Grain claims to make conversational intelligence simple so you can focus on the important things: coaching your team and closing more deals. While it definitely does a good job, is it the best in the market, or are there some Grain alternatives that offer a bigger bang for your buck?
This is what we aim to find out here. We’ve compiled a list of Grain competitors so you don’t have to. All of them are forces to be reckoned with, but each business only has room for one meeting recorder. Which one is right for you and your business?
Grain Review
If you’ve come here looking for the best cereal to make bread, you’re in the wrong place. Unless, of course, by bread you mean more profit from your sales calls. We’re talking about the AI meeting recorded, Grain.com.
In short, it’s a bot that joins your meetings, records them, transcribes them, and then makes it incredibly easy for you to actually use the transcripts and videos afterwards. Otherwise, there’s not really much point. You can create clips, add comments, make notes and even get AI summaries about your meetings. You can ask Grain’s intuitive AI questions to get instant answers about the meeting too.
What makes it great for sales teams?
Transcripts
Grain provides live transcriptions, filler word removal, and translations into more than 20 languages. It automatically detects who’s speaking and even lets you build your own custom vocabulary so that jargon-heavy meetings can still be recorded and searched accurately.
It’s super easy for you to search your meeting’s transcript during or after the call. You can also make use of Grain’s AI and get answers, insights, and summaries immediately.
All of these features are accessible with an easy-to-use UI which means you’ll never get lost.
Austauschbarkeit
Grain makes calls easy to share. No one wants to sift through hour-long meetings, and with Grain you don’t have to. Create bite-sized snippets and share them with colleagues and stakeholders in one click. Whether it’s a snippet from a sales call or a highlight from a user research interview, Grain makes sharing the voice of the customer easier than ever.
Integrationen
While Grain has some top quality integrations, it certainly lacks on the quantity side of things. Offering a grand total of seven integrations, Grain is playing catch up to its alternatives in this regard.
The integrations it offers can be seen below.
To be clear, Grain integrates with:
- Zoom
- Slack
- HubSpot
- Aircall
- Salesforce
- Produktkartei
- Zapier
The Zapier integration is probably the most vital there as it partially makes up for the lack of native connections. With Zapier, you can link your Grain account with many other third-party platforms. It just adds an extra step.
Why Change?
So far, so good. Why would anybody be searching for Grain alternatives? Sounds like a great little sales tool to help out with the 10 gazillion meetings sales managers have every week, not to mention the individual reps’ sales calls, or the painstaking interviews and subsequent analysis that user researchers are subjected to.
Weak Free Plan
Firstly, Grain’s free plan is acceptable, but by no means strong. If you want to try before you buy, Grain leaves most of its features out. Sure, there’s a free trial. But it’s timed and adds unnecessary pressure to your buying decision.
The free plan only gets you 20 meetings’ worth of transcripts.
Integrationen
While the integrations it has are great, there are two downsides.
- They’re behind paywalls. The Slack, Productboard, and Zapier integrations aren’t unlocked until the Starter Plan ($15 per month), while the Aircall, Salesforce, and HubSpot integrations aren’t unlocked until the Business Plan ($29 per month).
- There’s only 7. Some of the Grain alternatives on this list have thousands of native integrations. Businesses that already have a suite of work tools might struggle to find a way to integrate their tools seamlessly, defeating the purpose of Grain’s automation in the first place.
Limited Coaching
Grain, despite having vast swathes of meeting data that can be used for in-depth analysis and training, only offers a primitive form of coaching. There’s no customizable playbooks or specific sales coaching offered, but to their credit, there is the option to get hard data on things like a sales rep’s talk time so they know when too much is too much.
Weak Support Offerings
Grain’s priority support doesn’t kick in until the Enterprise Plan. Any users in lower plans wanting to contact someone for support will have to do so via email. There’s no chat option and emails can take days to get a response.
How does Grain score on G2?
While Grain scoring is quite positive, there are quite a bunch of downsides highlighted by several users:
- Feature Limitations:
- Lack of live audio transcription and support for multiple languages in meetings.
- Some issues with transcription accuracy, especially with accents.
- Limited functionality for managing shared folders and setting default behaviors for sharing.
