Read AI Pricing 2026: Every Plan Explained (+ a Private Alternative)

Read AI’s plans and prices

All prices are per user per month. The pricing page lists annual billing as 25% off the monthly rate, which is how $19.75 becomes $15 and $29.75 becomes $22.50.

Volume discounts apply on annual billing only: 10% at 100 or more licences, 15% at 500 or more, and 20% at 1,000 or more. Each user needs an individual licence, a workspace must use a single plan for every licence, and there are no admin-only licences.

Payment is by card, monthly or annually; PayPal isn’t accepted and the page says refunds are not offered. There is no stated trial for paid plans. Read also offers premium features at no extra cost through some Zoom One Pro, Business and Business Plus subscriptions, and separate education pricing.

Is Read AI free?

There is a permanent free plan, “no credit card required”, but it is tight: 5 meetings a month, each up to 1 hour, with reports, transcription and live notes. File uploads, playback and custom branding are paid. The upgrade that unlocks unlimited transcripts is Pro at $15 per user a month billed yearly.

The notetaker that arrives from someone else’s calendar

This is the thing people search “how to stop Read AI” for, so it belongs on a pricing page too: Read joins a meeting on behalf of whoever connected their calendar to it, which may not be you. According to Read’s own article, it requests permission to join, appears as a participant and posts a chat message naming the person who invited it and explaining how to turn it off.

In Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, Read says a single “no” from any attendee is enough to keep it out. In Zoom only the host decides whether it is admitted, but every participant can still opt out and delete the recording. Typing “Opt Out” in the meeting chat stops it with no report created; “Read Stop” makes it leave and write up what it captured so far. The person who invited it can switch off “Add Read?” for the meeting in Read Calendar beforehand. Step-by-step instructions for each platform are in our guide to removing AI meeting bots.

Which devices Read AI runs on

The notetaker works with Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. Read lists apps for Windows, macOS, Android and iPhone, a Chrome extension that covers Gmail and Google Calendar, and integrations with Slack, Notion, Salesforce, HubSpot, Jira, Confluence and Asana. The pricing page doesn’t describe a way to record without the notetaker joining.

A private alternative to Read AI

Every Read AI plan works the same way: a notetaker joins the call and the meeting goes to Read’s service for transcription and reports. The plans differ in limits, not in where your meetings go.

If you’d rather keep meetings on your own machine, QuietNote records the microphone and the computer’s audio on your Mac, transcribes there with a local Whisper model, and saves the notes as Markdown files. No bot joins, and nothing is uploaded unless you turn on a cloud model with your own key. It will cost €8 a month or €79 a year, with 50% off for life for people on the waitlist; it’s coming soon for macOS 14.2 or later, with Windows planned.

What Read AI does with your meetings

A bot joins the call. Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet through the notetaker; apps for Windows, macOS, Android and iPhone; a Chrome extension for Gmail and Google Calendar

• Storage: encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.2 or later in transit. The privacy page doesn’t state a storage region; for EU/EEA workspace customers it cites the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers.
• Training: contributing your data to model improvement is off by default and you can change it at any time. Read says meetings, transcripts and personal information are never sold to advertisers or third parties. Sub-processors are listed at trust.read.ai.
• Compliance: SOC 2 Type II, audited annually. Read says it meets HIPAA’s technical safeguard requirements and offers a BAA on request; HIPAA is a feature of the Enterprise+ plan. A DPA is available to eligible EU/EEA workspace customers.
• Deleting: a participant who opts out has their meeting data “immediately and permanently deleted”. You can delete reports you own; deleting an account removes its reports unless a workspace retains them. No general retention period is stated.

Read AI alternatives and their prices

Prices below are each vendor’s own starting paid plan, checked on the date at the top of this page. They change often — follow the sources at the end before you decide. The Read AI alternatives guide goes into why people switch.

If a bot-free note taker is what you’re after, see how it works. Switching but Read AI keeps showing up in meetings? Our guide shows how to remove AI meeting bots.