Granola vs Fathom for Australian businesses — which AI notetaker wins in 2026

Pricing figures updated 6 September 2026: USD prices are converted at the current rate (1 USD ≈ 1.40 AUD, verified 5 September 2026) and shown ex-GST, replacing the retired 1.55 + GST basis. A GST-registered Australian business that supplies its ABN is not charged GST on an imported digital service; other buyers should allow ~10% on top (Methodology).

Editor's note: Every pricing, feature and data-residency claim below is carried from our full Granola review (18/25) and Fathom review (19/25, corrected from 20/25 on 21 September 2026), each sourced from the vendor's own pricing, security and help pages. Prices re-checked against both vendors' pricing pages on 18 June 2026. AUD figures use our standard exchange rate of US$1 ≈ A$1.40 and assume 10% GST is added at checkout. Both tools score Australian Fit 2/5 — which, under our methodology, bars either from being named a category Top Pick. See the verdict.

Two AI notetakers keep coming up when Australian businesses go shopping this year, and they could not be more different in how they work. Granola sits quietly on your laptop, takes no bot into the call, and throws the audio away the moment it's transcribed. Fathom sends a visible bot into every meeting, records the lot, and gives it all back to you for free. One is the privacy-first option. The other is the value-first option.

The international reviews won't help you choose. They're written in US dollars, they ignore GST, and they never mention that recording a private conversation in Western Australia plays by different rules than in Victoria. So we've done the work for an Australian buyer.

Here's the honest head-to-head.

TL;DR

• For lowest cost — Fathom wins, and it isn't close. Its free-forever tier gives you unlimited recording and transcription; Granola's free tier caps your history at 30 days.
• For privacy and a low data footprint — Granola wins. No bot joins the call, and the audio is never stored at all — only the transcript and your notes.
• For ease of use — a dead heat. Both score 5/5. Fathom is "connect your calendar and forget it"; Granola is "open the app and talk."
• For feature depth — Fathom wins (4/5 vs Granola's 3/5). It records, transcribes, clips and summarises; Granola deliberately does less.
• For Australian fit — a tie at the bottom. Both score 2/5: US-only data residency, USD-only billing, no confirmed ABN tax invoice, and recording consent left largely to you.

For most Melbourne small businesses: start on Fathom's free plan this week. Choose Granola only if a bot in the room is a dealbreaker and you actively want no audio kept anywhere.

At a glance

Sources: granola.ai/pricing · fathom.ai/pricing — re-checked 18 June 2026. AUD figures estimated at FX 1.40; budget another 10% for GST at checkout.

Both tools display four stars, not five. Under our Australian Fit gate, five stars requires Australian Fit ≥ 4/5 — and both score 2/5. The same gate means neither can be a category Top Pick, however well it performs on capability.

What both tools do

Strip away the differences and both products solve the same problem: you finish a call, and instead of half-listening while you scribble, you get a clean written record. A structured summary, the decisions made, the follow-ups assigned, and a searchable transcript. Both work across Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. Both let you ask an AI questions across your notes after the fact — "what did we agree on pricing?" — rather than scrolling transcripts. Both are made by US software companies, billed in US dollars, with your data stored in the United States.

The difference is everything about how they get you there. Fathom sends a named bot into the meeting and records it. Granola records nothing visible, listens to your laptop's own audio, and deletes the recording once the transcript exists. That single design choice drives almost every trade-off below.

Pricing in AUD

Both vendors publish in USD only. The figure that lands on your card depends on your bank's FX rate plus GST. Here's the honest, all-in comparison at our standard rate.

Sources: granola.ai/pricing · fathom.ai/pricing — re-checked 18 June 2026. US$1 ≈ A$1.40, ex-GST.

Three things matter here for an Australian buyer.

Fathom's free tier is the headline. It's genuinely, unusually generous — unlimited recording and transcription that most rivals put behind a paywall. The catch is a cap on advanced AI summaries (five calls a month; after that you get the general template). Granola's free tier produces full AI notes too, but limits you to the last 30 days of history. As a standing free tool that you actually keep, Fathom goes further.

Granola has no annual billing. It's monthly only — you cannot lock in a cheaper rate by committing for a year, which is unusual for SaaS at this level. Fathom knocks roughly 20% off for paying annually. So if you're going to pay, Fathom rewards commitment and Granola doesn't.

