Fathom vs Wave AI

Fathom

• Individuals who want unlimited recording and transcription without paying
• Sales teams that log calls to HubSpot or Salesforce
• Teams that share clips and highlights from customer calls

Wave AI

• Recording in-person conversations and meetings from a phone or watch
• Phone calls that need both sides transcribed and summarized
• Households sharing one App Store subscription through Family Sharing

Fathom

• On the Free plan, advanced summaries cover only the first 5 calls each month, and action items and Ask Fathom are limited.
• Team and Business plans have a 2-user minimum.
• Bot-free capture is Mac only for now. There is no Android app, and Linux, Chromebooks and iPads are not supported.
• CRM field sync, deal view and coaching scorecards require the Business plan.

Wave AI

• The Free plan is a pool of 30 minutes a month, and imported files, phone calls and bot-recorded meetings all count toward it.
• Prices depend on where you buy: Pro is $80 a year on the web but $100 through the App Store or Google Play, and the vendor says prices vary by country.
• Teams needs at least 5 seats, and the $7.50 rate applies only from 20 seats; smaller teams pay $8 to $8.33 per user a month.
• Browser recording is microphone-only and capped at 3 hours a session, and offline recordings are transcribed only once the device is back online.

Fathom

Bot or bot-free capture

Record with a meeting bot that joins the call, or capture from the desktop app with nothing added to the meeting. Bot-free capture is in beta and currently works on Mac only.

AI summaries and action items

A summary is ready when the call ends. Free accounts get advanced summary templates on their first 5 calls each month; paid plans remove the cap and add AI action items.

Ask Fathom

Ask questions about a single call or across the calls in your account and get answers drawn from the transcripts. Use is limited on the Free plan.

Clips and playlists

Cut highlights out of a recording and group them into playlists to share with people who missed the meeting. Included on every plan.

CRM sync

Sends call notes to HubSpot, Salesforce or Close. The Business plan adds CRM field sync, a deal view, and coaching metrics with AI scorecards.

Team workspace

Team plans add global search across everyone's calls, comments, folders and keyword alerts that flag when chosen terms come up.

Wave AI

Recording on every device

Record from a phone, an Apple Watch or Wear OS watch, the desktop app, a browser or the Chrome extension. Phone recording continues in the background and with the screen locked.

Meeting bot or bot-free capture

A bot can join Zoom, Google Meet and Teams calls from a connected calendar or a pasted link. The desktop app instead records the microphone and system audio with no bot in the call.

Phone call recording

Calls dialed from Wave's keypad, or bridged in while already in progress, are recorded on both sides, transcribed and summarized, with your own number shown as caller ID.

Transcripts and custom summaries

Transcripts carry speaker labels in 76 languages, and Voice ID remembers a named speaker for later recordings. Summaries use built-in templates or ones you save yourself.

Wave Assistant

The assistant searches and chats across the whole recording history, answering questions such as what was decided in a series of meetings from the relevant sessions.

Sharing, exports and API

Sessions export to Notion, Google Docs, OneNote, Evernote, PDF or DOCX, or go out as a public link. A developer API, an MCP server for Claude and ChatGPT, and Zapier are available.

Fathom

• Free$0

  Unlimited recordings and transcription, instant AI summaries, clips, playlists and search across calls.

• Team$15

  per user / month, billed annually ($19 monthly), 2-user minimum

  Everything in Premium, plus global search across calls, comments, folders and keyword alerts.

• Premium$16

  per user / month, billed annually ($20 monthly)

  For individuals: advanced call summaries, AI action items, the conversational assistant and a custom meeting bot.

• Business$25

  per user / month, billed annually ($34 monthly), 2-user minimum

  Everything in Team, plus CRM field sync, deal view, coaching metrics with AI scorecards and custom summaries.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Everything in Business, plus SSO, SCIM provisioning, custom retention, dedicated support and an onboarding program.

Wave AI

• Free$0

  30 minutes of recording a month with AI transcription and summaries, on iOS, Android and the web. Earlier recordings stay in the library.

• Pro$6.67

  per month, billed annually ($80); $15 billed monthly

  Unlimited recording, transcription, summaries and action items on every device, with exports to PDF, OneNote and email. $100 a year if bought in the app stores.

• Teams$7.50

  per user / month, billed annually ($90), at 20+ seats

  5-seat minimum: $8.33 per user a month for 5 to 9 seats and $8 for 10 to 19. Everything in Pro, plus centralized billing and an admin dashboard.

Fathom

• Annual discount

  Lower per-user price on annual billing

  Fathom labels annual billing "save 25%+". At listed prices Premium drops from $20 to $16, Team from $19 to $15 and Business from $34 to $25 per user per month.

• Nonprofit

  10 free seats for nonprofits

  Fathom's pricing page offers nonprofits 10 free seats. An application is required.

• Startups

  Up to 2 years of Team free for startups

  Under the Qualified Portfolio Program, startups affiliated with select venture firms and accelerators get up to 2 years of Fathom Team free.

Wave AI

• Annual discount

  $80 a year instead of $15 a month

  On the web, Pro costs $80 billed annually, which the pricing page shows as $6.67 a month, against $15 a month on monthly billing.

• Other savings

  20% less on the web than in app stores

  The pricing page lists annual Pro at $80 on the web and $100 through the App Store or Google Play, and labels the web price 20% less.

• Other savings

  Family Sharing on App Store subscriptions

  A Wave Pro subscription bought through the App Store extends to everyone in an Apple Family Sharing group at no extra cost, each with a private account.