# Grain vs tl;dv

> Grain vs tl;dv: Grain is our pick, leading for consultants & agencies and privacy &. They split on crm integrations and key integrations. Verified July 2026.

This is the verified Grain vs tl;dv breakdown: Grain (AI notetaker with clips & coaching) and tl;dv (AI meeting recorder and notetaker) are AI meeting notetakers platforms, priced from $15/seat/mo and $18/seat/mo respectively. The bottom line, head-to-head facts, and true cost tiers follow.

AI meeting notetakers platforms · 32 facts compared · all sourced · pricing verified Jul 20, 2026

## Bottom line

Grain wins six of seven use cases. Grain's annual per-seat price of $15/seat/mo undercuts tl;dv's $18/seat/mo, and Grain wins consultants and agencies and recruiters on that price plus published in-person capture and transcript export formats that tl;dv does not list. Grain also wins privacy and compliance through documented data-retention controls, product and UX research on transcript export, sales teams through Salesforce support and live real-time transcription, and individual users on a budget through a more generous meeting cap and a monthly seat price of $19/seat/mo against tl;dv's $29/seat/mo. tl;dv answers only in engineering teams, where its wider integrations reach thousands of apps through Zapier. Verdict: Grain wins.

## Verdict summary

| Use case | Winner | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Consultants & Agencies | Grain | Grain's annual per-seat price is $15/seat/mo, well below tl;dv's $18/seat/mo, a real difference for agencies billing many small accounts. |
| Engineering Teams | tl;dv | tl;dv's key integrations run through Slack and Zapier with access to over 5000 apps, giving engineering teams a much wider net to land action items in Notion, Jira, or wherever else standups need to go. |
| Privacy & Compliance | Grain | Neither tool publishes a HIPAA BAA. |
| Product & UX Research | Grain | Grain and tl;dv both offer clips and highlight reels and both include video recording, so the two features researchers rely on most are evenly matched. |
| Recruiters | Grain | Grain publishes transcript export in PDF, SRT, VTT, and DOCX formats, a direct fit for recruiters who need clean files to move into an ATS, while tl;dv does not list export formats. |
| Sales Teams | Grain | Grain's CRM integrations cover Salesforce and HubSpot, while tl;dv's cover HubSpot, Zoho, and Salesloft, so Grain keeps Salesforce, the CRM most sales teams already run on, and tl;dv adds two others in its place. |
| Solo & Free | Grain | Grain's free plan allows 20 recorded meetings per month with a hard cap, while tl;dv's free plan caps full AI notes at 10 meetings with three month storage and 10 AI prompts, so Grain's free tier covers double the meetings before hitting a wall. |

## Grain vs tl;dv: head-to-head facts

| Fact | Grain | tl;dv | Verified |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Price per seat (billed monthly) | 19 $/seat/mo ([source](https://grain.com/pricing)) | 29 $/seat/mo ([source](https://tldv.io/app/pricing/)) | Jul 20 |
| Price per seat (billed annually) | 15 $/seat/mo ([source](https://grain.com/pricing)) | 18 $/seat/mo ([source](https://tldv.io/app/pricing/)) | Jul 20 |
| What the free tier caps | 20 recorded meetings/mo (hard cap) ([source](https://grain.com/pricing)) | 10 mtgs full AI notes; 3-mo storage; 10 AI prompts ([source](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8919450-what-are-the-limits-of-the-free-plan)) | Jul 20 |
| Capture method | bot_free ([source](https://support.grain.com/en/articles/10100482-how-grain-records-your-meetings)) | hybrid ([source](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8434028-how-can-i-record-without-the-bot)) | Jul 20 |
| Bot-free capture option | ✓  Yes ([source](https://support.grain.com/en/articles/12022918-desktop-capture-ai-notes-for-every-meeting-without-a-bot)) | ✓  Yes ([source](https://tldv.io/desktop-app/)) | Jul 20 |
| Meeting platforms supported | Zoom, Meet, Teams; any via desktop capture ([source](https://grain.com/pricing)) | Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams ([source](https://tldv.io/features/)) | Jul 20 |
| Languages supported | n/a | 30 ([source](https://tldv.io/features/)) | Jul 20 |
| AI meeting summary | ✓  Yes ([source](https://grain.com/pricing)) | ✓  Yes ([source](https://tldv.io/features/)) | Jul 20 |
| SOC 2 Type II | ✓  SOC 2 Type II certified ([source](https://grain.com/security)) | ✓  'SOC 2 (Type II)' ([source](https://tldv.io/features/security-commitment/)) | Jul 20 |

## Grain vs tl;dv 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 | Grain | tl;dv | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 seat | Solo / freelancer | $15/mo | $18/mo | A single user. Free tiers often cover this entirely. |
| 10 seats | Growing team | $150/mo | $180/mo | A whole team on paid seats; annual billing assumed. |
| 50 seats | Department | $750/mo | $900/mo | Company rollout. Most vendors negotiate at this size. |

## Grain vs tl;dv: verdicts by use case

### Consultants & Agencies → Grain

Grain's annual per-seat price is $15/seat/mo, well below tl;dv's $18/seat/mo, a real difference for agencies billing many small accounts. Grain also publishes in-person and mobile capture, which tl;dv does not list as a fact, and Grain's transcript export covers PDF, SRT, VTT, and DOCX, formats tl;dv does not publish. Both tools offer a bot-free capture option and unlimited recording storage on their paid plans. On price and documented in-person capture, Grain fits consultants and agencies better. Verdict: Grain wins.

