# Granola: reviews and analysis

> The notepad that records your computer audio without putting a robot in the call and fills out the notes you are already taking.

- Canonical: https://serchai.com/en/reviews/granola/
- Site: Serchai (https://serchai.com) — AI tools comparator
- Language: en
- Updated: 2026-08-03

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## Verdict

Granola strays furthest from the segment mould: it sends no robot into the video call, captures your computer audio and, rather than writing the notes itself, fills out the ones you take. The execution convinces, with 4.97 out of 5 across 10,854 App Store votes and native apps on four systems, and the price is among the cleanest in the segment at $14 per user per month with no annual plans to sign. Two things weigh against it. On 30 July 2026 a class action was filed against it in California, case 3:26-cv-07926-EMC, over recording without all-party consent, which as of today remains unresolved allegations. And it keeps no audio, so there is no recording to fall back on when the notes come up short.

**Best for:** People who take notes and want to keep taking them, and would rather not put a robot in client calls.

**Rating:** 4.1/5

## Pros

- It puts no robot in the meeting: it captures the computer audio itself
- Clean pricing with no annual commitment, and billing documentation confirming annual plans do not exist
- It works for Zoom, Meet, Teams, an in-person meeting or a call alike, because it does not depend on platform integration

## Cons

- An unresolved class action over recording without all-party consent, filed on 30 July 2026
- The free plan stops letting you see your notes after thirty days, though it does not delete them
- It stores no audio, so there is no recording to fall back on when the notes come up short

## Key facts

- Price: Permanent free tier + paid from 14 USD
- Free trial: No
- Platforms: Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android
- Categories: [Office](https://serchai.com/en/best-ai/office/)
- Official website: https://www.granola.ai

## What the internet says (agentic sweep)

Granola is the tool in this segment that strays furthest from the mould: it sends no robot into the video call, captures the computer's own audio and, rather than writing the notes by itself, fills out the rough jottings the user is already making. The idea has worked, with a 4.97 out of 5 rating across 10,854 App Store votes, native apps on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android, and a $125 million Series C in March 2026 at a $1.5 billion valuation. Pricing is among the cleanest in the segment at $14 per user per month, and its own billing documentation confirms annual plans do not exist. There are three objections. The first and most serious is legal and very recent: on 30 July 2026 a class action was filed against it in the Northern District of California, case 3:26-cv-07926-EMC, over recording without all-party consent, and as of today these are unresolved allegations with no class certified and no public response from the company. The second is product: it stores no audio, so there is no going back to the recording, and capture degrades in meeting rooms with several people and a speakerphone. The third is plan design: the free tier does not delete your old notes but stops letting you see them after thirty days, a paywall applied retroactively to your own archive. In its favour, its documentation is among the most honest in the sector and states in writing limitations most makers never publish.

- Sweep date: 2026-08-03
- Derived score: 4.1/5

### Axes

- Results: 4.3/5
- Control: 3.5/5
- Real price: 4.2/5
- Integration: 4.2/5
- Support: 3.9/5

### Recurring themes in favor

- It puts no robot in the meeting: it captures the computer's own audio, so no extra participant shows up in the list (strong theme)
- Pricing is clean and the billing documentation confirms it: $14 per user per month, with no annual plans to sign (strong theme)
- Very high rating with real volume: 4.97 out of 5 across 10,854 App Store votes, which Apple rounds up to 5.0 (strong theme)
- Because it does not depend on integrating with a platform, it works for Zoom, Meet, Teams, an in-person meeting or a call alike (present theme)
- It keeps no meeting audio, only the transcript and your notes, which is an uncommon privacy stance (present theme)
- Templates turn the product into a system, pulling out decisions, tasks and follow-ups in whatever shape you define (present theme)

