Stack Scribble vs Otter
Stack Scribble vs Otter — which AI notetaker should you pick?
Otter is the brand most people think of when they hear "AI meeting notes." It pioneered live transcription, has the most polished mobile app in the category, and ships deep CRM integrations on its Business tier. Stack Scribble is newer and narrower: a calendar bot joins your Zoom, Meet, or Teams call, and within about five minutes of hang-up you get a per-speaker transcript and an AI summary with action items in your inbox. No video stored, no desktop app, no live captions during the meeting — just the artifact you actually re-read later. This page is the honest comparison: where Otter is genuinely better, where Scribble is, and the pricing math that decides it for most small teams.
Pick Stack Scribble if…
Pick Scribble if you want async meeting summaries at bundle pricing.
Scribble is the right call when your real need is the after-meeting artifact: a clean per-speaker transcript and an AI summary with action items, delivered fast (~5 min after the call ends), without storing video. The bot joins from your calendar invite, so attendee labels are correct on day one — no voice-fingerprint training. It is web-only, which means no app to install on every laptop and no IT review. The math is the closer: $20/mo gets you Scribble plus seven other Stack apps for the whole workspace, with no per-seat scaling. For a five-person team that just wants meeting recaps in their inbox, that is roughly $780/year less than Otter Pro.
Pick Otter if…
Pick Otter if you need live captions or deep CRM sync.
Otter has two genuine advantages Scribble does not match. First, live captions: Otter transcribes in real time during the meeting, and you can read along or query the live transcript with Otter Chat without waiting for the call to end. If your team has accessibility requirements, runs accent-diverse meetings, or just likes scrubbing the live captions to catch a number someone said, that is Otter-only territory. Second, the Business-tier CRM integrations — Salesforce and HubSpot sync, custom fields, and call-stage workflows — are deeper and more battle-tested than anything Scribble offers today. For sales teams whose AI notetaker has to feed a CRM record automatically, Otter Business is the safer pick.
Feature-by-feature breakdown
| Feature | Stack Scribble | Otter | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calendar bot joins Zoom / Meet / Teams | Yes — all three | Yes — all three | Tie |
| Live captions during the meeting | No (async-only — summary after hang-up) | Yes — real-time transcript while you talk | Otter |
| Per-speaker transcript | Yes — labels from calendar invite | Yes — labels by voice fingerprint (training required) | Stack |
| AI summary delivery time | ~5 min after hang-up | ~10–20 min on Pro | Stack |
| Action items extracted | Yes — emailed with summary | Yes — in the Otter app | Tie |
| Chat / Q&A over past transcripts | Basic search across transcripts | Otter AI Chat — more developed | Otter |
| Video stored | No — transcript + summary only | Audio stored; video on some plans | Stack |
| Mobile app | Web / PWA only | Best-in-category native iOS + Android | Otter |
| CRM sync (Salesforce / HubSpot) | No native CRM sync | Yes — on Business tier | Otter |
| Free tier | No free tier (14-day trial) | 300 min/mo, 30 min per meeting | Otter |
| Pricing (5 seats / yr) | $240 flat (whole bundle) | $1,019.40 (Pro, $16.99/user/mo annual) | Stack |
| Per-seat scaling | No — flat workspace price | Yes — every added seat raises the bill | Stack |
| Desktop app required | No — web-only | Optional desktop app | Stack |
| Brand maturity | New in 2025 | Established since 2016 | Otter |
Pricing
Stack Scribble
$20/mo for the whole Stack bundle (Scribble + 7 other apps, unlimited users in one workspace) or $18/mo standalone
Otter
Free (300 min/mo, 30 min per meeting); Pro $16.99/user/mo annual; Business $30/user/mo annual; Enterprise custom
At five seats on annual billing, Otter Pro is 5 × $16.99 × 12 = $1,019.40/year — and that still caps AI summary minutes per user. Stack is $20/month flat = $240/year, which includes Scribble plus Slate, Stream, Momentum, Sync, Chat, SpeakBar, and Timekeeper for the whole workspace. The break-even is roughly 1.2 seats: at any team size beyond a single user paying Otter Pro annual, Stack costs less for just the meeting-notes job. Otter Business is the relevant comparison only if you need its CRM sync — at $30/user/mo, five seats is $1,800/year, which is where the Stack bundle saves you about $1,560 if the CRM features are not load-bearing.
