it.
  • YapToText: Walks you through a short setup. Both models are already inside the App Store version, so there is nothing else to download.
  • Check: The capybara is sitting in your menu bar.

Step 2: Put the recording on your Mac

  • You: For a Voice Memos recording, drag it from Voice Memos to a Finder window. For a Zoom or Teams recording, save the file to a folder you can find.
  • macOS: Saves the file to that folder.
  • Check: The file is in the folder you chose.

Step 3: Choose the mode, then drop the file

  • You: Open the Utility page. In the Transcribe a file card's mode menu, pick Raw Transcription for the words exactly as spoken, or Note for headings and bullets. Then drop the file on the card, or click Choose File.
  • YapToText: Reads the file by its content, transcribes it on your Mac and runs the mode you picked.
  • Check: The text appears in the card. A file with no speech in it says so instead.

Step 4: Take the text

  • You: Click Copy, or Insert to type the text into the app you were last using.
  • YapToText: Hands over plain text. Send below passes it to the next card, where you can run it through another mode.
  • Check: The words are where you wanted them.

Before a recording full of names, add them on the Dictionaries page, because a dictionary shapes what the app hears, not just what it types; the Dictionaries guide shows how. Transcribe file in the menu bar panel files the transcript in History under the file's name, which the Utility card does not, and the Utility page guide covers the difference. For meeting files in particular, see transcribing a Zoom recording and transcribing an interview, where speaker names are added by hand.

YapToText's menu bar panel: Start Dictation, mode and microphone pickers, Transcribe file, Regenerate and Insert last.
Figure 2. The other route to a free transcript: Transcribe file in the menu bar panel uses your current mode and files the text in History under the file's name.

What each one cannot do

The two apps are built for different jobs, so the gaps point in opposite directions. Otter charges for minutes in the cloud; YapToText gives you the words, not who said them or when.

Otter

  • Stay on your Mac. It transcribes in its cloud, and a live transcript needs a connection.
  • Long recordings for free. Basic stops at 30 minutes per conversation and 300 minutes a month.
  • Many files for free. Basic allows 3 imports per account, in total.
  • Many languages. It lists six.
  • Dictation into other apps. The Otter pages I read describe recording and transcribing conversations, not typing at your cursor in other apps.

YapToText

  • Meetings. It does not join or record calls, record the Mac's system audio, or write meeting summaries the way Otter does.
  • Speakers and timings. No speaker labels, timestamps or subtitles, and one file at a time.
  • Other devices. Mac only, Apple silicon and macOS 14 or later, with nothing for Windows, phones or Intel Macs.
  • Teams. No shared workspace, admin tools or single sign-on.
  • The Homebrew build. It ships without models, so download a speech model on the AI Models page before the first file.

Nothing stops you from using both: Otter for meetings with other people, and YapToText for your own words and the recordings you would rather not upload. The guide to transcribing an audio file on a Mac for free lists the file types it takes.

The short version

  • Basic. $0: 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation, 3 imports per account and TXT exports.
  • Pro. $16.99 a month, or $99.99 a year billed annually, for 1,200 minutes a month; 20 percent less with a .edu address.
  • Teams. Business adds unlimited imports and admin tools, so check its pricing page for the price. Enterprise is custom, with single sign-on and SCIM.
  • The free alternative for files. YapToText, on the Mac, with no minute cap, no account and no meeting features.

Otter for meetings with other people, YapToText for your own words and the recordings you already have.

If a price or limit here no longer matches Otter's site, open an issue on GitHub and I will fix it. Every one gets read.

Download YapToText on the Mac App StoreDownload for free. No account, nothing locked, macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. Source on GitHub.

About the author. Ryleigh Newman is a developer whose hands make typing difficult and who dictates every day with YapToText, the app this site describes. Facts about other apps come from their own sites, with the date they were read. More about the project.

Sources

Questions

How much does Otter.ai cost?

Otter Pro is $16.99 a month, or $8.33 a month billed annually, which is $99.99 a year, on otter.ai as of October 5, 2026. Basic is free. Business is priced on Otter's pricing page, and Enterprise is custom.

What are the limits of Otter's free plan?

Otter's help center says Basic includes 300 transcription minutes a month, up to 30 minutes per conversation, and 3 audio or video file imports per account, not per month. You can open your 25 most recent conversations, and exports are TXT only.

Is Otter Pro worth it?

It is if you transcribe meetings with other people and need more than 300 minutes a month, since Pro gives 1,200 minutes and DOCX, PDF and SRT exports. For plain text from recordings you already have, YapToText does that on the Mac for free, without speaker labels.

Does Otter have a student discount?

Yes. Otter's help center describes a Student and Teacher discount of 20 percent on Pro for eligible students, faculty and staff with a .edu email, which works out to about $13.59 a month, or $79.99 a year.

How much is Otter Business?

Check Otter's pricing page. The Otter pages I read on October 5, 2026, stated the Business price two different ways, so I left it out rather than guess. Business adds unlimited file imports and admin features for teams.

Is there a free alternative to Otter for transcribing files?

Yes. YapToText transcribes audio and video files on an Apple silicon Mac for free, with no minute cap and no account. It is not a meeting recorder: it does not join calls, label speakers or add timestamps.