Best for
Best for developers who need accurate transcription, speech insights or voice agents behind a pay-as-you-go API.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
AI Voice & Speech Comparison
AssemblyAI vs. Fathom
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for sales and customer-facing teams who want every call recorded and summarised on a free plan, and the follow-up written back into the CRM once it is worth paying for.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | AssemblyAI | Fathom |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | lower value From $0.15 / hour of audio Pay-as-you-go, no subscription tiers. Pre-recorded speech-to-text is $0.15 / hour on Universal-2 and $0.21 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro; streaming is $0.15 / hour on Universal-Streaming and $0.45 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime; the Voice Agent API is $4.50 / hour, billed per second of connected conversation. Add-ons such as speaker diarization ($0.02 / hour) and medical mode ($0.15 / hour) are charged on top. | Free plan; Premium $20 / user / month Premium is $16 per user per month billed annually. For teams, Team is $19 per user per month ($15 annually) and Business $34 ($25 annually), both with a two-user minimum. Enterprise is quoted. |
| Free trial | $50 in free credits, no credit card required, covering up to 185 hours of pre-recorded or 333 hours of streaming transcription | Free plan with unlimited recordings, transcription and AI summaries |
| Commercial use | Yes, usage-based | Not stated |
| Output | Transcripts, structured speech insights and live voice agent conversations | Transcripts, AI meeting summaries, action items and follow-up emails |
| API | Yes, REST APIs and SDKs | Yes, a public REST API with webhooks and SDKs, plus an MCP server |
| Languages | 99 languages on Universal-2 and 18 on Universal-3.5 Pro for pre-recorded audio; translation across 100+ languages | Transcripts in 38 languages; summaries auto-translated into six |
| Hosting | Not stated | Cloud, with a desktop app for bot-free capture |
| Voice cloning | No, the platform covers speech recognition and voice agents rather than voice creation | No, Fathom records, transcribes and summarises meetings and does not synthesise or clone voices |
| Real-time use | Yes, streaming speech-to-text and a Voice Agent API, alongside batch transcription of pre-recorded files | Yes in the new experience, which shows a live summary that updates as the meeting runs; in the previous experience summaries and transcripts are generated once the recording has been processed |
| Speech-to-speech and dubbing | Yes, the Voice Agent API runs speech-to-speech conversations by orchestrating speech-to-text, an LLM and text-to-speech at one all-inclusive rate | No speech-to-speech or dubbing; the translation covers written summaries only |
| Editing and controls | Speaker identification, diarization, custom formatting, key phrase extraction and guardrails for PII redaction, profanity filtering and content moderation | Chronological and enhanced summaries, advanced summaries from over fifteen templates including BANT and Sandler, AI action items and follow-up emails, clips and playlists, Ask Fathom chat over a single call or the whole account, keyword and AI search alerts, custom summary templates and a custom bot name |
| Consent and trust | SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS and a HIPAA BAA included at no premium; EU region available at identical US pricing for GDPR | A choice of bot or bot-free capture, a custom bot name and the option to disable the in-meeting banner on paid plans; Enterprise adds SSO, Okta SCIM provisioning, organisation-wide security controls, custom data retention policies and a signed HIPAA BAA |
| MCP-ready | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Not stated | Email helpdesk |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Guided onboarding |
| Company size | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Not stated | Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Asana, Zapier, Make, ChatGPT, Claude |
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The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price AssemblyAI From $0.15 / hour of audio Fathom Free plan; Premium $20 / user / month
- Free trial AssemblyAI $50 in free credits, no credit card required, covering up to 185 hours of pre-recorded or 333 hours of streaming transcription Fathom Free plan with unlimited recordings, transcription and AI summaries
- Company size AssemblyAI Small and mid-sized, Enterprise Fathom Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
- Languages AssemblyAI 99 languages on Universal-2 and 18 on Universal-3.5 Pro for pre-recorded audio; translation across 100+ languages Fathom Transcripts in 38 languages; summaries auto-translated into six
- Output AssemblyAI Transcripts, structured speech insights and live voice agent conversations Fathom Transcripts, AI meeting summaries, action items and follow-up emails
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
AssemblyAI
Strengths
- Pay-as-you-go with no subscription and $50 in free credits to start
- 99 languages for pre-recorded transcription on Universal-2
- Compliance certifications and an EU region at no price premium
- Official MCP server exposes transcription and transcript search to AI agents
Limitations
- A developer API, not a ready-made studio or editor
- No voice cloning or voice creation
- Speech Understanding add-ons are billed on top of the base rate, so cost stacks per request
- Streaming is billed for as long as the connection stays open, not for the audio sent, and multichannel files are billed per channel
- Universal-3.5 Pro covers 18 languages against 99 on the older Universal-2
Fathom
Strengths
- Free plan carries unlimited recordings, transcription and AI summaries
- Records without a bot in the call from the desktop app, or with one
- Transcripts in 38 languages
- Documented REST API with webhooks, SDKs and an MCP server
Limitations
- Transcription and summarisation only, with no voice synthesis, cloning or dubbing
- Summary translation covers six languages against the 38 it transcribes
- Team and Business plans carry a two-user minimum
- CRM field sync, coaching metrics and custom summaries start on the Business plan
Plans
Pricing
AssemblyAI
- Pay-as-you-go From $0.15 / hour No subscription. Pre-recorded transcription $0.15 / hour on Universal-2 and $0.21 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro, streaming $0.15 / hour on Universal-Streaming and $0.45 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime, Voice Agent API $4.50 / hour. Add-ons are billed on top: speaker diarization $0.02 / hour, medical mode $0.15 / hour, keyterms prompting $0.05 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro and included on Universal-2. Free accounts get 5 new streams per minute, pay-as-you-go accounts 100.
- Custom Not stated Contact sales for custom rate limits, higher concurrency and volume discounts. HIPAA BAA, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 compliance at no premium, and an EU region at identical US pricing.
Fathom
- Free $0 Unlimited recordings and transcriptions, bot-free or bot capture, instant AI summaries, clips, playlists and search across calls.
- Premium $20 Per user per month, $16 billed annually. Adds advanced call summaries, AI action items, the conversational meeting assistant and a custom meeting bot.
- Team $19 Per user per month, $15 billed annually, two-user minimum. Adds global search across calls, team playlists and collaboration with comments, folders and keyword alerts.
- Business $34 Per user per month, $25 billed annually, two-user minimum. Adds CRM field sync, deal view, coaching metrics and AI scorecards and custom summaries.
- Enterprise Not stated Quoted. Adds the Launch Assist onboarding programme, organisation-wide security controls, SSO and SCIM provisioning, custom data retention and a dedicated success manager.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
AssemblyAI
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Fathom
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
AssemblyAI https://www.assemblyai.com · checked against the official source on 2026-08-30
Fathom https://fathom.video · checked against the official source on 2026-09-16
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.