Neither gives you clean Australian paperwork. Both bill in USD with no AUD price list. Neither confirms it issues an Australian tax invoice bearing an ABN — both are US-domiciled with no disclosed Australian entity. GST is generally added at checkout under the imported-services rules, but neither vendor states this clearly on its own pages: Granola describes tax only as generic "VAT" via Stripe, and Fathom doesn't confirm GST handling at all. For a sole trader that rarely matters. For a business whose bookkeeper wants to claim GST credits cleanly, confirm the tax treatment with the vendor before you commit a team.

Pricing verdict — Fathom. A free tier you can live on, an annual discount when you outgrow it, and per-seat pricing that lands a touch below Granola's. Granola's value review score (4/5) is fair for a privacy-first tool, but Fathom's 5/5 reflects a genuinely better deal for the money.

Where Granola wins

Privacy and data footprint. This is Granola's whole reason to exist. No bot ever joins the call, so no extra participant, no banner, nothing for the other side to clock. And it stores no audio at all — it transcribes live and discards the recording, keeping only the transcript and your notes. That meaningfully shrinks the data-breach surface: there's no library of recorded client calls sitting on a server waiting to leak. Fathom, by design, keeps the recording. If the very existence of a stored audio file worries you or your clients, Granola is the answer.

Invisibility in the room. Because there's no bot, there's no awkward "please admit the Fathom notetaker" moment, and no sense that the meeting is being surveilled. For sensitive conversations — a tense negotiation, a personnel matter, a nervous first client call — a tool that doesn't announce itself can be the difference between using AI notes and not. (This is also the consent risk; more on that below.)

In-person meetings. Granola captures your computer's own audio, so it works for a face-to-face meeting with the laptop open on the desk — not just video calls. Fathom is built around a bot joining a video call.

What it costs Granola: feature depth scores 3/5, lower than Fathom's 4/5. No stored recordings to revisit, no video, weaker speaker separation, and the consent auto-notice only fires on Zoom, on macOS, with the Zoom window focused. It does one thing — clean notes, quietly — and stops there. That focus is the point, but it's narrower than Fathom.

Where Fathom wins

Cost. The free-forever tier is the best in the category, and the paid plans undercut most rivals. Granola has no free tier you'd run long-term (30-day history) and no annual discount.

Feature depth (4/5 vs 3/5). Fathom records and keeps the call, so you can go back and re-watch a moment, not just read about it. It pulls out action items, generates shareable 30-second clips and highlights, offers customisable summary templates and a conversational assistant on paid tiers, and syncs to your CRM. Granola is deliberately leaner.

Set-and-forget automation. Connect your calendar once and Fathom's bot turns up to your scheduled calls on its own — no app to remember to open, no system-audio permission to grant. Granola needs the desktop app running to capture anything, and won't catch a call you take as a dial-in on your phone unless that audio routes through the Mac.

The audit trail. The visible bot and the stored recording cut both ways, but for some businesses the kept recording is the feature — a defensible record of what was actually said. And Fathom's bot, by being visible, does some of your consent disclosure for you (see below).

Both tools tie at 5/5 on ease of use and 4/5 on reliability and support. Fathom edges reliability detail with HIPAA compliance on top of the SOC 2 Type II and GDPR that both hold; Granola counters with its no-stored-audio model shrinking the breach surface. Call reliability a wash.

Australian fit — where both lose points

This is the section that matters most for an Australian buyer, and it's where both tools land at the same place: Australian Fit 2/5 each. The reasons are nearly identical.

Data residency — US only, both

Granola hosts notes in a US-based AWS Virtual Private Cloud. Fathom stores all data in the US on AWS. Neither offers an Australian — or any regional — data-residency option. Your transcripts and notes leave the country, full stop. For most small businesses that's an acceptable trade. For anyone bound by an Australian data-sovereignty requirement — some government work, some health and legal contexts, some enterprise procurement policies — it's a hard stop for both tools.

On certifications, both hold SOC 2 (Type 2 / Type II) and GDPR compliance, and both will sign a Data Processing Agreement on request. Fathom adds HIPAA compliance. Neither holds ISO 27001 — Fathom's help centre states this explicitly; Granola simply doesn't claim it. Granola's distinguishing security feature is that it stores no audio at all, which materially reduces what could ever be exposed.