- User Experience Issues:
- Filtering tagged clips/notes could be more intuitive.
- The platform sometimes struggles with joining webinars or integrating with additional VoIP systems.
- Cost and Accessibility:
- Some users find the pricing of the business plan high for SMBs or startups.
- Limited options in the free version and the need for additional educational resources.
Die 4 besten Grain Alternativen
Let’s take a deep dive into Grain’s competitors and separate the wheat from the chaff…
1. tl;dv
tl;dv takes conversational intelligence to the next level. It’s gone far past being a simple meeting recorder. Yes, it records meetings. Yes, it transcribes them. And yes, it even instantly and automatically sends AI summaries to all participants as soon as the call ends. But these features are just the foundations for something far greater. In fact, they’re so basic to tl;dv that you can get unlimited call recordings and transcripts for free. Forever.
You can even integrate it with Slack, emails, and your calendar on the free plan too. That’s because the value goes far beyond the foundational features.
Imagine: you’re a sales manager that wants to keep track of a certain objection that has been cropping up across multiple sales calls with multiple different sales reps. tl;dv offers multi-meeting intelligence, meaning you can get recurring reports about specific information across ALL company calls.
In addition to that, tl;dv offers sales coaching playbooks and templates so that you can improve your sales performance with hard evidence. Its innovative AI reviews your sales reps’ speaking time, the amount of questions asked, and the context of the conversation, and provides suggestions for how to improve.
How Does tl;dv Compare to Grain?
For starters, tl;dv solves Grain’s three main drawbacks.
- Free plan. tl;dv has an industry leading free plan, offering up unlimited call recordings, transcripts, and viewers without needing to spend a single cent. The majority of core features are completely free too, from timestamping to making clips. You even get a limited amount of AI features.
- Integrations. tl;dv has over 5,000 native integrations, marking it as the best Grain alternative for those that prioritize seamless communication between all their work tools.
- Coaching. As mentioned, tl;dv’s AI makes use of the insights in your sales call recordings to show you where to improve. Grain offers a basic version of this that highlights talk-to-listen ratio, but it doesn’t offer a range of customizable playbooks like tl;dv.
- Dialect support. tl;dv supports dozens of different dialects. This makes the transcripts more accessible and accurate to teams with heavy regional accents.
- Customer support. tl;dv offers a free online chat to all users, making it easy to get help when you need it. Priority support is unlocked in the first paid plan: Pro ($18 per month).
To see how tl;dv stands up against Grain comprehensively, check out our in-depth comparison: tl;dv vs Grain.
Let’s make the tl;dv benefits even clearer:
tl;dv Profis
- Kostenlose KI-Integration: tl;dv nutzt KI auf höchstem Niveau, um Zusammenfassungen, Notizen und automatische Sprechererkennung bereitzustellen.
- Kostenlose und sofortige Übersetzungen: tl;dvDie Transkriptionen sind in mehr als 40 Sprachen für Zoom, MS Teams und Google Meet verfügbar.
- Unglaublich kostenloser Plan: Unbegrenzte kostenlose Aufzeichnungen und Transkriptionen von Anrufen Zoom, MS Teams und Google Meet .
- Einfache Bedienung: Das schlanke Design von tl;dvmacht es für Anfänger und Experten gleichermaßen einfach.
- Multi-Meeting-Intelligenz. Planen Sie wiederkehrende Berichte, um Einblicke in mehrere Meetings auf einmal zu erhalten, die direkt in Ihren Posteingang geliefert werden.
- Sales Coaching. Upgrade your sales team using insights from your sales calls. Improve objection handling and use templates or custom playbooks to personalize your coaching strategy.
- Zeitstempel und Tagging-Funktionen: Versehen Sie Ihre Besprechungshighlights mit Zeitstempeln, um schnell zu bestimmten Momenten der Besprechung zurückzuspringen. Außerdem können Sie Kollegen in bestimmten Momenten des Meetings markieren, damit sie eine E-Mail mit einem Link direkt in ihren Posteingang erhalten.
- Über 5.000 Integrationen: Über native Integrationen können Sie Zeitstempel und Meeting-Clips direkt an Notion, Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce und mehr als 5.000 weitere Organisationen senden.
