A sales manager buys AI note-takers for five reps. The demo looked great: summaries land in the CRM, coaching scores appear after every call. Then the invoice arrives, and the feature that sold the deal sits two tiers above the plan they picked.
For a sales team, the note-taker is rarely the expensive part. CRM sync and coaching are. This roundup checks where Fathom, Avoma, tl;dv and AmyNote put those two features, and what happens when the meeting is in a conference room or a customer’s office instead of on Zoom.
Quick Verdict
- Best free start that can grow into a sales stack: Fathom. Free records and transcribes without limits. Full CRM field sync, Deal View and coaching scorecards need Business at $25 per seat per month billed annually, with a two-seat minimum.
- Best for teams that also record on phones: tl;dv. Mobile recording is unlimited on every tier, Free included. Team CRM integrations, playbook monitoring and objection handling start at Business, $29 per seat annually.
- Best for a revenue team that wants forecasting: Avoma. Notes save to CRM records on every plan, and viewers are free. There is no free plan, and coaching and forecasting are paid add-ons on top of the seat.
- Best for one rep selling face to face: AmyNote. It costs $99 a year and records in-person meetings on an iPhone with no bot. It has no CRM integration, no team workspace and no coaching, so it is not a team sales platform.
What We Compared
We read each vendor’s pricing, privacy and product pages on October 14, 2026 and scored four questions:
- CRM sync. Does the plan write notes into Salesforce or HubSpot, and for how many users?
- Coaching. Are call scoring and playbook tracking included, or sold as a higher tier or add-on?
- In-person capture. Can a rep record a meeting across a table, not just a video call?
- Training and retention. Does the vendor train on your calls, and how long does it keep them?
We also priced one team: five reps, one year, annual billing. Every figure is a list price as printed that day. Sales tools change packaging often, so re-read the vendor’s page before you sign, and ask specifically which tier the CRM and coaching features you saw in the demo belong to.
Fathom: The Best Free Plan, With a CRM Ceiling
Strengths. Fathom’s free plan is “Free forever” with unlimited recordings and transcriptions, and a bot-free Mac recorder is in beta. Teams switching from Gong can get Business free for the rest of that contract. Its privacy policy says it does not let third parties such as OpenAI or Anthropic train on your meetings. Team costs $15 per seat per month billed annually, or $19 monthly; Business is $25 annually or $34 monthly. Both have a two-user minimum.
Weaknesses. Basic CRM sync is capped at “Max 3 users/ domain” on Free, Premium and Team. A five-rep team needs Business for everyone to sync, and CRM field sync, Deal View and coaching metrics are Business-only. Fathom does train its in-house models on de-identified meeting data, though any user can opt out in account settings. Its iPhone page still carries a waitlist line for the official iOS app, it keeps data “as long as necessary” rather than for a stated period, and a signed HIPAA BAA is Enterprise-only, with no published price.
Who it fits. A team that sells over Zoom, Meet or Teams, wants to start without a purchase order, and can live with three CRM-connected users until the budget for Business arrives.
Avoma: The Most Complete Sales Stack, Priced in Layers
Strengths. Avoma auto-saves notes to CRM records on every tier, with Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive and Copper. You pay only for people who record; “Viewers and Collaborators are always free,” which matters when managers, sales engineers and customer success want to read calls without buying seats. It supports bot-based and bot-less recording, unlimited transcription in 70+ languages, and a 14-day trial of Organization with every add-on switched on.
Weaknesses. There is no free plan. Startup is $19 per recorder seat annually ($29 monthly), and Organization is $29 ($39 monthly). Call scoring, AI coaching and trackers sit in the Conversation Intelligence add-on at $29 per seat. Deal risks and forecasting need Revenue Intelligence, another $29. HIPAA, SSO and retention controls are Enterprise-only, at $39 per seat with a ten-seat minimum. Mobile in-person recording is not advertised.
