If you’re researching Otter.ai for managers, you’re probably wondering if it actually delivers on the promise. Meeting transcription sounds like a dream. Someone else takes notes while you actually pay attention to the conversation. Every word captured, searchable, shareable.
Otter.ai promises exactly that. It joins your Zoom calls, transcribes everything, and spits out summaries with action items. No more scrambling to remember what was said. No more “can you send me the notes from that meeting?”
But here’s the thing. Transcription tools have been around for years, and most managers still don’t use them. Either they’re clunky, the transcripts are garbage, or they create more work than they save.
So does Otter actually deliver? I’ve been using it for several months across 1-on-1s, team meetings, and the occasional interview. Here’s what I found.
Table of Contents
What Otter.ai Does
Otter.ai is a meeting transcription tool that records, transcribes, and summarizes your conversations. You can use it for in-person meetings through the mobile app, or have it automatically join your video calls on Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams.
The core features most managers care about:
Live transcription. Otter listens and transcribes in real time. You can watch the words appear as people talk, which is useful for catching something you missed or for participants who are hard of hearing.
Automated summaries. After the meeting ends, Otter generates a summary highlighting key points and action items. You get this within minutes, not hours.
Speaker identification. It attempts to label who said what. When it works, you can search “what did Sarah say about the timeline?” and actually find it.
Searchable archive. Every transcript is saved and searchable. Need to find that conversation about the Q2 budget from three months ago? Search for it instead of scrolling through calendar invites.
Integrations. Otter connects with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Salesforce, and a handful of other tools. The calendar integration can automatically join scheduled meetings without you doing anything.
That’s the pitch. Now let’s talk about what it costs.
Pricing Breakdown
Otter.ai has a free tier and three paid plans. Here’s what you’re actually getting at each level.
Free Plan
You get 300 transcription minutes per month with a 30-minute limit per conversation. That’s roughly 10 half-hour meetings or 5 hour-long ones. Summaries and action items are included, but you’re limited on integrations and can only have basic export options. For a manager with a light meeting load who wants to try it out, this works.
Pro Plan ($16.99/month or $8.33/month billed annually)
Bumps you up to 1,200 minutes per month and 90 minutes per conversation. You get advanced search, custom vocabulary (helpful if your company uses jargon the AI struggles with), and the ability to sync with your calendar for automatic recording. This is the plan most individual managers land on.
Business Plan ($20/user/month billed annually)
Now you’re talking team features. 6,000 minutes pooled across your team, admin controls, usage analytics, and priority support. You also get longer conversation limits at 4 hours. Makes sense if your whole team is adopting it, but overkill for individual use.
Enterprise (custom pricing)
SSO, advanced security, dedicated support. Only relevant if your company is rolling this out organization-wide and has compliance requirements.
The real question: Is $8-17/month worth it for a manager? If you’re in 10+ hours of meetings per week and regularly need to reference what was said, probably yes. If you’re in 5 meetings a week and rarely look back at notes, the free tier is enough to test whether you’ll actually use it.
What Works Well
After several months of using Otter across different meeting types, here’s what actually delivers value.
1-on-1 documentation without the distraction. This is where Otter shines brightest. Taking notes during a 1-on-1 pulls your attention away from the person sitting across from you. With Otter running, you can actually listen, make eye contact, and be present. The transcript captures everything, and you clean it up later. I’ve found this makes the conversations better, not just better documented.
Searchable meeting history. Three weeks ago, someone mentioned a concern about the project timeline. You remember it happened but not the details. Instead of guessing or asking them to repeat themselves, you search for it. This sounds minor until you actually need it. Then it feels like a superpower.
Sharing recaps with absent team members. Someone misses a meeting. Instead of writing up a summary or scheduling a catch-up call, you send them the Otter link. They can read the transcript, skim the summary, or listen to the audio at 1.5x speed. Their choice. Takes you about 10 seconds.
Action item extraction. Otter attempts to pull out action items automatically. It’s not perfect, but it catches most of the obvious ones. “I’ll send that over by Friday” or “Can you follow up with the design team?” usually get flagged. It’s a starting point you can edit rather than a blank page.
Meeting prep from past conversations. Before a skip-level or a difficult conversation, I’ll sometimes search for previous discussions with that person. It helps me remember what we talked about last time, what they were working on, and what I said I’d do. Shows up prepared without relying on memory.
Documentation for performance reviews. Every 1-on-1 transcript becomes evidence you can reference later. When it’s time to write performance reviews, you have months of searchable conversations instead of trying to remember what happened in March.
What Doesn’t Work Well
No tool is perfect. Here’s where Otter falls short.
Accuracy drops with multiple speakers. One-on-one conversations transcribe well. Team meetings with five or six people talking over each other? The transcript gets messy. Otter struggles to keep up, misattributes quotes, and sometimes produces sentences that make no sense. You’ll spend time cleaning it up, which defeats the purpose.
Accents and jargon cause problems. If your team includes people with strong accents or you work in a field with specialized terminology, expect errors. Otter learns over time if you correct it, and the custom vocabulary feature helps, but out of the box it can mangle names, technical terms, and industry-specific language. I’ve seen it turn project names into complete nonsense.
The summaries are hit or miss. Sometimes the AI summary captures exactly what mattered. Other times it focuses on irrelevant small talk and misses the actual decisions. You can’t rely on the summary alone. Treat it as a draft, not a finished product.