- Clips und Highlights erstellen: Scannen Sie Ihre Bibliothek und erstellen Sie Clips und Highlight-Reels, um Erkenntnisse zu verdichten.
- Intuitive Bibliothek: Durchsuchen Sie Ihre Meeting-Bibliothek nach Schlüsselwörtern in Abschriften, um schnell das zu finden, was Sie suchen.
tl;dv Nachteile
- Kompatibilität: Noch nicht verfügbar für Webex oder BlueJeans.
Preisgestaltung
tl;dv’s free plan solidifies its place at the top of this list of Grain alternatives. You can get started today with no strings attached. Plus, depending on which region of the world you’re in, you can get up to a 40% discount on the paid plans!
Kostenlose Planfunktionen
- Unbegrenzte Videoaufzeichnungen und Abschriften.
- Aufzeichnung von Google Meet, Zoom und MS Teams-Anrufen.
- Transkribieren in über 40 Sprachen
- Unbegrenzte AI-Momentzusammenfassungen
- 10x AI Besprechungsnotizen
- 10x Ask tl;dv AI
- 10x AI Multi-Meeting Berichte
- Slack-, E-Mail- und Kalender-Integrationen
- Zeitstempel und Markierungen setzen
- Clips erstellen und freigeben
- Automatische Sprechererkennung
- 3 monatliche Uploads
tl;dvDie kostenpflichtigen Abonnements schalten mehr als 5.000 Integrationen, Vertriebscoaching playbooks, unbegrenzte Multi-Meeting-Intelligenz, wiederkehrende Berichte, Analysen, herunterladbare Aufzeichnungen, anpassbare Freigabeeinstellungen, vorrangigen Kundensupport und vieles, vieles mehr frei.
See the full details here.
tl;dv gegen Grain
We’ve summarized the number one Grain alternative and its features into a nice, neat table for a comparison overview.
| Grain | tl;dv | |
| Kostenloser Plan? | 20 meeting recordings and transcripts | Unbegrenzte Aufnahmen und Abschriften |
| KI? | Yes, for summaries, basic notes, and limited coaching | Yes, for summaries, recurring reports, multi-meeting intelligence, and powerful sales coaching (including many features for free) |
| Preis der kostenpflichtigen Tarife | $15-29+ / month | $18-59+ / month |
| Google Meet? | Ja | Ja |
| Zoom und MS Teams | Ja | Ja |
| Aufzeichnungen Video? | Ja | Ja |
| Automatisierte Transkription? | Yes (20+ languages) | Ja (über 40 Sprachen) |
| Erkennung von Sprechern? | Ja | Ja |
| Zeitstempel für Momente in Echtzeit? | Ja | Ja |
| CRM-Integrationen? | Yes (HubSpot and Salesforce unlocked with the Business plan) | Yes (HubSpot, Salesforce, and dozens more unlocked with the Pro plan) |
| Slack-Integration? | Yes ($15 per month) | Ja (kostenlos) |
| Suche in allen Sitzungsprotokollen | Ja | Ja |
| Kollegen markieren? | Nein | Ja |
| Anzeigen von Analysen | Ja | Ja (auch bei Free) |
| Clips erstellen? | Ja | Ja (auch bei Free) |
| Sprechzeitanalyse für Vertreter | Ja | Ja |
| Schlüsselwort-Warnungen anhören | Nein | Ja |
While Grain is a pretty special meeting tool, we think tl;dv more than pips it here. tl;dv takes what you can do with AI meeting assistants to an entirely new level, and is only strengthened by its generous free plan.
It boils down to this: tl;dv can do everything Grain does, and far more, for less.
2. Fathom
Fathom is another great Grain competitor that also comes with a competitive free plan. Known for being an excellent AI meeting transcription tool, Fathom quickly and automatically creates summaries of meetings, including action item summaries so you can make decisions faster and more efficiently. Like Grain, it provides real-time transcriptions which can be a huge bonus if you want to take notes on-the-go.
You can also use Fathom to organize your insights across popular documentation tools like Google Docs, Notion, or Asana with ease. By generating highlights mid-call, you can ask the powerful AI to summarize them in a simple click. You can instantly sync your mid-call notes with the rest of your research notes, streamlining your work process.