### Recurring themes against

- Class action filed on 30 July 2026 in California, case 3:26-cv-07926-EMC, over recording without all-party consent. These are allegations and no court has ruled (strong theme)
- Use of anonymised data for model improvement is on by default on the free and Business plans, and on Business each user has to turn it off individually (strong theme)
- The free plan stops letting you see your notes after thirty days, though it does not delete them, so the paywall bites into your own archive (strong theme)
- It stores no audio, so there is no recording to fall back on when the notes come up short (present theme)
- Capture degrades in meeting rooms with several people, a phone speaker and overlapping voices (present theme)
- Transcription and summarisation lean on third-party models, so the engine is not theirs even if the product layer is (present theme)
- The maker itself warns that internal jargon and company names transcribe poorly in multilingual mode (present theme)

### Sweep sources

- [Official pricing] https://www.granola.ai/pricing — Página oficial de precios, leída tres veces de forma independiente sobre el HTML servido. Tres planes y tres cifras literales, todas con la misma unidad «per user per month»: Basic a «$0» con el descriptor «Great for a free taste of Granola», Business a «$14» con «Great for individuals or small teams» y Enterprise a «$35» con «Great for larger companies». Lo relevante es lo que NO hay: ninguna de las cadenas «annual», «yearly», «billed» ni «per year» aparece en la página, y no existe conmutador de facturación, así que la cifra baja no esconde compromiso de un año. El límite del plan gratuito se enuncia sin número, «See limited meeting history», con un texto emergente que dice «Your meeting notes stay viewable and searchable for a limited time. Upgrade for unlimited history». La cadena «trial» no aparece ni una vez. El bloque de datos estructurados no declara ninguna oferta, pero sí «operatingSystem» con «macOS, Windows, iOS» y una valoración propia de 4,9 sobre 39, que por ser autodeclarada no se usa aquí como evidencia
- [Docs] https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/managing-your-account/subscriptions-and-billing — Documentación oficial de facturación, y la fuente que convierte dos suposiciones en hechos. Sobre la periodicidad dice literalmente «Annual billing: Annual plans are not currently available, billing is monthly only», lo que confirma que los 14 dólares no llevan compromiso anual escondido. Y sobre el plan gratuito pone el número que la página de precios calla: «Note history on the free plan: You can only see and use notes from the last 30 days in the app. Notes older than 30 days are not deleted, we keep them stored, but they are not accessible in Granola». Formula además el precio de Enterprise como «starting at $35/month», es decir un suelo y no una tarifa cerrada. Sirve también para descartar cifras de terceros que circulan y son falsas, como un supuesto tope de 25 notas de por vida o una ventana de 14 días
- [Docs] https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/customising-granola/multi-language — Documentación oficial de idiomas, leída para poder hablar del español sin inventar. Enumera para escritorio «English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese, Russian, and Hindi», con el español entre ellos, y afirma que en ese modo transcribe todos los idiomas de la lista «even if multiple languages are spoken in the same meeting», que es el caso real de un equipo hispano que salta al inglés a mitad de llamada. Añade que las aplicaciones de iOS y Android soportan además mandarín, finés, coreano, polaco, turco, ucraniano y vietnamita, pero que ahí el sistema «will analyze the transcript and choose a single language to transcribe in». Ninguna cifra total aparece escrita en la página, así que aquí no se publica ningún recuento propio. Recoge también el aviso del fabricante de que la jerga y los nombres de empresa se transcriben peor en modo multilingüe
