Why Australian firms look past Otter
Otter is a good product. Its pricing page says it joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet to write and share notes, and it records and transcribes those meetings. For internal meetings it does the job well. Regulated Australian firms tend to hit three other questions.
- Where does the data live? Otter's subprocessor list names Amazon Web Services, located in the United States, as its customer data storage provider. Sending client information offshore is a cross-border disclosure under Australian Privacy Principle 8.
- Is anyone recording? Recording a call brings the state surveillance and listening devices laws into play.
- Is the output a file note? A file note records what the client told you, what you advised and what happens next, in your firm's format. Reformatting a meeting summary every time eats the time you saved.
The alternatives at a glance
| Tool | Records audio? | Joins as a bot? | Data location | Structured file notes? | CRM push | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Otter.ai | Yes | Yes (joins Zoom, Teams, Meet) | United States (AWS) | Meeting notes | HubSpot, Salesforce | Free plan; Pro US$8.33 billed annually; Business US$19.99 billed annually |
| Fireflies | Yes | Yes by default; Chrome extension option without the bot | United States by default; Enterprise can store elsewhere but processing stays in the US | Meeting notes | HubSpot, Salesforce (saving transcripts to HubSpot needs Pro or higher) | Free plan; paid plans per seat (pricing page does not state a currency) |
| Granola | Captures device audio, transcribes it, does not keep the audio | No | United States (AWS) | Meeting notes with templates | HubSpot, Affinity, Attio on Business; Salesforce on Enterprise | Free plan; Business and Enterprise per user (pricing page does not state a currency) |
| tl;dv | Yes, including video | Bot or bot-free recording | European Union | Meeting notes | HubSpot, Salesforce | Free plan; Pro €18, Business €29 billed annually |
| Fathom | Yes, including video | Bot, or bot-free (beta, Mac) | United States | Meeting notes | HubSpot, Salesforce | Free plan; Premium US$16, Team US$15, Business US$25 billed annually |
| Teams intelligent recap | Needs transcription on; recording for the full recap | No (built into Teams) | Your Microsoft 365 region; new Australian tenants can have Teams data in Australia | AI meeting notes and tasks | Recap stays in Teams | Add-on Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot licence |
| CallNote | No, never | No | Australia (AWS Sydney) | Yes, in your own template | The one CRM you connect: HubSpot, Clio or Microsoft Dynamics 365 (plus Slack, Notion, Zapier) | A$149 Solo; A$99 per seat on Team; 14-day free trial |
The six alternatives, one by one
1. Fireflies
Fireflies is the closest swap for Otter. Its bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and other platforms, and it also offers a Chrome extension that records without the bot. Its knowledge base says data is stored and processed in the United States on AWS and Google Cloud by default. Enterprise customers can use private storage, including their own AWS or Google Cloud bucket, but Fireflies notes that EU-stored data is still processed in the US.
Its help centre lists a free tier and paid Pro, Business and Enterprise plans, priced per seat. Neither its pricing page nor its help centre states the currency, so check the price at checkout. Its knowledge base says saving meeting transcripts to HubSpot needs Pro or higher.
Better than CallNote if you run a sales or client team on video calls, want every meeting recorded and searchable, and are comfortable with US hosting. See CallNote vs Fireflies.
2. Granola
Granola is the bot-free option most people mention. Its security page says it does not add a bot to your call. You start it on your computer and it transcribes your microphone and meeting audio in real time on macOS or Windows, and it does not store the audio. On mobile it transcribes after the meeting from temporarily cached audio. Notes are stored in a US-hosted AWS environment.
Granola trains its own models on anonymised data, with an opt-out, and does not let third parties such as OpenAI or Anthropic train on it. There is a free plan, plus paid Business and Enterprise plans priced per user. The pricing page does not state a currency.
Better than CallNote if you want the tool to capture the meeting itself, without a visible bot, for your own laptop meetings. Keep in mind that capturing device audio is still listening to the conversation, so the consent question does not go away. See CallNote vs Granola.
3. tl;dv
tl;dv records Zoom, Google Meet and Teams meetings and produces a video recording, transcript and summary. Its homepage advertises recording with no bot required. Its homepage says data is hosted and stored in the EU, and that recordings and transcripts are never used to train AI.
Pricing is a free plan, Pro at €18 billed annually (€29 monthly) and Business at €29 (€39 monthly).