UX differences worth knowing
Joining the meeting
Stack Scribble: Calendar bot joins automatically when invited; no host action
Otter: Otter Assistant joins from calendar, or you launch from app
During the meeting
Stack Scribble: Nothing visible — Scribble is async-only, summary comes after
Otter: Live captions panel and Otter Chat against the live transcript
After the meeting
Stack Scribble: Email lands in ~5 min with transcript link, summary, action items
Otter: Notification in app; summary appears progressively over 10–20 min
Speaker labeling
Stack Scribble: Labels from the calendar invite — correct from minute one
Otter: Voice-fingerprint matching — improves with training, mislabels guests
Reviewing later
Stack Scribble: Transcript-only view, faster to skim, no video to scrub
Otter: Audio playback synced to transcript — useful, but heavier
Mobile
Stack Scribble: PWA — works in mobile Safari/Chrome, no app install
Otter: Polished native app with offline recording and notifications
Switching from Otter
Migrating from Otter to Scribble is mostly a calendar-permissions swap, not a data migration. Connect Scribble to the same Google or Microsoft calendar Otter Assistant is on, then disconnect Otter so you do not get two bots in every meeting. Past Otter transcripts can be exported (Otter → Account → Export) as .txt or .docx and dropped into Slate if you want them searchable inside the Stack bundle; there is no automatic import, because Scribble keeps its own transcript store and re-importing Otter transcripts would conflate two different speaker-label schemes. If you have CRM sync wired up on Otter Business, that is the one piece that does not move — Scribble has no native Salesforce or HubSpot integration today, so plan to keep Otter on a single seat for that workflow or use Zapier from the Scribble email digest into your CRM. Most teams skip this and just cut over.
FAQ
Does Stack Scribble do live captions like Otter?+
No. Scribble is async-only — the bot records the meeting and emails the transcript and AI summary about five minutes after hang-up. There are no captions visible during the call. If real-time captions while the meeting is happening are important to you (accessibility, accent-diverse calls, scrubbing live for quotes), Otter is the right pick.
How does Scribble label speakers?+
From the calendar invite. Whoever is on the meeting invitation maps to whoever joins, so labels are correct on the first call — no voice-fingerprint training, no "Speaker 1 / Speaker 2" relabeling. Otter uses voice fingerprints, which is more flexible (it works for ad-hoc calls without invites) but gets guest speakers wrong until you train it.
Does Scribble store the meeting video?+
No. Scribble keeps the transcript and the AI summary; the audio/video is discarded after transcription. This is intentional — most people never re-watch a meeting recording, the transcript is what gets re-read, and not storing video sidesteps a lot of compliance and storage cost. Otter stores audio and (on some plans) video, with playback synced to the transcript.
How does pricing compare for a small team?+
For a 5-seat team on annual billing: Otter Pro is 5 × $16.99 × 12 = $1,019.40/year. Stack is $20/month flat = $240/year, which includes Scribble plus seven other apps. The crossover is about 1.2 seats — at any team size beyond a single user, Stack is cheaper for just the meeting-notes use case. Otter Business is $30/user/mo (so $1,800/year for five) and is only worth it if you need its CRM sync.
Can Scribble sync to Salesforce or HubSpot?+
Not natively today. Otter Business has well-developed Salesforce and HubSpot integrations that auto-attach call notes to the right opportunity. Scribble emits an email digest with summary and action items, which you can route into a CRM via Zapier or Make, but the native bidirectional sync is an Otter-only feature in this comparison.
Which one is better on mobile?+
Otter, clearly. Its native iOS and Android apps are the most polished in the category — offline recording, push notifications, in-app transcript search. Scribble is web-only (works fine as a PWA in mobile Safari or Chrome) but does not have a native mobile app. If the bulk of your meeting capture is on the phone, that is an Otter advantage.
Is there a free tier for Scribble?+
No, but there is a 14-day trial of the full Stack bundle. Otter has a free tier (300 minutes/month, 30 minutes per meeting), which is genuinely useful for very light use but runs out fast on a normal meeting load — three one-hour meetings a week will exhaust it. Most teams that try the Otter free tier upgrade to Pro within a month, at which point the pricing math above kicks in.
Verdict
Otter is the more mature product. It has live captions during the meeting, the best mobile app in the category, a more developed chat-with-your-transcripts feature, and CRM integrations that have had years to harden. If any of those four things are core to how your team works — and especially if you are a sales org running Salesforce or HubSpot — Otter is the right pick and the pricing follows. Scribble is the right call for the much larger group of teams whose actual need is "give me a clean summary of the meeting I just had, with action items, fast, in my inbox." That is what Scribble does. It joins from the calendar, gets speaker labels right because they came from the invite, ships the summary in ~5 minutes, and stores no video — which is also a quiet privacy win when execs ask where the recordings are. The bundle pricing is the closer: at five seats, Otter Pro is north of $1,000/year and Stack is $240/year flat. If the live-captions and CRM features are not load-bearing for you, that delta pays for the rest of the Stack bundle several times over. Most small teams adopting an AI notetaker for the first time should start with Scribble, run it for a billing cycle, and only move to Otter if a specific Otter-only feature turns out to matter.
Try Stack — $20/mo flat for all 8 apps.
Stack Scribble comes bundled with seven other work tools. One subscription, no per-seat surprise.