Minutes vs tl;dv: where should the recording live?
tl;dv gives away more than almost anyone in this category: unlimited recordings, unlimited transcription in more than 30 languages, unlimited storage, and AI notes on your first ten meetings, at no cost. Minutes charges $29.99 once and never sends the audio anywhere, because there is no server to send it to. That is the whole argument, and it only decides some meetings.
Last updated: July 2026
Full disclosure: this page is published by the makers of Minutes. tl;dv's prices and limits below are taken from tl;dv's own pages, checked in July 2026, and the things it genuinely does better are listed as plainly as our own side.
The short version
Pick tl;dv if the meetings are team business. You want them searchable by everyone, pushed into a CRM, turned into follow-up emails, and reachable from a phone. The free plan is real, and $18 a seat a month buys unlimited AI notes on top of it.
Pick Minutes if what gets said in your calls should not sit on anyone else's servers, or you want the notes to be plain files you own with no account behind them.
Side by side
| Minutes | tl;dv | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29.99 one-time | Free, or $18 (Pro) to $29 (Business) per seat per month billed annually |
| Where the audio goes | Nowhere. It stays on your Mac | tl;dv's cloud, hosted and stored in the EU |
| Free tier | 7 days of everything, no card | Unlimited recordings and transcription, AI notes on 10 meetings |
| Recording length | As long as the meeting runs | 3 hours per recording, on every plan |
| How long it is kept | Until you delete the file | Up to 3 months on Free, custom on the paid plans |
| A bot in the call | Never. It records what your Mac hears | Not required, and Pro can customise the bot's appearance |
| Where notes live | One Markdown file per meeting, in a folder you chose | tl;dv's workspace, with unlimited storage |
| Search across meetings | Your own folder, and Spotlight | Global transcript search on Pro and up |
| Integrations | It writes to Calendar and Reminders on your Mac | CRM field mapping, 5000+ via Zapier, API, webhooks and an MCP server |
| Platforms | macOS 26, Apple Silicon | Web, desktop and mobile (iOS and Android) |
Where tl;dv is better
- The free plan is not a teaser. Unlimited recordings, unlimited transcription in 30+ languages, unlimited storage, calendar and email integrations, and AI notes on ten meetings, at $0. For a lot of people that is simply the right answer and we are not going to argue them out of it.
- It is built for a team, and Minutes is not. Global transcript search, shared libraries, scheduled AI reports, playbook monitoring and objection handling for sales calls. Minutes is one person on one Mac by design.
- It plugs into the rest of your stack. CRM field mapping, thousands of integrations through Zapier, plus an API, webhooks and an MCP server on Pro. Minutes writes to Calendar and Reminders and stops.
- It is not Mac only. Web, desktop and mobile apps. Minutes needs macOS 26 on Apple Silicon and nothing else will do.
- It answers the compliance version of the privacy question. GDPR, SOC 2 and EU AI Act compliance, data hosted and stored in the EU, and privately hosted AI on request. If your objection to the cloud is regulatory rather than personal, they have a real answer for it.
Where Minutes is better
- Nothing is uploaded, so there is nothing to trust. Recording, transcription and the summary all run on your Mac with the models that ship inside macOS. The only network calls Minutes ever makes are the licence check and the update check. Pull the cable mid meeting and it keeps working.
- No seats, no cap, no retention window. tl;dv caps a recording at 3 hours on every plan and keeps free-plan data for up to 3 months. Minutes keeps whatever your disk keeps, for as long as you keep it, for $29.99 once.
- The notes outlive the app. One Markdown file per meeting, next to its audio, in a folder you chose. Stop using Minutes and every note still opens in any editor. There is nothing to export and no account to lose.
- Both sides, kept apart by channel. Your microphone on one track and the audio your meeting app plays on another, tapped digitally rather than heard through a speaker. Who said what is a fact, not a guess from voice matching.
- It asks before it files anything. Decisions and promises come out as catches with an Add button for Calendar and Reminders, each carrying the sentence it came from. Nothing is written anywhere until you tap it.
The pricing math
tl;dv is free with unlimited recordings and transcription. Pro is $18 per seat per month billed annually and Business is $29, with Enterprise quoted; the pricing page advertises up to 40% off for paying annually, so month to month costs more than those numbers. Minutes is $29.99 once.
One seat on Pro passes the price of Minutes in the second month, and a team of five passes it in the first week. But for most people the comparison is not Pro, it is free against $29.99, and on price alone free wins. The reason to pay anyway is not a feature. It is that the recording never leaves the machine it was made on.
Why Minutes needs macOS 26
It is a real limit, not a preference. Minutes transcribes with Apple's on-device speech framework and summarizes with Apple's on-device foundation models, and both ship with macOS 26 on Apple Silicon. That requirement is the reason there is no server: the intelligence is already in the operating system. tl;dv has no such requirement, because the intelligence runs in its cloud.
FAQ
How much does tl;dv cost?
The free plan is $0 and includes unlimited recordings, unlimited transcription in 30+ languages and AI notes on up to 10 meetings. Pro is $18 per seat per month billed annually, Business is $29, and Enterprise is quoted. The page advertises up to 40% off for annual billing, so monthly costs more. From tldv.io/app/pricing, checked 26 July 2026.
Is there a meeting notetaker that does not upload anything?
Minutes. It records, transcribes and summarizes entirely on your Mac using the models inside macOS, so there is no server for the audio to reach.
Is there a limit on how long a meeting can be?
tl;dv's plan table lists a 3 hour recording limit on every plan, including Enterprise. Minutes records until you stop it or the disk fills.
Can Minutes work for a team?
No. It is a single-Mac, single-person tool with no shared workspace and no CRM sync. If several people need to search the same calls, tl;dv is the right tool and this page is not trying to talk you out of it.
Which Macs does Minutes run on?
macOS 26 on Apple Silicon. That floor is the reason there is nothing to upload.
Keep the meeting on your Mac
Both sides transcribed, the summary written on device, decisions and promises pulled out with an Add button. Markdown in a folder you own. $29.99 once.
Get Minutes, $29.99 Try free for 7 daysmacOS 26 on Apple Silicon · nothing uploaded, ever · 7-day trial, no card up front
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