Better than CallNote if you want video recordings of client meetings, you prefer European hosting over US hosting, and a free plan matters. See CallNote vs tl;dv.
4. Fathom
Fathom has a generous free plan. Its pricing page offers a choice of bot capture or bot-free capture, which is a beta feature for Mac. Its help centre says all Fathom data is stored in the United States. Its AI subprocessors are not allowed to train on your data, but Fathom uses de-identified data to improve its own models unless you opt out in settings.
Paid plans are listed in US dollars, per user per month billed annually: Premium US$16, Team US$15 and Business US$25 (Team and Business need at least two users). It integrates with HubSpot and Salesforce.
Better than CallNote if you want a capable free note taker for video meetings without paying anything. See CallNote vs Fathom.
5. Microsoft Teams intelligent recap (Teams Premium or Copilot)
Microsoft's admin documentation says intelligent recap needs a Teams Premium or Microsoft Copilot licence on top of Microsoft 365, and transcription must be turned on. For the full meeting recap, with speakers, topics and chapters, recording must be allowed too. Recap also works on phone (PSTN) calls if the user has Teams Phone and a calling plan.
Data stays in your Microsoft 365 tenant. Microsoft says Teams offers data residency in Australia for new tenants, while existing Australian tenants keep their Teams data in the APAC region. Your admin can check this under Settings, Organization profile, Data location.
Better than CallNote if everyone is on Teams, you already pay for Premium or Copilot, and a meeting recap is enough for your records. The gap is the note itself. A recap is a meeting summary in Microsoft's format, and it is not a sealed, locked file note in your firm's template. CallNote can take those same Teams transcripts automatically and turn them into your firm's note. Our guide to file notes from Microsoft Teams transcripts shows how.
6. CallNote
This is ours. CallNote never records a call, never joins a meeting as a bot and never stores call audio. It takes a transcript that already exists and turns it into a structured file note in your firm's own format.
- Automatic: Aircall (with AI Assist on), Dialpad (Pro or Enterprise) and Microsoft Teams (the firm's Teams admin turns on transcript access once).
- Manual: paste, upload a .vtt or .txt export from Zoom or Google Meet, forward it by email (attached or pasted), or dictate a voice memo after an in-person meeting.
- Your format: paste one of your past notes and CallNote builds a template with your headings, order and shorthand. Nothing about that client is kept.
- Records that hold up: review the note, then Publish to CRM. The note is sealed with a SHA-256 checksum and locked, amendments are append-only, and there is a full audit log.
- Where it goes: the one CRM your firm connects (HubSpot, Clio or Microsoft Dynamics 365), plus Slack, Notion, Zapier, PDF and copy.
Data is hosted in Sydney on AWS, encrypted, and not used to train AI. Pricing is A$149 a month for Solo or A$99 per seat per month on Team, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card.
The honest limits. CallNote does not capture anything. If your phone system or meeting platform does not produce a transcript, you need another tool to make one, or you dictate a voice memo. There is no native integration with LEAP, Smokeball, Actionstep, Xplan, AdviserLogic, Mercury, Salestrekker, MyCRM, Salesforce or Pipedrive. Notes go across by copy and paste, PDF, or Zapier where your system supports it. And there is no free plan, only the trial.
Why regulated Australian firms care about the difference
Recording consent varies by state
Recording a private conversation is governed by state and territory law. New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT generally require the consent of all parties, subject to limited exceptions. Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory generally allow a party to the conversation to record it. Recording a phone call as it passes over the network is also covered by the federal Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. Our state-by-state guide to recording calls lists each Act.
A visible bot at least tells everyone the meeting is being captured. With a bot-free tool the disclosure has to come from you. A transcript-only tool records nothing, but whatever made the transcript still needs consent. Our piece on meeting bots versus transcript-only tools walks through each set-up.
Data location and the Privacy Act
Australian Privacy Principle 8 requires you to take reasonable steps before disclosing personal information to an overseas recipient, and under section 16C of the Privacy Act you can remain accountable for how that recipient handles it. Offshore hosting is not banned. It is one more thing to document, and some licensees have decided client conversations stay in Australia.
Record keeping
- Mortgage brokers: you must be able to give a client a copy of the preliminary assessment for up to seven years after the credit quote (National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 s 120), so the notes behind it need to last that long.
