The best Fathom alternative for Microsoft Teams — a 2026 guide
A hands-on comparison guide: pricing benchmarks, the 5-summary free-tier asterisk, Enterprise tier features, and trade-offs. Two well-loved products for two different platforms.
7 meetings free every month · No credit card
Built for Microsoft Teams via Graph API. Invisible to participants. Recap lands in the meeting chat thread, with Teams Phone calls included.
A beloved Zoom-first notetaker with strong CRM sync and exceptional G2 ratings. Generous on recording, less so on advanced AI summaries.
- Your team lives in Microsoft Teams, not Zoom
- You need Teams Phone (PSTN) summaries — Fathom doesn't have this
- You want zero visible bots in customer meetings
- You want full AI summaries on the free tier, not raw transcripts
- You want one M365 admin install for the whole tenant
- Your team lives in Zoom
- You want unlimited free recording for archive purposes
- You're in a sales org with deep CRM workflows (HubSpot, Salesforce, Close)
- You value Fathom's polished UI and G2 track record
- You want a single-platform, opinionated tool
The free-tier asterisk
"Unlimited recording" with a 5-summary cap.
Most reviews glaze over this. Fathom's free tier records unlimited meetings but caps advanced AI summaries at 5/month. After that you get raw transcripts.
- Full AI summaries — no feature downgrade
- 7 meetings, then upgrade for unlimited
- Same quality as the paid tier
- No bot, no AI credit pool
- Unlimited recording & storage
- After 5: raw transcripts only
- Bot joins meetings by default
- Bot-free mode in beta
Per 50 seats vs Fathom Premium annual ($15/user). Plus you get full AI on the free tier instead of a 5-summary cliff.
Where the recap lives
Teams chat. Or yet another tool to open. homes.
Both produce clean recaps. They land in very different surfaces.
In-thread. Reactions, replies, follow-ups all in one place.
A separate web app to open. Plus the AI-summary counter ticking down each call.
Side-by-side
Feature matrix
CallScrib | Fathom | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing & tiers | ||
| Free tier AI summaries | 7 / mo (full AI) | 5 / mo (then transcript only) |
| Premium / Pro / user / mo | $5 | $15 annual / $19–20 monthly |
| Team tier / user / mo | — No team-min | $14–19 (2-user min) |
| Business tier / user / mo | $10 (CRM sync) | $22–25 (2-user min) |
| Enterprise / seat / mo | From $14 (25+ seats) | Custom · annual |
| Capture | ||
| How it captures the call | Graph API · invisible | Bot (bot-free in beta) |
| Visible to participants | No | Yes (default) |
| Bot-ban policy compliant (2026) | ✓ | No (default path) |
| Strongest platform | Microsoft Teams | Zoom |
| Microsoft Teams | Native | Via bot |
| Zoom | Desktop Agent | Native, mature |
| Google Meet | Desktop Agent | ✓ |
| Teams Phone (PSTN) | ✓ | — No |
| Output & integrations | ||
| Where the recap lands | Teams chat | Fathom app + email |
| Q&A chat with transcripts | Unlimited (Pro) | Ask Fathom (Premium+) |
| CRM integrations | HubSpot, Salesforce (Business) | HubSpot, Salesforce, Close (Business) |
| Languages | 20+ | 25–28 |
| Native desktop apps | macOS + Windows | macOS + Windows + Chrome |
| Deploy | ||
| Org-wide install | M365 admin · whole tenant | User-by-user rollout |
Honesty section
Where Fathom actually wins
Fathom is one of the most-loved notetakers in the category. Three places where it's genuinely the better answer.
Zoom-first orgs
Mature, polished Zoom-native capture with years of mileage. If your day is in Zoom, Fathom's experience is more dialed in than anything else in the category.
Generous archive on free tier
Unlimited recording and storage on the free tier. If you want a cheap (free) archive of every call you take and you're okay with raw transcripts after the 5th of the month, Fathom is hard to beat.
CRM workflow polish
Fathom's HubSpot, Salesforce, and Close integrations are deep and battle-tested. Sales-ops teams that have built workflows around them will feel the difference.
From customers who use both
What it actually felt like
“We kept Fathom for our Zoom-heavy AE team and put everyone else on CallScrib for Teams. Both bills feel justified and the recaps land where each team actually works — Fathom's app for sales, Teams chat for everyone else.”
“Fathom's free tier was great until we hit the 5-summary cap on the 8th of the month. Switched to CallScrib for the Teams meetings — 7 free with full AI, no asterisks.”
“Our customers had started flagging the Fathom bot in their lobby. The Graph-API capture was the deciding factor — invisible by design, no bot policy to argue with.”
FAQ
Common questions
We use Fathom for Zoom and Teams. Can we just use one tool?
If your Zoom volume is meaningful, no — CallScrib's Desktop Agent covers Zoom but Fathom's Zoom experience is more polished. The cleaner setup is Fathom for Zoom (the free tier may be enough) and CallScrib for Teams.
Fathom has a great free tier. Why would I pay for CallScrib?
You wouldn't, on the free tier — but Fathom's free tier caps advanced AI at 5 calls/month. Once you need real summaries on more than 5 meetings, you're paying $15+/user/mo on Fathom. CallScrib gives you 7 free AI summaries and unlimited at $5/user.
Does CallScrib have ask-AI on past meetings like Fathom does?
Yes. CallScrib's Pro tier includes Q&A chat with transcripts — same idea as Ask Fathom, but with no usage cap.
How do I switch from Fathom?
Install CallScrib from AppSource (5 min, M365 admin). Disable Fathom's auto-join for Teams meetings. If you have Zoom volume, keep Fathom for Zoom — they coexist fine. Cancel paid Fathom when CallScrib covers your Teams use case fully.
What about Fathom's bot-free mode?
Fathom's bot-free capture is in beta as of 2026. It exists, but it's not the default deployment path and feature parity vs the bot mode is still rolling out. CallScrib has been bot-free since launch.
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