A buyer walks through a three-bedroom house and says the kitchen is fine, the backyard is too small, and the commute is the real dealbreaker. Two hours later the buyer calls from the car with a new budget. By Friday the agent has had eleven conversations like that, half of them on the phone, and the notes live in texts and memory.
Most AI note-takers were built for video calls. An agent’s day happens in driveways, open houses and cell calls. A bot that joins a Zoom meeting does nothing for a buyer who changes their mind on the second floor of a listing, or for a seller who calls back after dinner with a counter. This roundup compares four tools, Fireflies, Circleback, Plaud and AmyNote, on that kind of day, using only what each vendor publishes about itself.
Quick Verdict
- Best for agents who live on the phone: Plaud. It is the only tool here that records a regular cell call, through a sensor that sits on the back of the phone. You buy a device first, from $159.
- Best free plan for showings: Circleback. Free covers unlimited meetings, including in-person ones on its phone apps. Free keeps only 30 days of history.
- Best for agents already on Zoom and a sales dialer: Fireflies. Free and Pro cap each recording at 2 hours, and it lists English as its only primary language.
- Best for multilingual buyers on an iPhone: AmyNote. It costs $99 a year and transcribes 140+ languages. It cannot record phone calls, has no CRM sync and carries no certifications.
What We Compared
We read each vendor’s pricing, privacy and product pages on October 17, 2026 and asked five questions:
- Phone calls. Can it capture a normal cell call with a client?
- Showings. Can it record a walk-through on a phone, with no bot and no laptop?
- History. How long does the free or entry plan keep your recordings?
- CRM and follow-up. Does it push notes into the tools a brokerage already uses?
- Privacy. Does the vendor say it trains AI on your clients’ words?
We also priced one agent for one year, billed annually. We did not test transcript accuracy. For an agent, the deciding questions are which conversations a tool can hear at all, and how long it remembers them.
Fireflies: Strong on Calls You Already Make Online
Strengths. Fireflies has a free plan, Pro at $10 a month billed annually or $18 monthly, and Business at $19 or $29. Its iOS and Android apps advertise unlimited in-person recording, so a showing fits on the phone. Its dialer integrations pull and transcribe calls made from Aircall, Outreach and similar apps. Its privacy policy says it does not use personal information for AI model training. SOC 2 Type II and GDPR are listed on every plan, and HIPAA on Enterprise.
Weaknesses. Fireflies records calls that run through a connected dialer, not a regular call from your cell number. Free and Pro stop each recording at 2 hours, Business at 3 and Enterprise at 4, and Free holds 400 minutes of storage for the whole team. Its own FAQ says English is the primary language and that 100+ others, including Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian, are in beta.
Who it suits. An agent or team that already runs client calls through Zoom or a sales dialer and works mostly in English.
Circleback: The Most Generous Free Plan
Strengths. Circleback’s Free plan includes unlimited meetings, online and in-person, with mobile and Apple Watch apps for the in-person ones. Pro costs $15 a user a month billed yearly, keeps a year of recordings and adds automations with HubSpot, Salesforce and other apps. Its FAQ says it does not use customer data to train models, and that it is SOC 2 Type II and EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework certified.
Weaknesses. Free keeps 30 days of meeting and recording history. A buyer who asks in March what was promised in January needs Pro, which keeps a year, or Business at $25, which keeps two. A HIPAA BAA sits on Enterprise at $35. We found no phone-call capture on its mobile page.
Who it suits. A new agent who wants free showing notes on iPhone or Android, or a team that wants follow-up pushed into HubSpot or Salesforce.
Plaud: The Only One That Hears a Cell Call
Strengths. Plaud Note has a phone call mode: the device attaches to the back of the phone and a vibration conduction sensor picks up the call. Its real estate page offers templates for buyer intake, property showings, seller negotiation and open houses. Its privacy policy says it will never use your content to train AI without explicit consent. It lists ISO 27001, ISO 27701, SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA and EN 18031, and transcribes 112+ languages.