The meeting, along with all notes, highlights, and clips, will be available to download as soon as the call ends.
Fathom Profis
- Automatische Zusammenfassungen. Fathom erstellt automatisch Zusammenfassungen von Besprechungen, einschließlich Aktionspunkte.
- Easily Shareable. It’s designed to share data across multiple platforms.
- Leistungsstarke KI. Erzeugen Sie Highlights während des Gesprächs und lassen Sie sie von der KI von Fathommit einem einfachen Klick zusammenfassen.
- Sofortiger Download. Sitzungen und Protokolle stehen zum sofortigen Download bereit.
- Gute kostenlose Optionen. Es ist kostenlos für den persönlichen Gebrauch und bietet eine 2-wöchige kostenlose Testversion für die Teamversion.
Fathom Nachteile
- Kompatibilität. Fathom ist nur mit Zoom, MS Teams und Google Meet verfügbar.
- Begrenzte Übersetzungen. Nur in 6 Sprachen verfügbar.
- Complicated Pricing. The pricing for Fathom can be quite confusing compared to other Grain alternatives.
Preisgestaltung
Fathom is completely free for personal use, making it one of the top free plans out of all the Grain competitors. For use in teams, which is where it’ll be most essential for sales managers, Fathom requires you to get a paid plan. There is a free trial for this plan, but after the trial runs out, you’re left without any options. This paid plan starts at $50 per month and is priced on an odd “per company” basis.
Grain vs Fathom
Fathom is definitely a better place to start if you’re just looking to test the tools out. Fathom’s individual free plan gives everything. Grain doesn’t even offer basic Slack integrations for free, let alone any of their advanced AI features.
For a comprehensive comparison of Fathom and the number one meeting recorder on this list, tl;dv, see our overview: tl;dv vs Fathom.
3. Avoma
Avoma talks a big game. They claim to be the only AI meeting assistant you need. Are they all talk, or is Avoma the Grain competitor you’ve been waiting to get your hands on?
Well, like tl;dv, Avoma has taken the primary use cases of AI meeting assistants and ran into the future with them. It has competitive conversational intelligence, sales coaching, and even revenue intelligence.
Like with tl;dv, Avoma’s notes are searchable so you can always find exactly what you’re looking for. It’s also compatible with 8 different video conferencing platforms, the most of any AI meeting assistant on this list. That means that even if your team is using GoToMeeting or Bluejeans, you won’t have to switch.
Avoma Profis
- Sales Coaching and Playbooks. Avoma offers playbooks, templates, and dashboards to improve your sales reps’ skills.
- Revenue Intelligence. Deal intelligence, deal risk alerts, and trend analytics offer cutting edge insights.
- Conversation Intelligence. Analyze calls, track keywords, questions, and speaking patterns to maximize sales calls.
- Notizen machen. Machen Sie bei Video- und Audioanrufen Notizen in Echtzeit.
- Suchfunktion. Durchsuchen Sie Ihre Abschriften und Notizen ganz einfach nach dem, was Sie suchen.
- Kompatibilität. Funktioniert mit Google Meet, Zoom, MS Teams, und mehr
Avoma Nachteile
- Limited integrations. Avoma has more integrations than Grain, but they’re fairly limited in the grand scheme of things.
- Weak free plan. The free plan is weaker than other Grain alternatives.
Preisgestaltung
Der Starter Plan von Avoma beginnt bei $19 pro Benutzer und Monat und bietet nur 2.400 Minuten Transkription pro Monat. Der Plus Plan steigt auf 49 $ pro Monat und schaltet CRM-Integrationen und unbegrenzte Transkriptionen frei (etwas, das tl;dv in seinem Pro Plan anbietet). Der Business Plan kostet 79 US-Dollar pro Monat und schaltet KI-Scorecards sowie erweiterte Konversations- und Umsatzinformationen frei.
Avoma bietet auch einen Enterprise-Plan an, der 129 Dollar pro Monat kostet.
Kostenlose Planfunktionen
- Aufnahme und Transkription (300 Minuten pro Monat)
- Begrenzte AI-generierte Notizen
- Kollaboratives Notieren
- Vorbereitung der Tagesordnung
- Unbegrenzter 1:1 Planer
Avoma also offers a free 14-day trial for any of its plans so you’re free to test out its advanced features over any 2-week period. As for the free plan itself, it’s actually worse than Grain’s. This can be a big hindrance for teams that want to try before they buy, but it’s not the end of the world.
