Mavio vs Otter.ai

Mavio vs Otter.ai

Otter.ai effectively created this category. It has been transcribing meetings since 2016, it is the name most people reach for first, and its real-time transcription is genuinely good. If you are comparing the two, you are almost certainly not asking whether Otter works — you are asking whether the way it works still suits how your team meets.

The honest answer is that the two products differ on one structural decision, and most of the other differences follow from it.

The bot is the decision

Otter.ai records by sending a participant into your call. The Otter Notetaker appears in the attendee list, and everyone on the call can see it. Mavio does not do this: it captures audio on the device you are already using, through the desktop app, the Chrome extension, or the mobile app. Nothing joins, so nothing appears in the participant list.

Whether that matters depends entirely on who is on the call.

For an internal standup, it rarely matters. Everyone knows the tool is in use, nobody is surprised, and a visible bot is arguably the more transparent option.

For a first sales call, a candidate interview, a client escalation, or a partner negotiation, it matters a great deal. A named bot in the attendee list is a thing the other side notices, and sometimes a thing they ask about — three minutes into a call you wanted to spend on their problem. Teams who run a lot of external calls tend to be the ones who go looking for an alternative, and this is usually why.

It is worth being precise about what botless does not mean. It does not mean covert. Mavio records from your device rather than announcing itself, which means the disclosure obligation sits with you, not with the software. Recording-notification law varies by country and by US state, and some of it requires consent from everyone on the call. Tell the room you are recording. The difference is that you get to say it in your own words, at a moment you choose, rather than having a bot say it for you at the least useful moment.

Where the platform lists actually diverge

Otter is web-first, with mobile apps and a Chrome extension. Mavio ships native desktop applications for macOS and Windows in addition to iOS, Android, a Chrome extension, and the browser.

This sounds like a checkbox difference and is not. On-device capture requires something running on the device, which is precisely why the desktop app exists. It also means Mavio can record audio that never travels through a meeting platform at all — an in-person conversation, a phone call on speaker, a room with four people in it and one laptop. If a meaningful share of your meetings are not video calls, that gap is the practical one.

Where Otter is the better choice

Two places, and both are real.

The free experience is more polished. Otter's free plan caps you at 300 minutes a month where Mavio's does not cap transcription at all, so the headroom argument runs the other way. What Otter has is years of iteration on that free tier, and it shows.

Maturity. Otter has had far longer to sand down edges, and it shows in the small things — export formats, sharing flows, the accumulated set of integrations that exist because a customer once asked. Mavio is younger. If your requirement is a long tail of specific workflow integrations that have existed for years, check the list before you switch rather than assuming parity.

Pricing, stated plainly

Otter's paid plan starts at $16.99 per user per month. Mavio's Free plan is $0 forever and needs no card: unlimited transcription, AI summaries, and action items. Pro is $10 per month ($100 billed annually) and adds real-time transcription, 25 transcript languages, every integration, and API access. Business is $25 per seat per month ($20 annually) and adds Coach Mode, team analytics, and shared libraries.

The comparison people usually want: Mavio transcribes without a monthly cap on the free plan, where Otter stops at 300 minutes, and the paid tier that adds real-time transcription is $10 against Otter's $16.99.

Which one to pick

Choose Otter if most of your meetings are internal, a visible bot is not a problem in your culture, and you value a long track record over a newer product.

Choose Mavio if you run client-facing calls where an unfamiliar participant changes the tone of the conversation, if you need to capture meetings that are not video calls, or if you want unlimited transcription at the lower of the two prices.

If you are unsure, the free plan needs no card and no minute budget to ration, so you can run it against a real month of your own meetings — a better answer than any comparison table.

How to Switch from Otter.ai to Mavio

Migrating from Otter.ai to Mavio is straightforward:

1. Export your Otter.ai transcripts from Settings > Account > Export Data. You will receive a ZIP file with all transcripts.
2. Sign up for Mavio and connect your calendar (Google Calendar or Outlook).
3. Keep the export as your archive. Mavio does not import Otter.ai transcripts — there is no converter for their archive format, and we would rather say so here than have you discover it after switching. Your Otter history stays readable in the ZIP; Mavio starts fresh from your next meeting.
4. Connect your meeting platforms (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams) so calendar events line up with recordings.
5. Invite your team and set up your workspace.

Setup takes about ten minutes. Run both tools in parallel for a week if you want the overlap — Mavio's free plan covers it without a card.