Head-to-head
Fireflies.ai vs tl;dv: Which AI Meeting Notetaker Should You Choose in 2026?
Affiliate disclosure: this page contains affiliate links. We may earn a commission if you sign up for Fireflies.ai through a link on this page, at no extra cost to you. We do not currently have an affiliate relationship with tl;dv, though we may join its Affiliates program. See our disclosure and methodology section at the end of this article for exactly how that is handled in our rankings below.
Fireflies.ai and tl;dv are two of the four tools we cover most often on this site, and they're a natural head-to-head: both are strong on price relative to Otter.ai's Business tier and Fathom's paid plans, and both are commonly shortlisted by teams that want CRM-adjacent features without committing to an enterprise contract. Here's how they actually compare on price and features, using figures we've already verified in our other comparisons on this site — our overview, free & budget, and sales-team articles — rather than introducing new, separately-sourced numbers.
Free tier: different tradeoffs, not a clear winner
| Fireflies.ai | tl;dv | |
|---|---|---|
| Transcription | Unlimited | Unlimited recordings, up to 40/week |
| AI summaries | Limited | 10 total, for the lifetime of the account |
| Storage | Capped at 400 minutes per team | Recordings auto-delete after 3 months |
| Video recording | No (audio-only on free) | Yes |
Fireflies' free plan trades a recording-volume cap for a storage cap: transcribe as many meetings as you want, but old ones get purged once you're past 400 minutes of team storage. tl;dv's free plan is the opposite shape — genuinely generous recording volume (40/week, video included) but a hard lifetime cap of 10 AI-generated notes, after which the free tier is essentially a recorder rather than a notetaker. Neither free tier is a clear winner: pick Fireflies free if you want an ongoing, if storage-limited, AI summary habit; pick tl;dv free if you mainly want a searchable video/audio archive and only occasionally need an AI summary.
Paid plans: Fireflies is cheaper at every comparable tier
| Plan tier | Fireflies.ai | tl;dv |
|---|---|---|
| Entry paid plan (annual) | Pro: $10/user/month | Pro: $18/user/month |
| Entry paid plan (monthly) | $18/user/month | $29/user/month |
| Plan with real CRM sync | Business: $19/user/month (Deal Intelligence, CRM Autofill, AI Scorecards) | Pro: $18/user/month (basic sync only) |
| Plan with AI sales coaching | Included on Business ($19/user/month) | Business: $59/user/month |
At every tier we've verified, Fireflies is the cheaper option — its entry-level Pro plan is nearly half tl;dv's Pro price ($10 vs. $18/user/month annual), and its Business plan (which adds a full sales feature set: Deal Intelligence, CRM Autofill, AI Scorecards graded against MEDDIC/BANT/SPICED) costs less than tl;dv's entry-level Pro plan's CRM sync would cost you once you add tl;dv's own AI-coaching tier ($59/user/month Business). To be direct about the affiliate angle here: Fireflies is the tool we may earn a commission from, and it is also the cheaper tool at every tier in this comparison — we're stating that plainly rather than letting the comparison read as a coincidence we didn't flag. See our sales-team comparison for the full breakdown of what each vendor's sales tier actually includes, including the source disagreement we found on exactly where tl;dv draws the line between its Pro and Business plans.
Figures are from this article's pricing information as of September 2026; see the methodology below for how each price was checked. Prices change — confirm with the vendor before buying. "CRM sync" compares Fireflies Business to tl;dv Pro (tl;dv's CRM-sync entry tier); "AI coaching" compares Fireflies Business to tl;dv Business.
View as table
| Plan | Fireflies.ai | tl;dv |
|---|---|---|
| Entry paid plan | $10 | $18 |
| Plan with CRM sync | $19 | $18 |
| Plan with AI coaching | $19 | $59 |
Where tl;dv holds its own
Price isn't the only axis that matters. tl;dv's historical strength is transcription and language depth — broader multi-language transcription support and a recording-first workflow that some teams prefer over Fireflies' summary-first approach. tl;dv's free tier's recording volume (40/week, with video) is also more generous than Fireflies' free tier if what you actually need is a searchable video archive rather than AI summaries. If your team's primary use case is "record everything in multiple languages and search it later," tl;dv is a reasonable pick despite costing more once you're on a paid plan.
Frequently asked questions
Is Fireflies.ai or tl;dv cheaper?
Fireflies.ai, at every tier we've verified. Its entry Pro plan is $10 per user per month billed annually versus tl;dv Pro at $18; its Business plan, which adds a full sales feature set, is $19 versus $59 for tl;dv's coaching-enabled Business plan.
Which has the better free plan, Fireflies or tl;dv?
Neither is a clear winner — they trade off differently. Fireflies gives unlimited transcription but caps storage at 400 minutes per team and limits AI summaries. tl;dv allows up to 40 recordings a week with video, but only 10 AI-generated notes for the life of the account.
Is tl;dv better for anything specific?
tl;dv's historical strength is multi-language transcription depth and a more generous free-tier recording volume. If your team mainly needs to record and search meetings in multiple languages, tl;dv is a reasonable pick despite costing more on paid plans.
Does NotetakerCompare's affiliate relationship with Fireflies bias this comparison?
We disclose upfront that Fireflies is our affiliate partner and tl;dv currently is not. Fireflies also happens to be the cheaper tool at every tier in this comparison, and we say so plainly using figures already verified in our other articles rather than new, separately-sourced numbers. See our disclosure and methodology.
Disclosure and methodology
This site may earn a commission if you sign up for Fireflies.ai through a link on this page; we do not currently have an affiliate relationship with tl;dv, though we may join its Affiliates program in the future, at which point we'll disclose that here and add a link. Every figure in this article was carried over from our own previously fact-checked comparisons on this site (see the overview, free & budget, and sales-team articles linked above) rather than re-sourced separately, so it inherits the same verification status as those articles — including the one open item we've flagged elsewhere: independent sources disagree on exactly where tl;dv's CRM-sync tier boundary sits, which we've noted rather than silently resolved. We did not introduce any new, unverified figures to write this comparison.
Last verified: September 2026.