Weaknesses. You must buy hardware. Plaud Note costs $159 and includes a 300-minute monthly Starter plan; Pro is $99.99 a year for 1,200 minutes, and Unlimited is $239.99 a year. Plaud’s own limitations line says call recording needs the magnetic case, modes switch by hand, and transcription needs a paired phone and internet. Plaud also tells agents to get consent from all parties and to check state recording laws and brokerage policy.
Who it suits. An agent whose deals move on cell calls and who is willing to carry, charge and attach a second device.
AmyNote: Multilingual Showings, No Phone Calls
Weaknesses first. AmyNote does not advertise phone-call recording, so it misses the call where a buyer changes the budget. It has no CRM integration, no team workspace and no free plan beyond a 3-day trial. It runs on iPhone and iPad only. It publishes no SOC 2, ISO 27001 or HIPAA certification.
Strengths. AmyNote records a showing or listing appointment with no bot and no extra device, and needs no account for core features. It transcribes 140+ languages and translates into 100+, useful for international buyers and their families. Recording, playback, reading and export to PDF, TXT or Word work offline. Pricing is flat, with no recording caps: $99 a year, $19.99 a month or $12.99 a week.
Privacy. AmyNote says it does not use your data to train AI models and does not sell meeting content. Transcription and AI run through Microsoft Azure, OpenAI and Anthropic’s Claude, behind Cloudflare, with TLS in transit, and AmyNote says that is not end-to-end encryption. The saved library lives on the agent’s iPhone. Local-first is not local-only: when a transcript or summary runs, the audio or text is uploaded and a processing copy may be retained in AmyNote’s cloud.
Who it suits. A solo agent who works from an iPhone, meets buyers in person, and regularly serves clients in more than one language.
Side-by-Side Comparison
- Regular cell calls: Plaud, with the device attached. Fireflies only through a connected dialer. Circleback and AmyNote no.
- History on the entry plan: Circleback Free 30 days, Pro one year. Fireflies Free 400 minutes per team. Plaud and AmyNote publish no history limit.
- CRM automation: Circleback Pro with HubSpot and Salesforce. Fireflies through its integrations. Plaud and AmyNote none listed.
- Trains on your recordings: all four say no.
- Certifications: Plaud lists six. Fireflies and Circleback list SOC 2 Type II. AmyNote none.
- Languages: AmyNote 140+. Plaud 112+. Circleback 100+. Fireflies English primary, the rest in beta.
- One agent, one year: Fireflies Free $0 or Pro $120. Circleback Free $0 or Pro $180. AmyNote $99. Plaud Note plus Pro $248.99.
Choosing the Right Tool for Your Business
The vendor pages answer what each tool can do. Which one fits depends on how your week actually runs. A few questions settle it quickly:
- Where do your deals actually move? If the decisive conversations are cell calls from your own number, Plaud is the only option here, and only with the device attached. If they run through Zoom or a dialer, Fireflies covers them.
- How far back do you need to look? Transactions and repeat clients stretch over months. A 30-day free history is enough for this week’s showings, not for a closing that slips into next quarter.
- Does the note need to land in a CRM? If your brokerage lives in HubSpot or Salesforce, Circleback Pro names those automations. Plaud and AmyNote leave you to copy follow-ups yourself.
- What languages do your clients speak? Fireflies treats everything except English as beta. Circleback, Plaud and AmyNote each claim 100+ languages.
- Have you got consent? Recording laws differ by state, and some require every party to agree. Plaud’s own real estate page tells agents to get all-party consent and to check brokerage policy; that advice applies to every tool on this list.
The Bottom Line
If your deals move on cell calls, Plaud is the only tool here that records them, once you buy the device. For free showing notes, Circleback is hard to beat, until you need anything older than 30 days. Fireflies fits the agent who already works from Zoom and a sales dialer.
AmyNote is for the agent who works from an iPhone and serves buyers in more than one language. It costs $99 a year, keeps the library on the phone, and does not train on your clients’ words. It will not record your phone calls or fill your CRM. It is on the App Store with a 3-day trial.
Originally published as an X Article by @AmyNoteApp.
