Minutes vs Otter.ai: where do your meetings actually go?

You want a transcript of the call, but you are not keen on every meeting you have ever had sitting on someone else's server. Otter sends your audio to its servers to do the work, and it bills you every month. We built Minutes to do the same job on your own Mac, as a native app that uses the speech and Apple Intelligence models built into macOS, so nothing leaves the machine and there is no monthly bill. Here is the comparison.

Last updated: 18 September 2026

Full disclosure: this page is published by the makers of Minutes. Otter's prices and limits below are taken from Otter's own pricing page, checked on 18 September 2026.

Side by side

The comparison table is at the top of this page.

Where Minutes is better

• Nothing is uploaded. Recording, transcription and the summary all run on your Mac with the models that ship inside macOS. Your audio is not encrypted in transit and stored responsibly somewhere else, it is simply never sent, and if you pull the network cable mid meeting Minutes keeps working.
• You buy it once. Minutes is $9.99 once, once. Otter Pro at $8.33 a month billed annually passes that in under two months and keeps going.
• No meter. There are no monthly minutes and no 30 minute cap on a single conversation, because your Mac does the work and there is nothing to ration.
• The notes are files. Every meeting is one Markdown file in a folder you choose, readable in any editor, so if you stop using Minutes every note still opens.
• It catches what was agreed. Decisions and action items come out with an Add button for Calendar and Reminders, and nothing is written until you tap it.

The pricing math

Otter Pro is $16.99 per user per month, or $8.33 per user per month if you pay for a year up front. Business is $30 per user per month, or $19.99 annually. Minutes is one payment instead: $9.99 once, yours for good on 2 Macs.

On the cheapest paid Otter plan, four months costs more than owning Minutes outright, and over three years the subscription is roughly ten times the price. If the meetings are yours, you would be paying every month for a server you never wanted your audio on.

The question underneath

Both apps turn talking into text, and the difference is what happens to the recording in between. Otter needs your audio on its servers to do the work. If your meetings involve salaries, health, clients or anything you would not paste into a stranger's website, the trade stops being reasonable, and that is the whole reason Minutes exists.

FAQ