Privacy and consent concerns. Recording meetings requires consent. Some people get uncomfortable when they see “Otter.ai” join the call. You need to be upfront about it, and in some contexts, legal or highly sensitive conversations for example, you probably shouldn’t use it at all. Know your company’s policy before you hit record.
Another subscription to manage. At $8-17/month, it’s not expensive. But it’s another tool in the stack, another login, another thing to check. If you’re not disciplined about actually using the transcripts, you’re paying for something that just collects dust in your archive.
Mobile app limitations. Recording in-person meetings through the phone app works, but audio quality matters a lot more. Background noise, people far from the mic, or a large conference room all degrade the transcript quality significantly.
Best Use Cases for Managers
Otter works better for some meeting types than others. Here’s where it earns its subscription.
1-on-1s with direct reports. This is the sweet spot. Two people, clear audio, conversations that matter months later. The transcript becomes documentation you can reference during performance reviews, and you’re not distracted by note-taking during the actual conversation. If you’re already using prompts to clean up your 1-on-1 meeting notes, Otter gives you better raw material to work with.
Skip-level meetings. When you’re meeting with someone two levels down, the details matter but you might not remember them. Having a searchable record of what they said, what concerns they raised, and what you committed to helps you follow through. It also protects you if something gets miscommunicated later.
Interviews. Hiring decisions are too important to rely on memory. Otter lets you focus on the candidate instead of scribbling notes, and you can review exact answers when comparing candidates afterward. Pair it with a structured approach using ChatGPT prompts for interviews, and you’ll make better hiring decisions.
Team meetings where decisions get made. Not every team meeting needs a transcript. But when you’re making decisions, assigning owners, or working through something complex, having a record helps. The people who missed it can catch up. The people who were there can verify what was actually agreed.
Where it’s less useful: Casual check-ins, quick syncs, brainstorming sessions where half the conversation is jokes and tangents. The transcription overhead isn’t worth it for low-stakes conversations you’ll never revisit.
Tips for Getting Better Results
Otter’s output quality depends heavily on how you set it up and how you use it. A few adjustments make a noticeable difference.
Use a decent microphone. Your laptop’s built-in mic picks up keyboard clicks, fan noise, and echo. A basic headset or external mic dramatically improves transcription accuracy. This matters more than any setting you can change in the app.
Train speaker identification. Otter gets better at recognizing voices if you label speakers in your first few transcripts. Take two minutes to correct the “Speaker 1” and “Speaker 2” labels with actual names. After a few meetings, it starts identifying people automatically. Skip this step and you’ll be manually fixing every transcript.
Add custom vocabulary. Go into settings and add your company’s jargon, product names, team member names, and industry terms. Otter will still make mistakes, but fewer of them. If you’re tired of seeing your project name transcribed as something ridiculous, this fixes it.
Position matters for in-person meetings. If you’re using the mobile app to record a meeting room conversation, put the phone in the center of the table, not in front of you. Everyone needs to be roughly the same distance from the mic. Corner placement means clear audio from two people and mumbling from everyone else.
Don’t record everything. Just because you can transcribe every meeting doesn’t mean you should. Be selective. The more transcripts you pile up, the harder it is to find anything useful. Stick to meetings where you’ll actually reference the content later.
Review transcripts the same day. Otter’s summaries and action items are a starting point. Skim the transcript while the meeting is fresh, fix any obvious errors, and pull out what matters. Waiting until Friday to review Monday’s transcript means you’ve already forgotten the context.
The Verdict: Is Otter.ai for Managers Worth It?
Otter.ai solves a real problem. Managers sit in hours of meetings every week, and most of what gets said evaporates within days. Having a searchable, shareable record changes that.
But it’s not magic. The transcripts need cleanup. The summaries need review. The accuracy depends on audio quality and how many people are talking. You’re not getting a perfect set of meeting notes automatically. You’re getting raw material that still requires some effort.
Who should use it:
Managers in 10+ hours of meetings per week who regularly need to reference past conversations. If you’re doing frequent 1-on-1s, skip-levels, or interviews, the time savings are real. If you’ve ever lost track of what you committed to or what someone told you three weeks ago, Otter pays for itself quickly.
Who should skip it:
Managers with light meeting loads or mostly informal check-ins. If you’re in 5 meetings a week and rarely need to look back at what was said, the free tier is enough to experiment with. No need to pay for something you won’t use.
The bottom line:
Start with the free plan. Use it for a few weeks on your 1-on-1s and see if you actually reference the transcripts. If you find yourself searching past meetings or sharing summaries, upgrade to Pro. If the transcripts sit untouched in your archive, save your money.
Otter is a good tool for the right use case. It’s not a must-have for every manager, but for those drowning in meetings and struggling to keep track, it’s worth the $8-17/month.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Otter.ai work with Microsoft Teams?
Yes. Otter integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. You can set it to automatically join scheduled meetings on your calendar, or manually add it to specific calls. The Teams integration works the same as the others, though some users report slightly better accuracy with Zoom.
Can other people see that Otter is recording?
Yes, and they should. When Otter joins a video call, it shows up as a participant named “Otter.ai” so everyone knows the meeting is being recorded. For in-person recordings through the app, you need to inform participants yourself. Recording without consent is a bad idea legally and professionally. Be upfront about it.
Is Otter.ai secure enough for sensitive conversations?
Otter uses encryption and SOC 2 compliance, which meets the bar for most business conversations. But use judgment. Highly confidential discussions, legal matters, HR investigations, or anything involving personal employee information probably shouldn’t be transcribed by a third-party tool. Check your company’s data policy before recording sensitive content.