Grain gegen Avoma
Avoma’s conversation intelligence is great, far surpassing anything Grain currently offers. Similarly, its sales coaching, revenue intelligence, and number of integrations set it apart from Grain in terms of advanced features.
However, with those advanced features comes advanced prices. It’s priced above most of Grain’s competitors and also lacks quality in its more affordable plans.
4. Gong
Let’s not beat around the bush about it, Gong is a beast. The only reason Gong isn’t higher in this list is because it can be ridiculously expensive. Unless your team requires the super advanced features at any cost, it’s out of most team’s budgets.
With Gong’s super-charged AI analytics, it helps sales reps enhance their skills, identify high-potential leads, and improve overall sales performance. Gong is hyper-specialized for sales teams, regardless of how big they are. It’s joining your meetings for one purpose and one purpose only: to increase your sales.
Most of the other Grain competitors on this list are multi-faceted, focusing on remote work and seamless asynchronous collaboration with some specialized features for sales teams. Gong is sales or nothing. This can be both bad or good; it depends on your business needs.
Gong Profis
- Integrationen. Gong verfügt über Hunderte von Integrationen, die eine nahtlose Verbindung Ihrer Arbeitsbereiche ermöglichen.
- Umsatz-Intelligenz. GongDie hochmoderne Revenue Intelligence ermöglicht Ihnen Umsatzprognosen und unterstützt Sie bei der Geschäftsabwicklung.
- Sales coaching. Gong offers custom playbooks, scorecards, templates, and objection handling training.
- Stimmungsanalyse. GongDie KI analysiert die Stimmung der Kunden, um Sie dem Geschäftsabschluss näher zu bringen.
Gong Nachteile
- Expensive. Not only is Gong’s pricing hidden behind a sales call, it’s notoriously high as the platform is built for enterprises.
- Heavy sales focus. Gong is so focused on sales teams that it doesn’t really make sense to use it at all if you’re not going to maximize the use of its sales features.
- Long-winded onboarding. To get access to Gong, you must jump through hoops.
- Intrusive recommendations. Some reviewers suggest that Gong’s recommendations on how to improve your sales pitch can be annoying and unwanted.
Gong Preisgestaltung
To access Gong’s pricing, you need to arrange a sales call with their team. While this might sound like an unnecessary hurdle (which it is), it’s done to let you know from the get-go that this is an enterprise-level platform.
Es wurde berichtet, dass einige Pläne bis zu 1.600 $ pro Benutzer pro Jahr kosten, bei einer maximalen Anzahl von 49 Benutzern. Das heißt, wenn Ihr Team 49 Mitglieder hat, zahlen Sie 78.400 Dollar, bevor Sie auch nur einen einzigen Verkauf getätigt haben.
In short, Gong’s pricing is for the top-tier players. This is why it comes last on our list.
Grain vs Gong
There’s no doubt about it: Gong is the better tool. If both tools were the same price, Gong would be the choice every day of the week. However, Gong is built for enterprises and, as such, is priced accordingly. Unless you’re looking for a Grain alternative because you specifically want the best of the best when it comes to sales coaching, revenue intelligence, conversational intelligence, and overall sales features, then you’re better off looking elsewhere.
If you’re curious about how tl;dv stacks against Gong, check our detailed comparison – it’s a worth it, believe me.
Das Urteil
Grain alternatives are all over the place, but it really depends on your business needs for what you want to replace it with. Grain is a great tool on its own, but it falls behind alternatives like tl;dv, Fathom, Avoma, and Gong.
tl;dv is the best all-round tool in terms of bang for your buck. It has the best free plan and the greatest valued paid plans. Fathom is a good Grain alternative with a solid free plan for individuals. Gong is a wise choice if you’re looking to go all-in on sales, regardless of initial price. Avoma bridges the gap between tl;dv’s sales coaching and conversational intelligence and Gong’s powerhouse of a sales suite, for a similarly bridged price.
Ultimately, the decision depends on you and your business needs.
