I tried Circleback: 85/100 for turning meetings into work, but Pro costs more than Otter (2026)

Circleback makes a clear promise: your meetings should turn into work in other tools. Most note takers stop at a transcript and a summary. Circleback is built to send the results on to Slack, Linear, your CRM, and AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT.

I tried Circleback by going through its plans, docs and features one by one, and the promise mostly holds. It captures meetings with a bot, without a bot, or on your phone, and it routes notes by rules you set. It loses points in three places: Pro costs more than Otter Pro, Free locks meetings older than 30 days, and its native integration list is shorter than the biggest catalogs. Scored against our 100-point rubric, it lands at 85/100.

Key features

• Meeting bot for Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex
• Desktop recording without a bot on macOS and Windows, on every plan
• Phone app for in-person meetings
• Conditional automations to Slack, Linear, Notion, CRMs, and webhooks
• Ask Circleback, which searches your meetings and connected email
• API, MCP server, and CLI on every plan

1. Capture coverage: 18/20

• Meeting bot: 5/5. Joins Zoom, Meet, Teams, and Webex.
• Desktop recording without a bot: 4/5. Every plan, video and audio; no Linux app.
• Mobile and in person: 4/5. Records audio only; quick start on iPhone and Watch.
• File import: 5/5. Up to 2 GB on any plan.

Once you connect a calendar, the bot joins meetings that have a Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or Webex link. You choose whether it joins internal meetings, external meetings, or both, and you can switch it off for any single meeting.

The desktop app for macOS 14.2+ and Windows records meetings on any platform without a bot, using your mic and computer audio. It is on every plan, including Free. You can make it your default capture method. With joining preferences and Detect meetings on, if the bot's join request is denied while you're already on the call, the app prompts you to record, and it only starts on its own if you've turned on auto-start. For meetings it detects, it saves video of the meeting window along with the audio by default. I'd still like a Linux app or a browser extension; neither exists.

For in-person meetings, the phone app records audio. You can start it from a Lock Screen widget on iPhone (Android gets a home-screen widget), an Apple Watch complication, or the iPhone Action button. It doesn't record phone calls directly, but you can upload an existing call recording. Any plan can upload audio or video files up to 2 GB, and you can import past meetings from Fathom, Fireflies, Granola, and Read AI. Developers also get an import API: a meeting is created from a name and Markdown notes, with date, attendees, tags, transcript, and sharing optional.

2. Notes and recall: 18/20

• Notes and transcripts: 5/5. Speaker labels, private notes, moment links.
• Action items: 3/5. They don't roll forward.
• Search and Ask Circleback: 5/5. Meetings plus email, drafts on request.
• Languages: 5/5. 100+, with output language choice.

Every recording method produces a transcript with speaker labels, including recordings made without a bot. The notes focus on what the people in the meeting need to walk away knowing. Each person can add private notes, even before a meeting starts, and they stay private when the meeting is shared. You can highlight part of a transcript and share a link that opens the recording at that moment.

Circleback pulls out action items and assigns each one to the right person when the conversation makes the owner clear. It gathers them in one task list for the whole workspace. What bugs me is recurring meetings: unfinished items don't carry into the next meeting the way they do in a running agenda tool like Fellow.

Ask Circleback searches your meetings and, if you connect Gmail or Outlook Mail, your email too, and its answers cite their sources. On every plan it drafts a follow-up email when you ask. The draft lands in Gmail or Outlook when you've given it email write access; otherwise it stays in Circleback. On Pro and up, an automation can write follow-up drafts on its own as an AI insight inside Circleback, using the meeting plus calendar, email, and notes context. Transcription covers 100+ languages, and you pick the language the notes are written in.

3. Routing and integrations: 15/20

• Conditional rules: 5/5. Tags, titles, domains, invitees.
• Native breadth: 3/5. Shorter list than leaders.
• CRM depth: 3/5. Logs activity, no field edits.
• Free tier automations: 4/5. Slack, Linear, Share meeting.

Routing is where I'd pick Circleback over the rest of the category. An automation can run based on tags, meeting title, participants, invitee emails, invitee email domains, or the number of invitees. That makes it simple to send customer calls to the CRM, standups to Linear, and hiring calls to a private Slack channel.

On Free, automations can use three steps: Slack, Linear, and Share meeting. Pro unlocks the rest: HubSpot, Salesforce, Attio, Zoho CRM, Notion, monday.com, Zapier, webhooks, and AI insights. Make connects through the webhook step. Asana and Jira go through Zapier, so they need Pro too.

The CRM steps log activity and don't edit fields. HubSpot gets a meeting record on the matched contacts or deals, plus a task for each action item. Salesforce gets an Event on the matching contacts or opportunities. Attio gets a note and tasks, and Zoho gets a note on the contact. The HubSpot and Salesforce steps skip any meeting without an external invitee. That keeps internal meetings out of the CRM, but it also means internal deal reviews never reach it.

4. Agent and developer access: 18/20

• Plan availability: 5/5. API, MCP, CLI on every plan.
• MCP capabilities: 5/5. Reads and writes.
• Supported clients: 5/5. Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and more.
• Free plan limits: 3/5. 30 days, 20 requests/min.

This is the category I like most. Every plan includes the API, MCP server, and CLI. The MCP server works with Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and Raycast. It can search meetings, read notes, and pull full transcripts with speaker labels and timestamps. It can also update meetings and calendar events, share meetings, and create action items, so an assistant can clean up meetings and assign open work instead of only summarizing. Circleback also keeps track of the people and companies from your meetings and exposes them through the API and MCP.