- Financial advisers: records of personal advice to retail clients must be kept for seven years from the day the advice was given (Corporations Act 2001 s 912G, as inserted by ASIC Instrument 2024/508).
- Lawyers: under rule 14 of the Australian Solicitors' Conduct Rules, client documents can generally be destroyed seven years after the engagement ends, unless there are instructions or legislation to the contrary.
A meeting app you might cancel next year is a weak home for a seven-year record. Make sure the final note lands in your CRM or practice management system.
What the output should look like
Whatever you choose, test it against a real note. Here is a fictional mortgage broker phone call written the way a file note should read. It records what the client said, what was checked, what was advised and who does what next.
- What the client wants
Sam wants a lower repayment on his home loan. He has $486,000 owing on a variable rate with 24 years left. He wants to keep an offset account because he holds about $30,000 in savings.
- Changes in circumstances
Sam changed employer in July. Same role, full time, now past a three-month probation. Salary has gone up. No new debts. One credit card with a $10,000 limit that he is happy to cancel.
- What we checked
- Confirmed the loan balance and rate from his latest statement, which he emailed during the call.
- Asked about expected changes in the next few years. Sam said none planned.
- Estimated the loan-to-value ratio (LVR, the loan as a share of the property value) at about 68 percent, based on a recent sale in his street. A valuation is still needed.
- Advice given
Explained that a refinance could lower his rate, but that switching costs and a new application need to be weighed against the saving. Explained that the new lender will want to see his payslips from the new job.
- Next steps
- Broker to send the credit guide and a list of documents today.
- Sam to send two recent payslips and his latest credit card statement by Friday.
- Broker to compare three lenders with offset accounts and call Sam next week.
Our NCCP file note compliance checklist and file note template library give you the headings to test any tool against.
Which alternative for which firm
| If this is you | Look at |
|---|---|
| You want a free, capable note taker for video meetings and US hosting is fine | Fathom, or the free plans of Fireflies, tl;dv or Granola |
| You do not want a bot in the meeting and you mostly meet on your laptop | Granola, or bot-free modes in tl;dv and Fathom |
| You want video recordings kept outside the US | tl;dv (Europe) |
| Your firm is all-in on Microsoft 365 and a meeting recap is enough | Teams intelligent recap with Teams Premium or Copilot |
| Your calls already produce transcripts (Aircall, Dialpad, Teams, Zoom exports) and you need a file note in your format, stored in Australia, published to HubSpot, Clio or Dynamics | CallNote |
| You need a tool to record in-person client meetings for you | Not CallNote on its own. Use a recorder, or dictate a voice memo afterwards |
You can see every head-to-head on our comparison hub, including CallNote vs Otter. This article is general information, not legal advice. Check the current law in your state and your licensee's or firm's policies before you change how you capture client calls.
Common questions
What is the best Otter.ai alternative in Australia?
It depends on the job. Fathom and tl;dv have strong free plans, Granola avoids a meeting bot, tl;dv stores data in Europe, and Microsoft Teams intelligent recap suits firms already on Teams Premium or Copilot. For Australian brokers, advisers and lawyers who need a structured file note stored in Australia, CallNote turns an existing transcript into a note in the firm's own format without recording anything.
Where does Otter.ai store its data?
Otter's published subprocessor list names Amazon Web Services, located in the United States, as its cloud and customer data storage provider. Otter's privacy page also says it de-identifies user data before using it to train its own models.
Is there an Otter alternative that stores data in Australia?
Yes. CallNote hosts data in Sydney on AWS. Microsoft Teams recap keeps data in your Microsoft 365 tenant, and Microsoft says new Australian tenants can have Teams data stored in Australia, while existing Australian tenants keep it in the APAC region. Fireflies, Granola and Fathom store data in the US by default, and tl;dv stores it in Europe.
Do I need client consent to use an AI note taker?
If the tool records the conversation, state law applies. NSW, WA, SA, Tasmania and the ACT generally require all parties to consent, and Victoria, Queensland and the NT generally allow a party to record. Phone call interception is also covered by the federal Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. Telling clients up front and noting their agreement is the safe habit everywhere.
Does CallNote record calls like Otter does?
No. CallNote never records calls, never joins a meeting as a bot and never stores audio. It receives a transcript your phone system or meeting platform already made, from Aircall, Dialpad or Microsoft Teams automatically, or by paste, file upload, email or voice memo, and turns it into a file note.