Recording consent under Australian law

This is the editorial heart of it, and it's where the two designs diverge sharply — even though they score the same.

Australian recording law is not uniform. It's set state by state, and several jurisdictions — provisions in Western Australia and the Northern Territory among them — effectively require all-party consent to record a private conversation. You generally cannot assume one-party consent is enough; it depends on where everyone on the call is sitting. The safe national default is to tell everyone and get their agreement before you capture anything.

Fathom gives you tools to do that. A visible bot joins as a named participant, so everyone can see recording is happening, and Fathom states there's no way to record silently. It can auto-send a consent email to external attendees before scheduled meetings, and disables auto-record if someone declines. The gap: that email isn't sent for same-day, impromptu or unscheduled calls. On those, the bot is still visible, but you have to get verbal consent yourself.

Granola puts the entire burden on you. Because nothing joins the call and nothing announces itself, no banner or participant ever signals that the conversation is being captured. Granola is upfront about this — its own documentation "strongly recommends that you always ask for consent" and states you're responsible for obtaining it where the law requires. Its built-in consent-notice feature only auto-sends on Zoom, on macOS, with the Zoom window focused. Outside that narrow case, consent is fully manual, every time.

So they score the same 2/5, but for opposite reasons: Fathom's transparency helps you comply but leaves a gap on spontaneous calls; Granola's invisibility is the privacy selling point and the thing that means you must say it out loud yourself. Either way, build the habit: on any call, say plainly that AI notes are being taken and confirm everyone's fine with it before you continue.

A note for regulated work: AI meeting notes are not a substitute for qualified professional advice, and neither tool localises to your state's recording law. If you work in legal, finance, HR or medical settings — or handle client-confidential or regulated material — get your own advice on data residency and consent obligations before adopting either tool. The host, not the software, is responsible for complying with the relevant state or territory legislation.

Decision framework — if you're X, pick Y

If you're a budget-conscious solo operator or small team — pick Fathom, and start on Free this week. Unlimited recording and transcription for nothing, summaries that cover most of what you need, and an upgrade path only when the advanced-summary cap starts to bite. You risk nothing.

If a bot in the room is a dealbreaker — pick Granola. For sensitive negotiations, personnel conversations, or any setting where a visible "Fathom AI Notetaker" participant would change the tone, Granola's silent capture is the only one of the two that fits. Just own the consent disclosure yourself.

If you never want a stored audio recording to exist — pick Granola. It's the only one of the two that keeps no audio at all. For client-confidential matters where a kept recording is itself a liability, that's the deciding feature.

If you run a lot of back-to-back video calls and want zero admin — pick Fathom. Connect the calendar once and the bot does the rest, across Zoom, Teams and Meet, with action items and clips waiting for you afterwards.

If you take in-person meetings or work mainly on a Mac at your desk — slight edge to Granola, which captures the room's audio through your laptop. Fathom is built for video calls with a bot.

If you're on Android — pick Fathom. It's web-based and platform-agnostic; Granola has no Android app (Mac, Windows and iOS only).

If you need Australian data residency or an ABN tax invoice today — neither. Both store data in the US and bill in USD with no confirmed local tax invoice. If onshore data is a hard requirement, this isn't the category pairing for you — look to a tool with an Australian data region.

Our verdict

These two aren't really competing for the same buyer, which is what makes the choice clear once you know what you value.

Fathom is the one most Australian small businesses should try first. It scores 19/25 to Granola's 18/25, and although the gap has narrowed to a single point it is still real: a free tier you can genuinely live on, an annual discount, more feature depth, and consent tooling that does some of the disclosure work for you. For a Melbourne business owner running a steady diet of Zoom, Teams and Meet calls, start on Fathom's free plan and upgrade only when you need the advanced summaries. On capability and value, Fathom is the better tool.

Granola earns its place for a narrower, real reason: it's the privacy choice. No bot, no stored audio, the smallest possible data footprint. If a recording bot would poison your meetings, or if the existence of a kept audio file is a liability for your clients, Granola is worth the higher price and the manual consent discipline it demands.

