Granola Review and Pricing (2026): What the AI Notetaker Does, Costs and Leaves Out

Granola is an AI notetaker that runs on your own computer instead of joining the meeting as a bot. It listens to your microphone and system audio, transcribes the call, and turns your own rough notes plus the transcript into clean meeting notes afterwards. The free Basic plan keeps 30 days of history; Business costs $14 per user a month and Enterprise $35. It’s one of the simplest ways to get good notes without a bot in the participant list. It doesn’t help you during the call, and its default sharing settings are worth checking on day one.

Checked in October 2026 against Granola’s pricing page, its help center and the news coverage linked in the sources. Granola changes quickly, so check the current version before you buy. We make Realtimer, which also runs without a bot; we compare the two honestly at the end.

What Granola is

Granola describes itself plainly in its help center: “There is no meeting bot — Granola runs only on your computer and uses your system audio and microphone.” You open a note when the meeting starts (or click the notification Granola shows), type whatever you’d normally jot down, and after the call Granola merges your jottings with the transcript into structured notes.

The company is well funded. In March 2026 it raised $125 million in a Series C led by Index Ventures at a $1.5 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg, and launched team workspaces (Spaces) and enterprise APIs around the same time.

How Granola works

Because Granola hears everything your computer plays, a YouTube video in another tab ends up in the transcript. And because nothing joins the call, nobody else knows Granola is running unless you tell them, which matters for consent (more below).

Granola pricing

From Granola’s pricing page, checked in October 2026:

The pricing page lists monthly per-user prices and no separate free trial; the free plan is the trial.

On the free plan, notes older than 30 days drop out of view, so it’s fine for trying Granola for a few weeks but not for keeping a record. Most people who use it daily end up on Business.

What Granola costs for a team

These are list prices times seats; ask Granola about annual billing or volume pricing for larger teams.

What Granola does well

Notes that read like yours

Because it starts from what you typed, the final notes follow your priorities rather than a generic summary of everything said.

No bot in the meeting

On a first call with a client or a candidate, nobody has to ask who “Notetaker” is.

Works with any meeting app

Zoom, Meet, Teams, Slack huddles, a phone call through your computer: if the sound plays on the computer, Granola can transcribe it.

Chat across meetings

You can ask questions about a meeting, or across meetings (“what did the client say about the budget last month?”), even on the free plan.

Little to set up

There’s no calendar bot to configure and no admin approval for a recorder in every meeting.

Where Granola falls short

No help during the call

Granola transcribes as you talk, but its output is notes. If a client asks a question you can’t answer, Granola won’t show you the answer.

Default sharing settings

In April 2026 several outlets reported that Granola’s settings said “By default, your notes are viewable to anyone with the link,” and that notes could be used for internal AI training unless you opt out. Granola’s help center says it doesn’t share notes automatically and that a note is shared only when someone creates a link or adds it to a shared folder; shared links show summaries, not transcripts. Either way, check two settings when you install it: the default link sharing (Settings, Preferences, Data and sharing: “Anyone with the link,” “Only for my company” or “Private”) and the model training opt-out. The help center notes that changing the link default doesn’t apply to notes you already shared.

It captures all computer audio

That helps with unusual call apps, but a notification sound or a video playing in another tab can end up in the transcript.

Some extras are English only

The custom jargon box, which improves recognition of names and terms, works only for English.

No team analytics

There are no call scorecards, talk ratios or coaching dashboards like Gong’s or Avoma’s. It’s built for the person taking notes; a manager who reviews a team’s calls needs another tool.

Granola and consent

A tool without a bot still transcribes the conversation, so recording and transcription rules still apply. About a dozen US states, including California, Florida and Illinois, require everyone on a call to agree to recording, and in the EU and UK data protection law requires a lawful basis and notice. Granola doesn’t announce itself to other participants. A sentence at the start of the call (“I’m using an app to take notes, is that OK?”) covers most situations.

Who Granola is for

Granola is a good fit if you have many meetings a day, take your own notes anyway, and want them cleaner without a bot. Founders, investors, consultants and managers are the obvious users; Affinity and Attio integrations on Business point to investors and dealmakers.

It’s a weaker fit if you need answers during the call, call analytics for a team, or a recording of the audio itself (Granola doesn’t keep audio).

Granola alternatives

We compared bot-free options in more detail in Avoma alternatives without a bot and Tactiq alternatives, and Zoom’s built-in options in how to transcribe a Zoom meeting.

Granola vs Realtimer

Both run on your computer and nothing joins the meeting. The difference is when they help. Granola writes notes after the call. Realtimer, a Mac app we make, is built for the moment during the call: when a client asks about a price, a unit or a competitor, you press a key and see the answer from your own price list and documents in about a second, with the source, and you also get notes after the call. Realtimer is Mac only and costs €29 a month on Pro (7-day trial), or nothing with your own API keys; Granola runs on Mac, Windows and phones and starts free. If notes are all you need, Granola is the simpler choice. If you sell, show property or recruit on calls, see the sales assistant page.

Other tools that don’t join as a bot: AI meeting assistants without a bot.

FAQ

Sources: granola.ai/pricing; Granola help: transcription; Granola help: sharing controls; Granola: 32 languages; Bloomberg: Granola $1.5B valuation; Hashe: Granola default link sharing; Reline: bot-free notetakers; avoma.com/pricing.