- [Press] https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/22/granola-debuts-an-ai-notepad-for-meetings/ — Cobertura del debut público, fechada el 22 de mayo de 2024, que sirve para datar el producto y para medir cuánto ha cambiado. Describe la tesis que sigue vigente, que el usuario escribe apuntes sueltos y el sistema los completa con el contexto de la transcripción en lugar de generar el resumen por su cuenta. En ese momento el producto era solo para macOS, sin bot, conectado al calendario y funcionando con Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Slack y WebEx. Confirma que la capa de resumen se apoyaba en un modelo de terceros. Y fija el precio de entonces, «Granola is free to use for the first 25 meetings, then is a reasonable $10 per month», que es justo la política que ya no rige y por eso conviene tenerla fechada, porque esa cifra de 25 reuniones todavía circula por comparativas como si fuera actual
- [Press] https://ppc.land/granola-sued-for-recording-meetings-without-consent-to-train-ai-models/ — Cobertura de la demanda colectiva, publicada el 1 de agosto de 2026, contrastada contra el propio escrito judicial descargado del expediente público, cuyo sello de página dice «Case 3:26-cv-07926-EMC Document 1 Filed 07/30/26 Page 1 of 38». El caso es Chamberlain contra Granola, en el Distrito Norte de California, con Granola, Inc. y Granola Labs Ltd como demandadas. Alega que la aplicación se une automáticamente a videollamadas programadas y graba sin notificar a la mayoría de los participantes, e invoca entre otras la ley federal de escuchas y la californiana, que contempla daños de 5.000 dólares por infracción. El párrafo 144 reproduce la frase publicitaria «[O]ther people in the room won't know it's there», que hoy ya no aparece en la web de Granola, así que solo se puede comprobar en el expediente. La pieza recoge además el estado del asunto: «Neither Granola, Inc. nor Granola Labs Ltd. had filed a public response to the complaint as of this writing». Nada de esto está probado y ningún tribunal ha resuelto
- [App stores] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/granola-ai-meeting-notes/id6739429409 — Ficha de la App Store estadounidense, leída además por la interfaz pública de consulta de Apple para no publicar el redondeo como si fuera el dato. La página muestra «5.0 out of 5» y «11K Ratings», pero las cifras subyacentes son una media de 4,9661 sobre 10.854 valoraciones, así que lo honesto es publicar 4,97 y 10.854 y decir que Apple lo redondea. Es la medición de volumen más limpia de este expediente, porque no está teñida por el pleito ni escrita por un competidor, y dice que una base grande de usuarios está muy satisfecha. La ficha lista iPhone, iPad, Apple Vision y Apple Watch. Aviso de identidad: hay una segunda ficha antigua en la tienda que hoy devuelve un error, así que la vigente es esta
- [Communities] https://zackproser.com/granola — Reseña independiente de doce meses de uso diario, revisada el 13 de mayo de 2026, y la mejor fuente cualitativa del expediente precisamente porque no es una prueba de una semana. A favor describe el sistema de plantillas con «The template rendered, Granola pulls action items, decisions, and follow-ups out of the transcript automatically» y estima unas 2,7 horas semanales ahorradas en una semana de doce reuniones. En contra aporta lo que ninguna página comercial cuenta: que la captura se degrada en «A conference room with three people, one phone speaker, one whiteboard», que las voces solapadas hunden la transcripción y que la primera semana se va en montar plantillas. Sobre idiomas es explícito y por eso se cita, «capture is strong in English, decent in Spanish and French, weaker elsewhere». Y sobre privacidad se planta, porque no lo usa donde el consentimiento no está claro, ya que «The lack of a visible bot makes capture technically quiet without changing the ethical or legal obligation»


