Is there a free meeting transcription app?

Yes, for short or occasional meetings. Otter's free Basic plan transcribes up to 300 minutes a month, and each conversation can run for 30 minutes. Open-source Whisper tools cost nothing and keep the audio on your computer, but you record the meeting and run the tool yourself. A platform transcript is free only when your plan or organization includes it.

Otter's free plan covers short meetings, up to 30 minutes each

Otter is the best-known free option. Its pricing page lists a limit of 300 meeting and recording transcription minutes per user each month on the Basic plan ¹. The same page caps one conversation at 30 minutes on Basic, against 90 minutes on the Pro plan ². A one-hour meeting is longer than the free cap, so it needs a paid plan or a different tool. Check the live pricing page before you commit, because limits change.

Whisper tools are free, but you record and transcribe the file yourself

Open-source software gives you a free route with no monthly allowance set by a vendor. The faster-whisper project is released under the MIT License, which allows its use free of charge ³. Because the tool runs on your computer, the audio never goes to a meeting service. The cost is your time: you record the meeting, export the audio, run the tool and check the output. Our guide to open-source speech recognition explains the setup.

For a recording you already have, our free audio to text tool transcribes a file in your browser.

Apple's Live Captions is free and built in, but it shows text rather than a record

On a Mac, Live Captions is built into the system. Apple says it is available only on Macs with Apple silicon, and not in every language, country or region ⁴. Apple also says its accuracy may vary and should not be relied on in high-risk or emergency situations ⁵. It is useful for following a discussion as it happens. If you need a record you can search and quote, record the meeting and transcribe the file.

Platform transcripts are free only where your edition or organization includes them

Google Meet transcription is limited to certain Google Workspace editions. Google's administrator help lists Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus and Education Plus ⁶. A personal Google account is not on that list.

For Microsoft Teams, transcription is a policy that the organizer must have turned on ⁷. We could not confirm from Microsoft's documentation which accounts, including free ones, receive that policy, so check your own license and admin settings. If your organization already pays for a plan that includes transcription, the platform transcript is the cheapest route, because it needs no extra app.

It depends on meeting length, your monthly total and whether you need speaker names

A free tier suits a few calls a month. A weekly team meeting uses the monthly allowance quickly, and a single long meeting goes over the per-conversation cap. Count your monthly minutes before you choose.

Free tools also differ on speaker labels. A transcript that does not say who spoke is still useful for a record of decisions, but if you need names on each line, look for speaker diarization, which is the separate step that splits the audio by voice. Check that the free tool offers it.

Accuracy and consent apply to free tools too. A free transcript can contain text that was never said, so read it against the audio at each decision. Every participant should know the meeting is being transcribed, and in California every party must agree. The guide to meeting transcription covers consent in full.

What to do

1. Add up the minutes of meetings you need to transcribe each month, and compare the total with the free allowance.
2. Check the longest meeting against the per-conversation cap.
3. If your platform already includes transcripts for your account, use that first.
4. Otherwise pick Otter for short live meetings, or a Whisper tool if you can record the audio and transcribe it afterwards.
5. Tell everyone the meeting is being transcribed, then record a short test before the real meeting.

For the other routes to a transcript without a bot, see whether you can transcribe a meeting without a bot joining.