WhoSayAh vs Otter.ai: which transcription tool fits your recording?

By Alex Topilski, Founder

2026-07-25

Here is the comparison in one number each: Otter.ai's free plan lets you import 3 files — total, ever — and WhoSayAh lets you import as many as you like, free, at up to 100 MB and 60 minutes per file. That asymmetry is not an accident on either side. Otter is a meeting assistant that treats uploads as an extra; WhoSayAh is a file transcriber that does not do meetings at all. This post is written by WhoSayAh's founder, so read it knowing that — but the facts below are checkable, and the honest conclusion is that the two tools mostly do not compete. The question is which shape your work has.

At a glance

Where Otter.ai is the right choice

Be clear about what Otter is good at, because it is genuinely good at it. If you sit in back-to-back Zoom, Google Meet and Teams calls, Otter connects to your calendar, sends its bot into each meeting, and builds a searchable archive with summaries and action items. Nothing about WhoSayAh replaces that: there is no bot, no calendar, no archive, no summaries.

Otter's model also makes sense for teams: the Business plan ($19.99 per user per month billed annually) adds admin controls and up to 6,000 imported-file minutes per user, and everyone's meetings land in one shared workspace. If your organisation runs on recurring meetings and wants them all captured automatically, that is a meeting assistant's job, and Otter is one of the best-known tools in that category. The alternatives roundup compares it with Fireflies and Notta if you are shopping within the category.

Where WhoSayAh is the right choice

WhoSayAh exists for the case Otter's pricing treats as an afterthought: you already have the recording. An interview on your phone. A webinar you downloaded. A podcast episode that needs captions. A Meet call you recorded locally because the bot could not join. For that shape of work:

• No account. Open the home page, drop the file, read the transcript. There is no signup wall between you and the result, and nothing to cancel later.
• No import ceiling. Ten files today is ten files today. The limits are per file — 100 MB and 60 minutes — and both are checked at upload time, before the wait, not after it.
• Speaker labels on every transcription, free. Each line is attributed to Speaker 1, Speaker 2; after the transcript completes you rename them once and the names apply throughout. The interview guide covers how to get the cleanest attribution.
• Standard exports, free. .txt for notes and documents, .vtt (WebVTT) with timestamps for use as a subtitle track in an HTML5 player, on YouTube, or in an editor. WebVTT is a web standard, so the file works everywhere without conversion.
• Video accepted as-is. mp4, mov, mkv and webm upload directly; only the audio track is read, so there is no strip-to-mp3 step.

What the upload workflow actually looks like

Because there is no account, the whole WhoSayAh workflow fits in one paragraph. Drop the file on the home page; a dialog shows its name, size and detected length before any work starts, so an over-limit file is rejected in seconds rather than after a wait. Choose the language or leave it on auto-detect, say how many people were speaking (or press I don't know — detect it), and press Transcribe. Lines appear as they are ready; a typical recording takes a few minutes, not real time. When it finishes, rename the speakers, then copy the text or download it.

Otter's workflow is heavier because it is doing a bigger job: create an account, connect a calendar or install the app, let the bot join, and manage the resulting archive. For meeting capture that setup cost is paid once and amortised over every meeting. For a single file it is the majority of the effort — which is the whole argument for keeping a no-signup tool in the toolbox even if your team already pays for Otter.

The pricing math

Suppose you transcribe 8 recordings a month, averaging 45 minutes each — a modest load for a journalist, researcher or podcaster. On Otter that is impossible on the free plan twice over: the 3-imports-ever cap and the 30-minute per-conversation ceiling both block it. Pro at $16.99 a month ($8.33 billed annually) covers it at 10 imports a month — until the month you have 11 recordings, or one runs past Pro's 90-minute per-conversation limit. Over a year, that is $100 to $204 for capacity you may not fully use.

On WhoSayAh the same load is free, because the limits are per file rather than per month. The honest caveat: what you are not paying for is storage and workspace features. There is no transcript history to search next quarter, no summaries, no team sharing. You download the .txt and file it in your own notes, which for many people is where it was going anyway.

Privacy: archive versus disappearance

The two tools take opposite positions on retention, and which one is "better" depends entirely on you. Otter stores your transcripts in your account until you delete them — that persistence is the product, and for a team archive it is what you want.

WhoSayAh's position is the inverse: the uploaded file is deleted as soon as the transcript is ready, the transcript is deleted after 24 hours, and there is no account, so nothing links either to you. That is stated in the privacy policy as a commitment, not a preference, and the terms list the limits in full. For a one-off sensitive recording — a source interview, an HR conversation — disappearance is the feature. For material that cannot be uploaded to any third party at all, neither tool qualifies, and a self-hosted setup on your own hardware via FastoCloud is the remaining option.

The verdict

• Live meetings, all captured, searchable later → Otter.ai (or a competing meeting assistant).
• Files you already have, transcribed free with speaker labels → WhoSayAh.
• Both shapes of work → genuinely, use both. They do not overlap: let a meeting assistant cover the calendar and upload everything else here. The free transcription guide shows the upload workflow end to end.

Frequently asked questions

Is WhoSayAh a full replacement for Otter.ai?

Only if your work is file-shaped. WhoSayAh transcribes uploaded audio and video with speaker labels, free and without an account, but has no meeting bot, calendar integration or transcript archive. If you need live-call capture, stay in the meeting-assistant category.

Is WhoSayAh really free where Otter is paid?

For file uploads, yes. Otter's free plan allows 3 imports in total; Pro allows 10 a month at $16.99 monthly. WhoSayAh transcribes unlimited uploads free within its per-file limits of 100 MB and 60 minutes, speaker labels and exports included.

Which keeps my recording longer?

Otter stores transcripts in your account until you delete them. WhoSayAh deletes the uploaded file once transcribed and the transcript after 24 hours, with no account to link it to. Archive versus disappearance — pick the one your material calls for.

Do both label speakers?

Yes, both attribute lines to speakers and let you rename the generic labels. On WhoSayAh, entering the exact speaker count gives the best attribution; if you are unsure, the auto-detect option provides a reasonable estimate.

Try it with a file