But here's the part the scores force us to be honest about. Both tools store your data in the US, bill in USD with no confirmed ABN invoice, and leave Australian consent law largely on your shoulders. Both score Australian Fit 2/5 — and under our methodology, that means neither can be named the category Top Pick, no matter how well Fathom performs on value or how distinctive Granola's privacy model is. Fathom wins this head-to-head on merit. It just can't wear the category crown until a notetaker shows up that's actually built with Australian compliance in mind.

For now: Fathom for most, Granola if a bot or a stored recording is the thing you can't accept.

Frequently asked questions

Which is cheaper for an Australian user?

Fathom, clearly. Its free-forever tier gives you unlimited recording and transcription at no cost, where Granola's free tier caps your history at 30 days. On paid plans, Fathom's annual pricing (~A$21–25/user/month before GST) undercuts Granola's monthly-only Business plan (~A$20 before GST) once you factor in Fathom's annual discount and stronger free tier. Figures are ex-GST: a GST-registered business that supplies its ABN is not charged GST on an imported digital service; other buyers add ~10%. to either at checkout.

Does either store my call recordings?

Fathom does — it keeps the recording so you can re-watch it. Granola does not store audio at all; it transcribes live and deletes the recording, keeping only the transcript and your notes. If a kept recording is a liability for you, Granola is the safer model.

Does either offer Australian data residency?

No. Both store data in the US on AWS, with no Australian or regional option. If onshore data storage is a hard requirement, neither is suitable on its current setup.

Which is better for recording-consent compliance in Australia?

Both score the same, for opposite reasons. Fathom's visible bot signals that recording is happening and it can auto-email consent requests for scheduled calls — but not for same-day or impromptu ones. Granola announces nothing, so the disclosure is entirely on you. Under Australia's all-party-consent regimes, the host is responsible either way: say out loud that AI notes are being taken and confirm everyone agrees. This is general information, not legal advice — get your own where the stakes are high.

Can I claim either as a business expense in Australia?

For tools used in producing assessable income, generally yes — but both bill in USD and neither confirms it issues an Australian tax invoice with an ABN. Check what you receive at checkout and talk to your accountant before treating it as deductible. This is general commentary, not tax advice.

How often is this comparison updated?

Quarterly at minimum, and immediately on any material change to pricing, features or Australian availability for either tool. The "last reviewed" date at the top is the source of truth.

The AI Directory Australia is independent. We don't accept payment for positive reviews. Affiliate links — where present — are clearly disclosed. Pricing and features are subject to change; verify on each vendor's pricing page before purchasing.

By Adam. Reviewed: 18 June 2026.

Sources

Primary vendor pages backing the load-bearing pricing, feature, data-residency and consent claims in this comparison. Carried from the verified Granola review and Fathom review (both 3 June 2026); pricing re-checked 18 June 2026. Scoring methodology and the Australian Fit gate: methodology.

Granola — Primary

1. Granola pricing — https://www.granola.ai/pricing — re-checked 18 June 2026
2. Granola security — https://www.granola.ai/security — checked 3 June 2026
3. Granola consent guidance — https://docs.granola.ai/help-center/consent-security-privacy/getting-consent — checked 3 June 2026
4. Granola help centre — https://docs.granola.ai/help-center — checked 3 June 2026
5. Granola trust centre — https://trust.granola.ai — checked 3 June 2026

Fathom — Primary

6. Fathom pricing — https://www.fathom.ai/pricing — re-checked 18 June 2026
7. Fathom "Is Fathom secure?" (data residency, SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA, deletion) — https://help.fathom.video/en/articles/296512 — checked 3 June 2026
8. Fathom "Automatically Requesting Recording Consent" — https://help.fathom.video/en/articles/294272 — checked 3 June 2026
9. Fathom "Can I record calls without asking for permission?" — https://help.fathom.video/en/articles/6150977 — checked 3 June 2026
10. Fathom Trust Center — https://trust.fathom.video/ — checked 3 June 2026

Internal

11. Full Granola review (18/25) — /granola-review-australia-2026
12. Full Fathom review (19/25) — /fathom-review-australia-2026
13. Scoring framework + Australian Fit gate — /methodology

Primary facts carried from each vendor's own pages (verified 3 June 2026); pricing re-verified 18 June 2026.