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
AI Voice & Speech Comparison
Fathom vs. Vapi
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for developers putting voice agents on real phone lines for support, lead qualification or scheduling.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Fathom | Vapi |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | 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. | lower value From $0.05 / minute of calls Build plan, usage-based, plus $0.005 per SMS or chat message. Ten concurrent lines are included and further lines cost $10 / month each. Model provider costs for speech-to-text, the LLM and text-to-speech are passed through at cost, or nothing if you bring your own API keys. |
| Free trial | Free plan with unlimited recordings, transcription and AI summaries | Not stated |
| Commercial use | Not stated | Yes, usage-based |
| Output | Transcripts, AI meeting summaries, action items and follow-up emails | Voice agents for inbound and outbound phone calls, web voice, and SMS or chat |
| API | Yes, a public REST API with webhooks and SDKs, plus an MCP server | Yes, REST API, CLI and SDKs |
| Hosting | Cloud, with a desktop app for bot-free capture | Not stated |
| Voice cloning | No, Fathom records, transcribes and summarises meetings and does not synthesise or clone voices | Not part of Vapi itself; voices come from connected providers such as ElevenLabs and Deepgram |
| Real-time use | 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 | Yes, live inbound and outbound phone and web conversations at an average latency under 500 ms |
| Languages | Transcripts in 38 languages; summaries are automatically translated when a call is detected in Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian or Dutch, and can be switched between those six from a drop-down | Depends on the providers chosen for a given assistant: automatic language detection and code-switching with Deepgram (100+ languages), Google STT (125+) or Gladia (110+), while Azure, OpenAI Whisper, Speechmatics and Talkscriber run one language at a time; on the voice side Vapi's own voices cover 40+ languages, Azure 140+ and ElevenLabs 30+. The languages an assistant may use have to be listed in its system prompt |
| Speech-to-speech and dubbing | No speech-to-speech or dubbing; the translation covers written summaries only | Yes, a call runs as spoken conversation by chaining speech-to-text, a language model and text-to-speech, with natural turn-taking |
| Editing and controls | 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 | Assistants for a single prompt with tools, Squads for multi-assistant orchestration, tool calls into APIs and databases mid-conversation, plus testing and call observability |
| Consent and trust | 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 | SOC 2, HIPAA and PCI compliance with SSO, OAuth and role-based access control; HIPAA is a $2,000 / month add-on and zero data retention $1,000 / month on both plans |
| MCP-ready | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Email helpdesk | more entries Email helpdesk, Community forum |
| Onboarding | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Guided onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Asana, Zapier, Make, ChatGPT, Claude | OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, Deepgram, Gladia, ElevenLabs, Salesforce, HubSpot, Zapier, Slack, Google Workspace |
Add a tool
Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Fathom Free plan; Premium $20 / user / month Vapi From $0.05 / minute of calls
- Company size Fathom Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise Vapi Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
- Support Fathom Email helpdesk Vapi Email helpdesk, Community forum
- Output Fathom Transcripts, AI meeting summaries, action items and follow-up emails Vapi Voice agents for inbound and outbound phone calls, web voice, and SMS or chat
- API Fathom Yes, a public REST API with webhooks and SDKs, plus an MCP server Vapi Yes, REST API, CLI and SDKs
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
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
Vapi
Strengths
- Per-minute pricing with model provider costs passed through at cost
- Bring your own provider keys and the pass-through drops to nothing
- Free choice of speech-to-text, model and voice provider across dozens of options
- Official MCP server lets external AI agents drive Vapi's APIs
Limitations
- HIPAA compliance and zero data retention are monthly add-ons rather than included
- Total cost depends on which model, transcription and voice providers you choose
- Concurrent lines beyond the first ten cost $10 per month each
- A platform to build on, not a finished call-centre product
Plans
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.
Vapi
- Build $0.05 Per minute of calls, usage-based, plus $0.005 per SMS or chat message. Ten call concurrency included, additional lines $10 / month each. Model provider costs at cost. Community Discord and email support.
- Scale Not stated Annual contract with a fixed platform fee and committed volume, volume-based per-minute pricing on quote, enterprise features including SOC 2, HIPAA and PCI, a dedicated account team and a custom support SLA.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
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.
Vapi
- 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
Fathom https://fathom.video · checked against the official source on 2026-09-16
Vapi https://vapi.ai · checked against the official source on 2026-08-30
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.