# Fathom vs Zoom AI Companion

> Fathom vs Zoom AI Companion: Zoom AI Companion is our pick, leading for consultants & agencies and privacy &. They split on enterprise plan / sso and recording.

This is the verified Fathom vs Zoom AI Companion breakdown: Fathom (Free-first AI meeting notetaker) and Zoom AI Companion (Built-in meeting AI bundled with Zoom Workplace) are AI meeting notetakers platforms, priced from $16/seat/mo and $14.16/seat/mo respectively. The bottom line, head-to-head facts, and true cost tiers follow.

AI meeting notetakers platforms · 33 facts compared · all sourced · pricing verified Jul 20, 2026

## Bottom line

Zoom AI Companion wins four of seven use cases against Fathom's three, taking the overall edge. Its lower annual price, $14.16/seat/mo versus Fathom's $16/seat/mo, decides Consultants & Agencies, Recruiters, and Sales Teams. It also wins Privacy & Compliance by excluding customer data from AI model training, a guarantee Fathom does not make. Fathom answers back on Engineering Teams with its broader integrations, on Product & UX Research with 38 supported languages against Zoom AI Companion's 33, and on Solo & Free with a free plan that includes unlimited recording, an option Zoom AI Companion does not offer at all.

## Verdict summary

| Use case | Winner | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Consultants & Agencies | Zoom AI Companion | Zoom AI Companion costs $14.16/seat/mo on an annual plan, versus $16/seat/mo for Fathom, a meaningful saving once billing scales across many client accounts. |
| Engineering Teams | Fathom | Fathom connects action items into Slack, Notion, Asana, and Zapier, letting engineering teams route standup notes into their tracker of choice without extra setup, with Zapier extending that reach further into tools like Jira. |
| Privacy & Compliance | Zoom AI Companion | Both tools include a HIPAA BAA, but Zoom AI Companion excludes customer data from AI model training while Fathom does not, a critical difference for legal and healthcare teams handling sensitive conversations. |
| Product & UX Research | Fathom | Both tools match on the features researchers lean on most: clip and highlight creation, full video recording, and an ask your meeting AI chat for querying past sessions are all supported by Fathom and Zoom AI Companion alike. |
| Recruiters | Zoom AI Companion | Both tools generate an AI meeting summary and identify speakers automatically, covering the core need for clean, speaker labelled interview notes. |
| Sales Teams | Zoom AI Companion | Both tools list the same CRM integrations, Salesforce and HubSpot, so call data reaching the CRM is matched, and automatic action items are supported by both as well. |
| Solo & Free | Fathom | Fathom's free plan includes unlimited recording and unlimited transcription minutes, capping only at 5 advanced summaries per month, while Zoom AI Companion has no free tier at all and requires a paid Zoom plan just to get started. |

## Fathom vs Zoom AI Companion: head-to-head facts

| Fact | Fathom | Zoom AI Companion | Verified |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Price per seat (billed monthly) | 20 $/seat/mo ([source](https://www.fathom.ai/pricing)) | 16.99 $/seat/mo ([source](https://zoom.us/pricing/planprice.json)) | Jul 20 |
| Price per seat (billed annually) | 16 $/seat/mo ([source](https://www.fathom.ai/pricing)) | ~14.16 $/seat/mo ([source](https://zoom.us/pricing/planprice.json)) | Jul 20 |
| What the free tier caps | 5 advanced summaries/mo; unlimited recording ([source](https://help.fathom.video/en/articles/5290881)) | no free tier (needs paid Zoom plan) ([source](https://www.zoom.com/en/products/collaboration-tools/zoom-workplace-pro/)) | Jul 20 |
| Capture method | hybrid ([source](https://www.fathom.ai/pricing)) | bot_free ([source](https://www.zoom.com/en/products/ai-assistant/features/ai-note-taking/)) | Jul 20 |
| Bot-free capture option | ✓  Yes ([source](https://www.fathom.ai/overview)) | ✓  Yes ([source](https://www.zoom.com/en/products/ai-assistant/features/ai-note-taking/)) | Jul 20 |
| Meeting platforms supported | Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams ([source](https://www.fathom.ai/integrations)) | Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet ([source](https://www.zoom.com/en/products/ai-assistant/features/ai-note-taking/)) | Jul 20 |
| Languages supported | 38 ([source](https://help.fathom.video/en/articles/296192)) | 33 ([source](https://support.zoom.com/hc/en/article?id=zm_kb&sysparm_article=KB0078144)) | Jul 20 |
| AI meeting summary | ✓  Yes ([source](https://www.fathom.ai/pricing)) | ✓  Yes ([source](https://support.zoom.com/hc/en/article?id=zm_kb&sysparm_article=KB0058013)) | Jul 20 |
| SOC 2 Type II | ✓  Yes ([source](https://help.fathom.video/en/articles/296512)) | ✓  Yes ([source](https://www.zoom.com/en/trust/legal-compliance/)) | Jul 20 |

## Fathom vs Zoom AI Companion pricing: true cost at 3 usage tiers

Real monthly bill for a team, from published per-seat rates on annual billing. Free-only or platform-bundled tools show n/a; their free-tier cap is the story.

| Volume | Buyer | Fathom | Zoom AI Companion | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 seat | Solo / freelancer | $16/mo | $14/mo | A single user. Free tiers often cover this entirely. |
| 10 seats | Growing team | $160/mo | $142/mo | A whole team on paid seats; annual billing assumed. |
| 50 seats | Department | $800/mo | $708/mo | Company rollout. Most vendors negotiate at this size. |

## Fathom vs Zoom AI Companion: verdicts by use case

### Consultants & Agencies → Zoom AI Companion

Zoom AI Companion costs $14.16/seat/mo on an annual plan, versus $16/seat/mo for Fathom, a meaningful saving once billing scales across many client accounts. Both tools support in person and mobile capture, and both offer a bot free way to join calls, so client facing flexibility is matched. Fathom counters with unlimited recording storage against Zoom AI Companion's 10 GB per license cap, useful for agencies archiving many client calls, but the lower per seat cost carries more weight for teams billing many seats across accounts.

