Fireflies
AI meeting assistant for automated transcription and searchable conversation intelligence
Best for small and mid-market publishers.
Summary review · Last verified Oct 19, 2026 · Scored on 10 criteria · Vendors can't pay for scores
Research by Vahe Arabian · Scored and edited by the SODP team
Key facts
- Score
- 2.7 / 5
- Tier
- Limited
- Pricing model
- Free tier available; Pro plan at $10/us…
- Type
- Transcription
- Hosting
- SaaS
- Publishers using it
- 1
- Founded
- 2016
- HQ
- San Francisco, United States
- Headcount
- 130
At a glance
- Fireflies scores 2.7/5 (Limited) in Benchmark Grid's independent transcription software benchmark, assessed on 10 published criteria.
- It is built for small and mid-market publishers.
- Strongest on Integrations & API (4.6) and Security & data retention (4.5); weakest on Editing & verification workflow (2.8).
- Pricing: Free tier available; Pro plan at $10/user/mo, Business plan at $19/user/mo (billed annually), and Enterprise at $39/user/mo.
- 1 publishers in our tracking use Fireflies, from ads.txt files, page code and public case studies.
- Scores last verified 19 Oct 2026. Vendors cannot pay for a score or a position.
Summary
Editor's update, July 2026: 19 Oct 2026 accuracy audit: language score 2.2->3.8 (100+ languages, auto-detection); removed '7 languages' con; Pro/Business prices in pros/cons aligned with pricing field.
Fireflies.ai automates meeting transcription and analysis across major video platforms, helping business teams capture and search every conversation.
Fireflies is a sophisticated meeting intelligence platform designed to eliminate the manual burden of note-taking. By autonomously joining calls on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, it creates a searchable repository of every conversation. It is primarily built for business professionals, sales teams, and recruiters who need to track action items and sentiment across hundreds of hours of dialogue without manual intervention.
The platform's strengths lie in its deep integration ecosystem and advanced AI capabilities. Features like 'AskFred' allow users to treat their meeting transcripts as interactive databases, while the conversation intelligence suite provides valuable data on talk-time and speaker sentiment. Its compliance with SOC 2 and HIPAA also makes it a viable candidate for enterprise-level deployment where data privacy is paramount.
However, Fireflies is less suited for editorial or creative media workflows that require nuanced linguistic precision or specialized transcription formats. It transcribes in 100+ languages with automatic language detection, but multi-language mode for mixed-language meetings is limited to Business and Enterprise plans. Additionally, some of its most powerful analytical features are locked behind the higher-priced Business and Enterprise tiers, which may limit its utility for those on the free or entry-level plans.
Score breakdown
2.7 = 0.45 × 3.70 capability + 0.40 × 1.00 publisher fit + 0.15 × 4.50 cost
Σ (criterion rating × weight) across 10 criteria · scale 1 (poor) → 5 (excellent)
The tool offers reliable transcription for business-oriented dialogue but lacks granular accuracy data for non-meeting scenarios.
18% of capability · What we check: Word error rate on real interviews, including accents, crosstalk and background noise.
Fireflies transcribes in 100+ languages with automatic language detection; multi-language mode for mixed-language meetings is on Business and above.
12% of capability · What we check: Number of languages transcribed and translated.
It provides a basic interface for reviewing meeting transcripts, but lacks advanced editorial tools for high-precision text manipulation.
12% of capability · What we check: Tools to check transcripts against audio and correct them quickly.
The platform is designed for automated, rapid processing of meeting recordings with near-instant availability of summaries.
10% of capability · What we check: Speed of transcription and live transcription support.
Extensive integration ecosystem includes over 100 connections to major CRM and productivity tools like Salesforce and Slack.
10% of capability · What we check: Connections to CMS, recording tools and an API.
Fireflies offers AI summaries, shareable soundbite clips, search down to the sentence and timestamp, topic trackers, timestamped comments and team channels.
10% of capability · What we check: Quote extraction, summaries, search and collaboration.
The tool effectively identifies different speakers in meeting contexts and tracks individual talk-time metrics.
8% of capability · What we check: Accuracy of labelling who said what.
Provides useful meeting-specific outputs such as summaries and action items, though standard journalistic formats like VTT are not specifically highlighted.
8% of capability · What we check: SRT and VTT captions, timestamps and document exports.
