AI interview note-taker pricing: published prices compared

Published prices for AI interview note-takers, as of September 2026, run from free tiers up to $85 per user per month. General meeting tools with bot-free capture sit between $10 and $35 per user per month; recruiting platforms sit between $49 and $85; and several recruiting vendors publish no price at all. For a ten-recruiter agency, the published options below work out between $1,200 and $9,000 a year.

Every figure here comes from the vendor's own pricing page or help center and is linked. Prices change often; treat this as a starting point for your own quote, not a substitute for one.

Published prices, September 2026

Two patterns are worth naming. General meeting tools are priced per user for any meeting, so interviews are a small share of what you pay for. Recruiting tools cost more per seat and are priced against recruiter time and output, which is why their pages talk about submittals and scorecards rather than minutes.

What the free tiers actually give an interviewer

Free plans are built for trials and light use. Translated into interviews, as published:

Sources as above. A free tier is a trial budget, not a plan: the question to ask is what happens in month two, when the recruiter who liked it wants to keep the transcripts.

A ten-recruiter agency, worked out

Ten recruiters, one seat each, twelve months, at published prices as of September 2026. This is arithmetic from list prices only: minimum terms, negotiated discounts and tax are not included, and vendors without published prices are left out because there is nothing to calculate.

Ten seats matters here: CoRecruit's Growth tier starts at 10 users, so a tenth recruiter moves the whole team from Starter ($64 paid upfront) to Growth ($54), taking the upfront annual figure from $7,680 to $6,480. Check every vendor's tier boundaries against your real headcount before you compare, and ask what happens when someone leaves mid-term.

Cost per screen, which is the number that matters

Per-seat prices hide how much work each seat does. Take a recruiter who runs 60 screens a month. Divide the monthly per-user price by 60:

• Fireflies Pro yearly: $10 ÷ 60 = $0.17 per screen
• Granola Business: $14 ÷ 60 = $0.23
• Otter Business yearly: $19.99 ÷ 60 = $0.33
• Interview Signal Team yearly: $49 ÷ 60 = $0.82
• CoRecruit Growth upfront: $54 ÷ 60 = $0.90
• Metaview Pro: $60 ÷ 60 = $1.00

At this volume the spread is under a dollar per conversation, which is smaller than most people expect and smaller than the difference in what each tool produces afterwards. At five screens a month the ranking looks the same but the amounts are twelve times higher per screen, which is why light users should stay on cheap or free plans.

What drives the real price up

• Usage metering. Minutes (Otter), calls (Metaview's free tier), storage (Fireflies Pro lists up to 8,000 minutes per seat), or interviews (Ashby's 500). Estimate your monthly volume before choosing a plan, then add a margin for panels and no-shows that still burn minutes.
• AI credits. Fireflies' Business documentation says the price excludes AI Credits charges for features such as AI Skills and custom summaries. Ask how many credits a typical interview consumes.
• Minimum seats and terms. CoRecruit lists a 12-month minimum term; our Team plan has a three-seat minimum; Otter's comparison table caps a Business workspace at 25 billed users. These change the smallest cheque you can write.
• Annual commitment. The published discounts are large: Fireflies Pro $18 to $10, Otter Pro $16.99 to $8.33, CoRecruit Starter $85 to $64. You are paying the difference for flexibility if you stay monthly.
• Add-ons. Small line items add up: Fireflies' help center prices a custom bot name at $5 a month per option, and CoRecruit includes US and Canada calling with a $10 monthly credit for worldwide calls shared across the team.
• Setup effort. An ATS integration can need admin work and, in some cases, an API account from the ATS vendor. That is staff time, not licence cost, but it delays the value you are paying for.
• Seats for people who barely interview. Hiring managers who interview twice a month rarely need the same plan as a full-time recruiter. Ask whether the vendor allows mixed plans or guest access.

The vendors that do not publish prices

BrightHire, Greenhouse Notetaker, HireLogic and Employ's AI Interview Companion do not publish prices as of September 2026, and Ashby publishes only the 500 included interviews. That is normal for products sold to larger teams, but it makes comparison harder. Ask for these in writing before you compare:

1. Price per seat per year, and the minimum number of seats.
2. Contract length, notice period for cancellation, and what happens to your data at the end.
3. Whether interviewers who are not recruiters need paid seats.
4. Any usage limits: interviews, minutes, storage, or AI actions, and the overage price.
5. Implementation, training and integration fees, one-off or annual.
6. The renewal uplift cap, so year two is not a surprise.
7. Whether the free trial covers the features you are buying it for, such as ATS write-back.

If a vendor cannot answer point four, model your worst month rather than your average one. Interview volumes are seasonal, and a plan that fits November may not fit January.

Building the business case with your own numbers

Vendor pages carry claims about hours saved. Use your own numbers instead; the calculation is simple and you can defend it in a budget meeting.

1. Minutes spent today per interview on notes, scorecard or submittal:
   time yourself on five real calls, after the call ends.       = A minutes
2. Interviews per recruiter per month:                          = B
3. Recruiters:                                                  = C
4. Minutes saved per interview with the tool (measure this in
   the trial; do not take it from a vendor page):               = D minutes
5. Monthly minutes saved  = B × C × D
6. Hours saved            = (B × C × D) / 60
7. Cost per hour saved    = monthly licence cost / hours saved

Then ask the question the arithmetic cannot: what do recruiters do with the time? On an agency desk, more screens and faster submittals convert into revenue; on an in-house team, the benefit is usually better-documented decisions rather than a headcount saving. Say which one you are buying, because the two lead to different tools.

For a fuller agency shortlist with integration detail, see AI note-takers for staffing agencies; for the category as a whole, see interview intelligence software.

A short checklist before you sign

• The price you were quoted is per seat, per month, with the billing period and term written down.
• You have modelled your busiest month, not your average one.
• Usage limits, overage prices and AI credit costs are in the quote.
• Minimum seats and tier boundaries match your real headcount, including planned hires.
• You know what happens to transcripts and notes if you cancel, and how to export them.
• A leaver's seat can be reassigned without a new contract.
• You tested the feature you are actually buying it for, on real interviews, during the trial.
• Recording consent is handled the same way in every state you hire in; our consent guide covers the notice.