> **TLDR:** Granola sends no robot into your video call: it records your own computer's audio and fills out the rough notes you type as you go. That idea has worked, giving it native apps on four systems and one of the highest ratings in the segment. It costs $14 per user per month and bills monthly only, so there is no annual commitment to sign. Two things to know before installing it: on 30 July 2026 a class action was filed against it in California over recording without all-party consent, and it keeps no recordings, so if you want to listen back to the call this is not your tool.

## What Granola is and how it works

Granola starts from a different premise than the rest of the segment. Almost every notes tool sends a robot participant into the meeting, records, and hands you a summary it wrote. Granola never joins the call: it installs on your machine, captures the system audio and lets you jot rough notes while you talk. When the meeting ends, it takes those notes of yours and fills them out with what was actually said.

The practical difference is authorship. The write-up is not what a machine decided mattered, it is what you noted down, tidied and completed with context from the transcript. For anyone who already took notes and simply wanted to stop missing half the conversation while writing them, it fits well.

The other consequence is that it works anywhere. Because it does not depend on integrating with a video platform, it covers Zoom, Meet and Teams exactly as it covers an in-person meeting or a phone call. That is its trump card, and also the origin of its legal problem.

The company was founded in March 2023 and the product went public in May 2024, initially on Mac only. It has grown fast since, and in March 2026 raised $125 million led by Index Ventures. This is not a project about to vanish next month, which matters when you hand it the archive of your meetings.

Worth saying where the intelligence comes from. Transcription and summarisation lean on third-party models. What belongs to Granola is the bot-free capture, the merging of your notes with the transcript, the templates and the shared folders. That is a real product layer rather than a text box, but the engine is not theirs.

## What it is like to use day to day

The most noticeable thing is the absence of the robot. There is no oddly named guest in the participant list, no explaining to a client what just joined the call, and no asking the organiser for permission to bring a tool into their meeting. Anyone who has lived that awkwardness gets the appeal immediately.

And here is the trade-off, which needs saying in full: invisible recording does not remove the duty to disclose. In many jurisdictions, including much of Europe and several US states, recording a conversation requires participant consent. A tool that never appears on screen makes that easier to forget, not more lawful.

The rest of the experience is spare and quick. Templates are what turn the product into a system: you define what you want out of each kind of meeting and the tool extracts decisions, tasks and follow-ups in that shape. Someone who used it daily for a year describes a twelve-meeting week as a shade under three hours saved, and also warns that the first week goes into building those templates.

Where it degrades is where everything degrades, with one wrinkle. Because it captures the computer's audio rather than each participant separately, a meeting room with several people, a phone speaker and a whiteboard is its worst case. On one-to-one calls it is sharp, in shared rooms it loses ground.

On languages the documentation is clear and worth reading before paying. On desktop it supports ten languages and handles several of them mixed in the same meeting, which is a real scenario for teams that switch tongues mid-call. Mobile adds seven more languages to that list, but there it picks a single language per meeting and mixing is discouraged. The maker also warns that internal jargon and company names transcribe poorly in multilingual mode. The person who used it for a year sums it up by saying capture is strong in English and decent in Spanish, which reads as a fair description.

One thing is missing that this segment treats as given, which is the ability to go back to the recording. Granola does not keep the audio: it transcribes and deletes it, retaining only the transcript and your notes. Its own comparison table marks the record-video-and-audio row with a cross. That is a defensible privacy decision and simultaneously a real loss if you are coming from a tool where you reviewed the call. There is a smaller limitation worth framing correctly because it circulates in exaggerated form: taking notes on phone calls exists only in the iPhone app, not the Android one, and there it cannot cover inbound calls because of restrictions in Apple's own system. It is not that the whole product fails on inbound calls, it is that this specific mobile feature does not reach them.

## The class action filed in July 2026

This deserves its own section because it is recent and goes to the heart of the product. On 30 July 2026 a class action was filed against Granola in the Northern District of California, case number 3:26-cv-07926-EMC, running to 38 pages. It alleges the tool automatically joins scheduled video calls and records without notifying most participants, and it invokes the federal wiretap statute and California's, which provides for damages of $5,000 per violation. As evidence of intent, paragraph 144 of the filing reproduces a marketing line about other people in the room not knowing the tool is there. Worth knowing that this line no longer appears on Granola's site today, so anyone wanting to check it has to go to the court record rather than the company's page.

Two things are told differently by the complaint and the maker, and both matter. The first is whether the software joins by itself: the complaint says it joins automatically, while Granola states on its site that you have to start it manually for each meeting and that it neither auto-joins nor auto-records. The second is what gets trained on. The complaint talks about the recordings, whereas Granola's documentation says audio is deleted after transcription and what may be used for model improvement is anonymised data. That last part the company does admit, with relevant small print: it is on by default on the free and Business plans, you have to go into settings to turn it off, on Business each user must do it individually, and the documentation concedes it cannot guarantee no data was used before you changed the setting.

What matters is the status. These are allegations. No court has ruled on anything, no class has been certified, there is no finding of illegality and none to the contrary either, and at the time of writing the company had not responded publicly. The existence of the suit does not mean Granola did anything unlawful. It does mean that if you work in a regulated sector, or your employer has a strict recording-consent policy, this is something to settle before installing it rather than after.

