Analysing sales calls for free: what is actually possible
Which tools let you analyse your sales calls for free, and how far does their free tier really go? A comparison of the free plans from Fathom, tl;dv and Fireflies, and the limit they all share.
Yes, you can analyse your calls without paying. And no, it is not a crippled version that pushes you to pay after three meetings.
The notetaker market got so crowded that free became a weapon. Several tools now offer a free tier that is genuinely usable day to day, not a disguised demo.
You still need to know what each one covers, and above all where free stops in every case.
What free means here
Three different things hide behind the word, which is what makes comparisons unreadable:
- Free on volume: unlimited meetings and transcription time. That is real free.
- Free with AI credits: you record as much as you want, but summaries and questions to the AI are counted.
- Free as a trial: a few days or a few hours, then you pay. That is not a free plan, it is a demo.
The tools with a genuine free plan
Fathom
Most generous for individual useRecordings and transcriptions with no volume or duration limit on individual use. Automatic summaries included. It is currently the reference if you work alone and want to stop taking notes by hand.
Limit: the generosity is about capture. Deep commercial analysis, what comes back from one call to the next, stays out of reach.
tl;dv
Generous, with creditsUnlimited meetings and transcription on the free tier, plus shareable video clips that are very handy to circulate a moment of a call inside the team.
Limit: AI features run on credits and storage is reduced on the free plan. You record without counting, you analyse while counting.
Fireflies
Wider transcription limitsA free tier with transcription quotas reported as wider than some competitors, and a good level of integrations.
Limit: the interface and the advanced features push fairly quickly toward paid plans as soon as you work as a team.
ChatGPT or Claude
The option nobody listsPasting a transcript into a general purpose assistant often gives an excellent result on a single call, for nothing if you already have an account.
Limit: it starts from scratch every time. No memory from one call to the next, and you re explain your context on every prompt. Excellent for one call, unmanageable for fifty.
On the other side, Leexi has no free plan, and Modjo sells on quote with an annual commitment. Neither is an option when your budget is zero.
| Tool | What the free tier covers |
|---|---|
| Fathom | Unlimited recording and transcription for individual use. |
| tl;dv | Unlimited meetings and transcription, AI features on credits. |
| Fireflies | Wide transcription quotas, decent integrations. |
| ChatGPT or Claude | Effectively unlimited, but with no memory between calls. |
| Leexi | Nothing. No free tier. |
| Modjo | Nothing. Quote and annual commitment. |
These tiers move often, since free is a customer acquisition argument. Check with the vendor before committing to a workflow.
The ceiling free never passes
And it is not a quota. All these tools, free and paid alike, answer the same question: what was said during this call? None answers the next one, which is the one that changes your day to day: what do I do with it?
You pile up thirty flawless free summaries. Meanwhile you rewrite your prospecting messages from intuition, in another tab, without ever reopening those thirty files.
What free gives you
- A clean transcript of every call
- A summary you probably will not reread
- Clips to share
- A folder that grows
What you are still missing
- What comes back from one call to the next
- The portrait of who actually buys from you
- Targeting criteria drawn from those signals
- Messages written with your customers own words
Meidly starts there, and is also free to try
Meidly does not replace Fathom or tl;dv, and does not try to record your meetings better than they do. It starts from what is said in your conversations to build your client avatar, turn it into targeting criteria, then into messages. You can try it with free credits, no credit card, on your own calls.
See Meidly call analysis→Where to actually start
If you capture nothing today, take Fathom. It is free, immediate, and you will finally have a record of your conversations.
If you already have transcripts and want to understand what is in them, a general purpose assistant will do for a handful of calls. Beyond that, re explaining everything each time becomes the real cost.
And if your question is no longer how do I record but what do I do with what was said, no notetaker free tier will take you there, because that is not their job.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free tool to analyse sales calls?
Fathom is currently the most generous for individual use, with recording and transcription and no volume limit. tl;dv is very close, with unlimited meetings but AI features counted in credits. Fireflies offers wide transcription quotas. All three transcribe and summarise very well, and none of them does cross call commercial analysis.
Can you analyse your calls with ChatGPT for free?
Yes. Pasting a transcript into ChatGPT or Claude often gives a very good result on a single call, for nothing if you already have an account. The limit shows with volume: the assistant starts from scratch on every conversation, keeps no context from one call to the next, and forces you to re explain everything each time.
Do Leexi or Modjo have a free version?
Neither does. Leexi publishes a pricing grid but with no free tier, and Modjo sells on quote with an annual commitment and a minimum number of seats. To test without a budget, you have to turn to the notetakers.
Is a free tool enough to sell better?
To forget nothing from a meeting, yes, easily. To sell better, no, and it is not a matter of paid versions: even the most expensive tools stop at analysis. What changes something is reusing those signals in your targeting and your messages, and that is a different category of product.