Who it fits. A revenue team with a sales leader who will actually use forecasting and scorecards, and a budget that treats the add-ons as part of the seat price rather than a surprise.
tl;dv: Mobile Recording on Every Tier
Strengths. tl;dv’s iOS and Android apps are on the free plan, and weekly mobile recording is unlimited on every tier. Pro costs $18 per seat annually ($29 monthly) and adds CRM field mapping and personal CRM integrations. Business at $29 ($39 monthly) adds team CRM integrations, playbook monitoring, coaching and AI objection handling. Its privacy policy says it does not use customer content to train foundation models, and data is primarily hosted in the EU.
Weaknesses. Free keeps data for “up to 3 months” and writes AI notes for only 10 meetings. Every plan caps a recording at 3 hours. Web recording is capped weekly, at 40 meetings on Free, 80 on Pro, 120 on Business and 500 on Enterprise. It covers 30+ languages, the fewest here. Video calls still get a bot.
Who it fits. A team that splits its week between video calls and field meetings, and wants one tool that covers both without an extra tier just for mobile.
AmyNote: For the Rep, Not the Revenue Team
Weaknesses first. AmyNote has no CRM integration, no shared workspace, no viewer seats and no coaching. It is iPhone and iPad only, with no desktop or Android app and no free plan beyond a 3-day trial. It publishes no SOC 2, HIPAA or ISO 27001 certification.
Strengths. AmyNote records the meeting in the room with no bot and no account needed for core features. It transcribes 140+ languages and translates into 100+, which helps a rep who sells across borders. Recording, playback, reading and export to PDF, TXT or Word work offline. Pricing is flat: $99 a year, $19.99 a month or $12.99 a week, with unlimited recordings.
Privacy. AmyNote says it does not use your data to train AI models and does not sell meeting content. Transcription and AI run through Cloudflare, Microsoft Azure, OpenAI and Anthropic’s Claude, with TLS in transit, and AmyNote says that is not end-to-end encryption. The saved library lives on the rep’s iPhone. Local-first is not local-only: when a transcript or summary runs, a processing copy may be retained in AmyNote’s cloud.
Who it fits. An individual rep, founder or account manager who meets customers in person and copies the key points into the CRM by hand anyway.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Fathom | Avoma | tl;dv | AmyNote | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, unlimited | No, 14-day trial | Yes, 3-month retention | No, 3-day trial |
| CRM sync for the whole team | Business | Every tier | Business | None |
| Coaching and call scoring | Business | $29 add-on | Business | None |
| In-person meetings on a phone | Waitlist | Not advertised | Every tier | Yes |
| Training on your calls | De-identified, opt-out | No, per its blog | No | No |
| Languages | 38 | 70+ | 30+ | 140+ |
What Five Reps Actually Cost
The headline seat price is a poor guide for a sales team, because the features that justify the purchase live in specific tiers. Priced for five reps over one year, billed annually:
- Fathom Team, $900. Cheapest paid option, but only three of the five reps can sync to the CRM.
- Avoma Startup, $1,140. Notes reach the CRM for everyone; no coaching.
- Fathom Business, $1,500. CRM field sync, Deal View and coaching metrics for all five.
- tl;dv Business, $1,740. Team CRM, playbooks, objection handling and phone recording.
- Avoma Organization plus Conversation Intelligence, $3,480. Full call scoring and coaching, with forecasting still another add-on.
- AmyNote, $495 as five separate subscriptions, with no CRM sync and no shared workspace.
The Bottom Line
If your team lives on Zoom and wants to start free, Fathom is the easiest entry point. Budget for Business once more than three reps need CRM sync. If reps also record on their phones, tl;dv covers that on every plan. If leadership wants forecasting and coaching in one system, Avoma is built for it, but price the add-ons, not the headline seat.
AmyNote is the honest outlier. It does not replace any of these for a team that runs on its CRM. For a rep who sells face to face, takes notes in two languages and updates the CRM by hand anyway, it costs $99 a year on the iPhone they already carry. It is on the App Store with a 3-day trial.
Originally published as an X Article by @AmyNoteApp.
