AI meeting notes have become a subscription category. Otter Pro is about $100 a year billed yearly, Fireflies Pro $120, Granola Business $168 and Fathom Premium $192, and each of those is per person. That makes sense for teams that use the shared workspaces and integrations. If you are one person who wants good notes from your own meetings, it adds up to a lot of money for something your Mac can now do by itself.
Poffle is a one-time purchase: $25, plus tax, for one person on up to two Macs.
One-time and subscription note takers compared
| App | Price | Where audio is transcribed | Also included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poffle | $25 once, plus tax, for up to 2 Macs | On your Mac | Clipboard history, file tray, calendar countdown, voice notes, notes, reminders, calculator, media controls |
| MacWhisper | Pro €64 once (direct version) | On your Mac by default. Cloud transcription optional | Dictation and subtitle export |
| Granola | Business $14 a month per user, billed monthly | A cloud transcription provider. Audio is deleted afterwards | Meeting tools only |
| Otter.ai | Pro $16.99 a month, or $8.33 a month billed yearly, per user | Otter's cloud (AWS, United States) | Meeting tools only |
| Fireflies.ai | Pro $18 a month, or $10 a month billed yearly, per seat | Fireflies' cloud (AWS and Google Cloud, United States) | Meeting tools only |
Checked on October 21, 2026 on each company’s own website. Plans and prices change, so check before you decide.
Why Poffle can be a one-time purchase
Cloud note takers pay for servers every minute you record: they upload the audio, transcribe it and run a language model on it. Poffle uses what is already on your Mac. Apple's on-device speech recognition makes the transcript, and Apple Intelligence writes the notes, so there is no server bill to pass on to you each month, and your meetings never leave the Mac.
What you get for $25
For meetings, Poffle offers to record when a call starts and stops when it ends, shows a live transcript, separates speakers, and writes notes with decisions and action items with owners. You can ask questions across meetings and get answers with sources, turn actions into Apple Reminders, and see what is still open before the next meeting. Meeting notes on your Mac walks through the whole flow.
The license also includes every other Pofflet:
- Agenda counts down to your next meeting at the edge of the screen, opens its link, and shows what was left open last time. See a meeting countdown on your Mac.
- Capture records voice notes and transcribes them on your Mac, and keeps your meeting library. See transcribing voice recordings.
- Clipboard keeps a searchable history of what you copy, with favourites and paste without formatting. See clipboard history on Mac.
- File tray holds files while you move them between apps, windows and Spaces. See moving files between apps.
- Notes, Reminders, Calculator and Now playing for quick notes, your Apple Reminders lists, calculations with history and media controls.
What the license covers
- One person, on up to two Macs.
- Personal and commercial use.
- All future Poffle updates.
- A seven-day trial with every Pofflet. You add a card, nothing is due today, and cancelling before the trial ends costs nothing.
When a subscription is worth it
Pay for a team tool when your notes need to live somewhere shared: a team workspace, a CRM, or apps on Windows and phones. Granola, Otter and Fireflies do that well, and Poffle does not try to. If your meetings are yours to keep, on your Mac, a one-time purchase is enough.
Try Poffle
Poffle runs on a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 26 or later. Notes and answers use Apple Intelligence, so it needs to be turned on and to support the meeting's language; recordings and transcripts work without it. The trial gives you seven days with every Pofflet. You add a card to start, nothing is due today, and you can cancel before the trial ends to pay nothing. After that it is $25 once, plus tax, for one person on up to two Macs, with all future Poffle updates included.
Download Poffle, open it, and let it offer to record your next call. Let everyone on the call know before you record.
Sources
Official documentation and references used in this guide.