### Engineering Teams → Fathom

Fathom connects action items into Slack, Notion, Asana, and Zapier, letting engineering teams route standup notes into their tracker of choice without extra setup, with Zapier extending that reach further into tools like Jira. Zoom AI Companion covers Slack, Jira, ServiceNow, and Google Drive directly. Both generate automatic action items and offer a public API, so execution is close, but Fathom's broader combination of Notion and Zapier gives more flexibility for hands off routing into whichever tracker a team already uses.

### Privacy & Compliance → Zoom AI Companion

Both tools include a HIPAA BAA, but Zoom AI Companion excludes customer data from AI model training while Fathom does not, a critical difference for legal and healthcare teams handling sensitive conversations. Zoom AI Companion also offers a configurable retention policy with a zero retention option, versus Fathom's custom retention available only on its Enterprise plan. Both provide a bot free way to join calls, and both meet GDPR with EU data residency. On the training data guarantee that security conscious buyers treat as non negotiable, Zoom AI Companion is the safer choice.

### Product & UX Research → Fathom

Both tools match on the features researchers lean on most: clip and highlight creation, full video recording, and an ask your meeting AI chat for querying past sessions are all supported by Fathom and Zoom AI Companion alike. The real gap is language coverage, where Fathom supports 38 languages against Zoom AI Companion's 33, a meaningful edge for teams running interviews across international user bases. Fathom also documents its transcript export path, even if limited to copy and paste, while Zoom AI Companion does not publish one.

### Recruiters → Zoom AI Companion

Both tools generate an AI meeting summary and identify speakers automatically, covering the core need for clean, speaker labelled interview notes. Fathom's only documented way to get a transcript out is copy and paste, with no listed export format, a real limitation when notes need to move into an applicant tracking system. Zoom AI Companion also costs less on an annual plan, at $14.16/seat/mo versus Fathom's $16/seat/mo, which matters as a talent team scales seats across recruiters.

### Sales Teams → Zoom AI Companion

Both tools list the same CRM integrations, Salesforce and HubSpot, so call data reaching the CRM is matched, and automatic action items are supported by both as well. Zoom AI Companion adds live real time transcription during the call itself, useful for reps who want visibility while the conversation is happening rather than only afterward, and it costs less per seat annually at $14.16/seat/mo against Fathom's $16/seat/mo. Clip and highlight creation for coaching is available on both. The real time transcription plus the lower annual price give Zoom AI Companion the edge for scaling sales teams.

### Solo & Free → Fathom

Fathom's free plan includes unlimited recording and unlimited transcription minutes, capping only at 5 advanced summaries per month, while Zoom AI Companion has no free tier at all and requires a paid Zoom plan just to get started. For a solo user or small team wanting to try the product before paying, that is a decisive difference: one tool works today, the other needs a subscription first. Both generate an AI meeting summary, and Fathom's hybrid capture gives a bot free option too. Even though Zoom AI Companion's paid seat is cheaper at $16.99/mo against Fathom's $20/mo, having no free tier outweighs that for someone who has not committed to paying yet.

## Fathom vs Zoom AI Companion: common questions

### Is Fathom cheaper than Zoom AI Companion?

No. Zoom AI Companion's price is $16.99/seat/mo monthly and $14.16/seat/mo billed annually, both lower than Fathom's $20/seat/mo monthly and $16/seat/mo annually.

### Fathom vs Zoom AI Companion: which is better for consultants & agencies?

Zoom AI Companion is the better fit. Its annual price is $14.16/seat/mo, lower than Fathom's $16/seat/mo, which matters when billing scales across many client accounts. Both tools support in person and mobile capture and both offer a bot free way to join calls, so client facing flexibility is matched either way.

### Does Fathom or Zoom AI Companion offer a free plan?

Fathom has a free plan that caps at 5 advanced summaries per month while allowing unlimited recording and unlimited transcription minutes. Zoom AI Companion has no free tier at all and requires a paid Zoom plan to use it.

### Is Fathom or Zoom AI Companion better for HIPAA and data privacy needs?

Both Fathom and Zoom AI Companion include a HIPAA BAA. The key difference is training data: Zoom AI Companion excludes customer data from AI model training, while Fathom does not, which matters for privacy sensitive teams.

### How many languages do Fathom and Zoom AI Companion support?

Fathom supports 38 languages. Zoom AI Companion supports 33 languages.

### How much recording storage do Fathom and Zoom AI Companion include?

Fathom includes unlimited recording storage. Zoom AI Companion caps cloud recording storage at 10 GB per license on its Pro plan.

### Is there a bot-free way to record meetings with Fathom or Zoom AI Companion?

Yes. Both Fathom and Zoom AI Companion offer a bot free capture option, so meetings can be recorded without a visible bot joining the call.

### Can I export transcripts out of Fathom?

Fathom's transcript export is copy and paste only; there is no listed file export format.

### What is Zoom AI Companion's cheapest paid plan?

Zoom AI Companion's cheapest paid plan runs $16.99/mo, which is also its per seat monthly price.

Source: https://www.versusref.com/notetakers/fathom-vs-zoom-ai-companion/