## Pricing and plans

The Basic plan costs nothing and is permanent. Its limit is not a meeting count but access to your own archive: notes stay stored, yet you can only consult them within a rolling thirty-day window. Past that they still exist and stop being reachable until you pay. It is a paywall applied retroactively to your own material, and worth knowing before you pile six months of meetings into it.

The paid tier is Business, at $14 per user per month. Here sits a virtue that is scarce in this segment: no annual toggle, no struck-through figure and no twelve-month commitment needed to see the good price. Fourteen dollars is fourteen dollars, and its billing documentation confirms it by stating that annual plans do not exist and billing is monthly only. Above it sits Enterprise, which the pricing page puts at $35 per user per month and the documentation qualifies as a starting figure rather than a fixed one.

There is no free trial declared as such. What exists is the free plan, which is a different thing: it never expires, but it closes your archive after thirty days.

Prices are published in dollars with no currency selector.

## Who it is for (and who it is not for)

Granola is for people who take notes and want to keep taking them, not for people who want to hand that off entirely. It fits especially well where the meeting is a real conversation and the value lies in the nuance you catch rather than in the literal transcript. And it is the best option in the segment if you are uncomfortable putting a robot into client calls, or if you hold a lot of in-person meetings.

It is not for anyone who needs to go back to the call recording, because none is kept, and there [Otter.ai](https://serchai.com/en/reviews/otter-ai/) or [Fireflies](https://serchai.com/en/reviews/fireflies/) cover what Granola leaves out. It is not for teams holding most of their meetings in shared rooms, where computer-audio capture is its weak point. And it is not for organisations with strict consent policies while the lawsuit remains unresolved. The full field is in the [best AI meeting notes tools](https://serchai.com/en/best-ai/meeting-notes/), and the wider category in the [best AI office tools](https://serchai.com/en/best-ai/office/).

## Alternatives to Granola

Inside the segment the split is clear. Granola for people who want bot-free capture and to write their own notes, [Fathom](https://serchai.com/en/reviews/fathom/) for those who want to start free with uncapped recording and transcription, and Otter for anyone who wants to watch the transcript advance live. When to pick each is laid out in [alternatives to Granola](https://serchai.com/en/alternatives/granola/).

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Does a robot join my meeting?

No, and that is its defining trait. Granola captures your computer's audio, so no extra participant shows up in the list. That does not excuse you from telling the others you are recording, which in many places is mandatory.

### What about the lawsuit against it?

It was filed on 30 July 2026 in California, case number 3:26-cv-07926-EMC, and alleges recording without all-party consent. These are allegations, no court has ruled and no class has been certified. If your sector is sensitive about this, settle it before installing.

### Does it train its models on my meetings?

According to its own documentation, what may be used is anonymised data rather than the audio, which is deleted after transcription. It is on by default on the free and Business plans, you turn it off in settings, on Business each user has to do it themselves, and the company concedes it cannot guarantee no earlier data was used before you changed it.

### Is $14 the real price?

Yes, and it is one of the few tools in this segment where the answer is that short. Its billing documentation says annual plans do not exist and billing is monthly only, so there is no twelve-month commitment to sign.

### Can I listen back to the meeting recording?

No. Granola does not store the audio: it transcribes and deletes it. You are left with notes and the transcript, which is enough for many people, but if your workflow includes reviewing the call this rules the tool out.

### Does it work in languages other than English?

Yes. On desktop it supports ten languages and handles several within the same meeting. Mobile adds seven more, but there it fixes a single language per meeting. The maker warns that jargon and company names transcribe worse in multilingual mode.

### What happens to my old notes on the free plan?

They are kept but stop being accessible past a thirty-day rolling window. They are not deleted, they sit behind the paywall until you subscribe.

## Alternatives

- [Fathom](https://serchai.com/en/reviews/fathom/) — Records and transcribes your meetings in 38 languages with the most generous free tier in the segment, and translates the notes into the language people spoke. (3.9/5)
- [Otter.ai](https://serchai.com/en/reviews/otter-ai/) — The bot that joins your meetings on its own, transcribes live and leaves the notes with the action items. (3.7/5)