Mavio vs Fathom

Mavio vs Fathom

Most comparisons on this site turn on whether a bot joins your call. This one does not, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise: Fathom, like Mavio, records without adding a visible participant. If you found this page looking for the botless option, you have found two of them.

So the useful comparison is what is left once the headline difference is off the table.

Where they genuinely diverge: what you can record on

Fathom runs in the browser and as a Chrome extension. Mavio ships native applications for macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android alongside the Chrome extension and the web app.

This is the difference that actually changes what gets captured. A browser-based tool can record what passes through the browser. A desktop app can record the machine's audio, and a phone app can record the room. That covers the meetings that never appear on a calendar and never open a video platform — the in-person conversation, the call taken on speaker, the four people around one laptop, the corridor decision that turns out to matter.

If every meeting you care about is a scheduled video call opened in Chrome, this difference is theoretical and you can ignore it. If a meaningful share of your week is not that, it is the reason to look at Mavio.

Context that persists across meetings

Fathom is built to be fast and light, and it treats each meeting as a self-contained artifact. That is a defensible design and part of why it feels quick.

Mavio keeps a knowledge base across your meeting history, so a question asked of the assistant can draw on the earlier calls with the same customer, not only the transcript in front of it. Whether that matters depends on how repetitive your meetings are. For one-off calls, it is overhead. For an account you have met eight times this quarter, or an onboarding that spans a month, it is the difference between an answer and a summary.

Where Fathom is the better pick

Fathom is fast, focused, and does not ask you to learn much. It has a well-regarded free tier and its interface has very little in it that is not the meeting. If what you want is a tool that records without a bot and gets out of the way — with no team library, no admin layer, no cross-meeting memory to think about — Fathom is a cleaner fit than Mavio and you should take it.

That is a genuine recommendation, not a setup. Not every team needs the heavier product.

Where Mavio is the better pick

Teams, mostly. Mavio's Business plan adds a shared meeting library, team analytics, and Coach Mode, which is the machinery you need once meeting records stop belonging to one person and start being something a team relies on. Add native mobile and desktop capture, 60-language transcription, and cross-meeting context, and the shape is a system of record rather than a personal utility.

Pricing

Fathom's paid plans start at $19 per user per month. Mavio's Free plan is $0 forever with no card — unlimited transcription, AI summaries, action items. Pro is $10 per month ($100 billed annually) and adds real-time transcription, 25 transcript languages, all integrations, and API access. Business is $25 per seat per month ($20 annually).

Check Fathom's current free-tier terms directly; they have changed more than once and any comparison page will lag them.

Choosing

Fathom if you want the lightest possible botless recorder for your own calls.

Mavio if you need to capture beyond the browser, want meeting context that carries across a relationship, or are buying for a team rather than for yourself.

Switching from Fathom to Mavio

1. Export your Fathom meeting data from account settings.
2. Create a Mavio account and connect your calendar.
3. Keep the export as your archive. Mavio cannot import Fathom recordings, so your history stays where it is. Mavio starts from your next meeting.
4. Choose your recording preferences and start capturing meetings.

Setup takes about 10 minutes.