### Engineering Teams → tl;dv

tl;dv's key integrations run through Slack and Zapier with access to over 5000 apps, giving engineering teams a much wider net to land action items in Notion, Jira, or wherever else standups need to go. Grain lists Slack, Zapier, and Aircall, a narrower set. Both tools generate automatic action items, offer a public API, and provide an AI meeting summary. Grain is cheaper on an annual per-seat basis at $15/seat/mo versus tl;dv's $18/seat/mo, but that matters less than reach into the tools engineering teams already use. Verdict: tl;dv wins.

### Privacy & Compliance → Grain

Neither tool publishes a HIPAA BAA. Both exclude call data from AI training and both confirm GDPR and EU data residency support, so those top concerns are evenly matched. Both also offer a bot-free capture option. The difference shows up in admin data-retention controls: Grain publishes auto-retention policies on its Enterprise plan, while tl;dv does not publish a comparable retention control fact. With everything else tied, that documented retention control gives Grain a slight edge for privacy and compliance-minded teams. Verdict: Grain wins.

### Product & UX Research → Grain

Grain and tl;dv both offer clips and highlight reels and both include video recording, so the two features researchers rely on most are evenly matched. Grain publishes transcript export in PDF, SRT, VTT, and DOCX formats, while tl;dv does not list export formats as a fact, an advantage for researchers building a session archive. tl;dv supports 30 languages, a figure Grain does not publish. Both tools offer an ask-your-meeting AI chat. With clips and video tied and export formats favoring Grain, Grain is the better fit for product and UX research. Verdict: Grain wins.

### Recruiters → Grain

Grain publishes transcript export in PDF, SRT, VTT, and DOCX formats, a direct fit for recruiters who need clean files to move into an ATS, while tl;dv does not list export formats. Both tools offer an AI meeting summary and speaker identification. Grain's annual per-seat price of $15/seat/mo is also lower than tl;dv's $18/seat/mo. tl;dv's integrations reach over 5000 apps through Zapier, wider than Grain's Slack, Zapier, and Aircall, but that matters less than having documented export formats ready for interview records. Verdict: Grain wins.

### Sales Teams → Grain

Grain's CRM integrations cover Salesforce and HubSpot, while tl;dv's cover HubSpot, Zoho, and Salesloft, so Grain keeps Salesforce, the CRM most sales teams already run on, and tl;dv adds two others in its place. Both tools generate automatic action items and both offer clips and highlight reels for coaching. Grain also publishes live real-time transcription, which tl;dv does not list, and Grain's annual per-seat price of $15/seat/mo undercuts tl;dv's $18/seat/mo. With Salesforce support plus live transcription and a lower price, Grain is the stronger pick for sales teams. Verdict: Grain wins.

### Solo & Free → Grain

Grain's free plan allows 20 recorded meetings per month with a hard cap, while tl;dv's free plan caps full AI notes at 10 meetings with three month storage and 10 AI prompts, so Grain's free tier covers double the meetings before hitting a wall. tl;dv's free transcription is unlimited but capped at 3 hours per meeting. On price, Grain is clearly cheaper at $19/seat/mo versus tl;dv's $29/seat/mo. Both offer an AI meeting summary. With a more generous meeting cap and a lower paid seat price, Grain is the better fit for solo users and tiny teams. Verdict: Grain wins.

## Grain vs tl;dv: common questions

### Is Grain cheaper than tl;dv?

Yes. Grain's monthly per-seat price is $19/seat/mo compared to tl;dv's $29/seat/mo, and Grain's annual per-seat price is $15/seat/mo versus tl;dv's $18/seat/mo. Grain is the cheaper option at every published price tier.

### Grain vs tl;dv: which is better for consultants & agencies?

Grain is the better fit for consultants and agencies. Its annual per-seat price of $15/seat/mo undercuts tl;dv's $18/seat/mo, and Grain publishes in-person and mobile capture along with transcript export in PDF, SRT, VTT, and DOCX formats, none of which tl;dv lists. Both tools offer a bot-free capture option.

### Does Grain or tl;dv support more languages?

tl;dv publishes support for 30 languages. Grain does not publish a language count, so buyers who need a specific language covered should confirm directly with Grain.

### What does tl;dv's Business plan cost?

tl;dv's Business plan is $59/seat/mo billed annually, or $98/seat/mo billed monthly.

### Is Grain or tl;dv better for teams that need SSO?

Both offer enterprise SSO. Grain's Enterprise plan includes SAML SSO and audit logs. tl;dv's Enterprise plan includes SSO along with private-hosted AI.

### Does Grain support custom vocabulary for industry terms?

Yes, Grain supports custom vocabulary, which helps it transcribe industry-specific terms and names more accurately.

### What transcript export formats does Grain offer?

Grain supports transcript export in PDF, SRT, VTT, and DOCX formats.

### Do Grain and tl;dv exclude my call data from AI model training?

Yes for both. Grain and tl;dv each state that customer data is excluded from AI training.

### How long can I store recordings on tl;dv's free plan?

tl;dv's free plan keeps recordings for 3 months. Paid plans on tl;dv have unlimited storage.

Source: https://www.versusref.com/notetakers/grain-vs-tldv/