Maintains strong security standards with SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance, suitable for sensitive business data.
8% of capability · What we check: Encryption, retention controls and no training on customer audio.
Strong support for major video conferencing platforms and screen capture, though generic audio/video file import versatility is less defined.
4% of capability · What we check: File formats and sources accepted.
Fireflies scores 2.7/5 in Benchmark Grid's independent Best Transcription Software benchmark (benchmarkgrid.com/best-transcription-software/fireflies, verified Oct 19, 2026)
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- Specialized in business meeting transcription
- AI search feature for specific words and topic filtering
- Conversation Intelligence with post-meeting notes, talk time, and sentiment analysis
- Unlimited transcription on Pro tier ($10/seat/month billed annually)
- 40% discount for annual billing
- Trusted by Netflix, Expedia, and Uber
- Free tier available
Limitations
- Multi-language mode only on Business and Enterprise plans
- Advanced features locked behind the Business tier ($19/seat/month billed annually)
- Free tier has limited transcription
Who uses it
Detected from site code, ads.txt records and published case studies — not from the vendor's own customer list. 0 confirmed, 1 seen in a single source.
By publisher size
By content vertical
Publishers running Fireflies1
- Fireflies PressSMB· Arts & Entertainment· reported
Cost of ownership
Pricing
Free tier available; Pro plan at $10/user/mo, Business plan at $19/user/mo (billed annually), and Enterprise at $39/user/mo.
Pricing unclear for your setup? — we'll make the introduction. Free, and it never affects the score.
Cost data sourced from vendor pricing pages and community signals. Vendors may dispute any factor.
What users say
Sources: Reddit 33% · Hacker News 33% · G2 17% · Capterra 17%
Most discussed
Recent quotes
"Fireflies has become non-negotiable in my workflow. It's elevated the quality of my work, sharpened my accuracy, and meaningfully improved my productivity — and that's not a combination you find often in a single tool."
Positive·Capterra·3mo ago
"Granola, Otter, Fireflies all do. This doesn't."
Negative·Hacker News·6mo ago
"I own 20 or so Fireflies lights"
Positive·Reddit·1mo ago
"Researches each prospect by aggregating context from multiple sources: HubSpot contact/deal/account data, internal Slack discussions about the prospect, Fireflies call transcripts"
Positive·Hacker News·9mo ago
"Fireflies: best for teams that are fine with a bot and want lots of integrations."
Positive·Reddit·1mo ago
6 mentions from 4 independent sources, each read and scored by our analyser. Mentions we could not tie to a real user, and those flagged as promotional, are excluded. Sentiment is opinion, and is independent of the verified publisher adoptions shown above.
The company behind Fireflies
Fireflies is operated by Fireflies.ai. Company facts come from an independent business-data record rather than the vendor's own site.
- Founded
- 2016
- Employees
- 130
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, United States
- Ownership
- Privately Held
Compare Fireflies
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FAQ
How is Fireflies scored?
Fireflies scores 2.7 out of 5 in Benchmark Grid's independent Best Transcription Software benchmark. The overall figure blends capability (45%), publisher fit (40%) and cost of ownership (15%). Capability is itself a weighted average of 10 criteria; the heaviest are transcription accuracy (18%), language coverage & translation (12%) and editing & verification workflow (12%). Vendors cannot pay for a score.
What size publisher is Fireflies built for?
Fireflies is built for small and local publishers and mid-market publishers. That is the vendor's own stated target, and it is one of the inputs to our publisher-fit score — a platform that suits a national newsroom often carries more operational load than a small one can absorb.
What does Fireflies cost?
Free tier available; Pro plan at $10/user/mo, Business plan at $19/user/mo (billed annually), and Enterprise at $39/user/mo. Our cost-of-ownership score is 4.5/5, which weighs pricing transparency, entry cost, implementation cost, hidden-fee risk and ongoing cost. Ask the vendor for a written first-year figure that includes implementation before you commit.
Who uses Fireflies?
We have evidenced 1 publisher running Fireflies. Adoptions are detected from site code, ads.txt records and published case studies rather than taken from the vendor's own customer list, and each one is listed on this page.
Can Fireflies pay for a better score?
No. Scores come from our editorial review of the product's documentation, demos and public evidence. A vendor can claim this listing or request a re-review, but nothing they buy changes a score or a position.
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