Free has limits here. The API, MCP, and Ask Circleback only reach the last 30 days of meetings. The API allows 20 requests per minute on Free and 300 on paid plans.

5. Plans, price and trust: 16/20

• Free plan: 4/5. Unlimited meetings; 30-day lock, 1-year recordings.
• Paid price: 3/5. Pro costs more than Otter Pro.
• Enterprise pricing: 5/5. Public volume tiers.
• Security: 4/5. HIPAA and SSO Enterprise only.

Prices are per user per month.

Free is a real plan, not a trial. It includes unlimited meetings and members, with no minute or meeting caps. Meetings older than 30 days are locked, but their notes and transcripts aren't deleted, and upgrading unlocks them. Recordings themselves are deleted after a year (more on retention below). Pro raises the team limit from 2 to 5 and adds custom AI insights. Business adds admin roles, enforced workspace settings, unlimited teams, Slack huddles, custom data retention, and unlimited free viewers.

Enterprise pricing is published and graduated. Users 1 to 50 cost $35, and the rate drops by band to $15 for users above 5,000. No sales call is required. Non-profits get 30% off and students get 50% off.

On security, Circleback holds SOC 2 Type II, encrypts data at rest and in transit, and does not train on customer data. It processes data in the United States under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. HIPAA with a BAA, SSO (SAML and OIDC), and SCIM are Enterprise only. Security reports, including an external penetration test, are available through Circleback's trust portal.

Recordings are deleted after 1 year on Free and Pro and after 2 years on Business. Enterprise recordings have no default deletion. You can turn off recording storage and still keep transcripts and notes.

Pros

• Records with a bot, without a bot, on your phone, or from an uploaded file
• Keeps video, audio, and transcript for bot and desktop recordings
• Conditional automations send each meeting to the right place
• API, MCP, and CLI on every plan, with MCP write actions
• Ask Circleback searches meetings and connected email
• Free plan with unlimited meetings
• Published Enterprise volume pricing

Cons

• Fewer native integrations than Fireflies
• No call scoring or scorecards
• Paid plans cost more than Otter Pro
• Free locks meetings older than 30 days
• CRM automations require Pro or above
• HIPAA and SSO are Enterprise only
• Action items don't roll forward the way they do in Fellow

Where other tools fit better

• Sales coaching: Gong scores calls automatically and turns past calls into AI role-play practice for reps.
• Integration breadth: Fireflies offers integrations with 100+ apps.
• Price: Otter Pro is $8.33 per user per month billed annually, or $16.99 monthly.
• Live collaboration: Otter offers live transcription and real-time annotation with highlights, notes, and comments.
• Recurring agendas: Fellow can carry unfinished action items into the next meeting automatically.

How I would improve Circleback

1. Carry open action items forward. In a recurring meeting, unfinished items should show up in the next meeting's notes without anyone copying them over.
2. Let CRM steps write to fields. Logging meetings and tasks helps, but sales teams also want deal stage notes and next steps written to record fields.
3. Add native Asana and Jira steps. Today these go through Zapier, which means Pro and another account to manage.
4. Loosen Free's MCP limits. A wider history window on Free would let people judge the agent workflow on their own meetings before paying.
5. Add coaching basics. Speaking time per person and AI sales feedback already exist. Call scoring and scorecards would give sales teams a reason to stay.
6. Ship a Linux app. Developers are the most likely MCP users, and some of them run Linux.

How to choose

Pick Circleback if:

• You want notes, action items, and follow-ups to reach Slack, Linear, Notion, or a CRM without copying them
• You use Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or other AI tools and want your meetings available there
• You move between video calls, calls the bot can't join, and in-person conversations
• You want unlimited meetings on a free plan, for yourself or a team

Look elsewhere if:

• You manage sales reps and need call scoring and scorecards
• You need a native connector for a long tail of niche apps
• Your top priority is the lowest per-seat price

Verdict

Circleback earns 85/100 against our rubric. I'd pick it when meetings need to trigger work: conditional routing, meeting and email context, API and MCP access on every plan, and capture with or without a bot in one app. Sales teams focused on coaching, and buyers who mainly want the lowest per-seat price, have better fits. For everyone else, the free plan is a low-risk place to start.

FAQ

Does Circleback have a free plan?

Yes. Free includes unlimited meetings and members, desktop recording without a bot, and API, MCP, and CLI access. Meetings older than 30 days are locked until you upgrade, and automations are limited to Slack, Linear, and Share meeting steps.

Can Circleback record without a bot joining?

Yes. The desktop app for macOS and Windows records any meeting platform from your mic and computer audio, with video of the meeting window. The phone app records in-person meetings as audio.

Does Circleback work with Claude and ChatGPT?

Yes. Its MCP server works with Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and Raycast on every plan. It can search and read meetings and transcripts, update meetings, share them, and create action items.

How long does Circleback keep recordings?

One year on Free and Pro, and two years on Business. Enterprise has no default deletion. Business and Enterprise admins can set custom retention.

Is Circleback HIPAA compliant?

On Enterprise, yes. HIPAA with a BAA is available on the Enterprise plan only, and SSO and SCIM are also Enterprise features.

How does Circleback's price compare with Otter?

Circleback costs more. Circleback Pro is $15 per user per month billed annually, or $18 monthly. Otter Pro is $8.33 billed annually, or $16.99 monthly.