Granola Reviews

While Granola supports over 15 languages, it’s only possible to add internal jargon to English transcriptions.

So, transcriptions made in other supported languages (such as French, Spanish, Korean, and Mandarin) aren’t as great as the app’s native language.

Nonetheless, this multilingual AI notetaker includes plenty of features to make your transcription experience unique, regardless of the language, starting with a clean, well-structured desktop app that makes navigation smooth.

From the app, you can manage workspaces, sort meetings into folders, choose different transcription templates, chat with previous meetings you had and share notes.

It also integrates with various third-party solutions, such as Zapier, Notion, Slack, Affinity, HubSpot, and Attio.

Granola offers over 25 templates with notetaking instructions, neatly organized in a template library. It includes templates for recruiting, brainstorming, customer onboarding, and investor meetings.

If none of the existing templates work for you, it’s possible to edit them to your liking or quickly create a custom one from scratch.

For each meeting, Granola creates a note that includes all the details in bullet points, organized into sections. Each bullet point contains a magnifying glass icon that, when clicked, explains why it was added, including quotes from the real conversation.

An advantage of Granola is that it lets you write notes directly in the app during a meeting. The AI combines your notes with the transcript to produce more personalized and better-structured summaries compared to the competition.

We especially liked that the notetaker doesn’t use AI meeting bots or agents. This makes meetings smoother, as you completely forget that Granola is silently running in the background.

In addition to excellent, accurate transcriptions, Granola supports unlimited meeting notes and history.

The longer you use Granola, the more information the AI is able to offer.

For example, the app creates a searchable list of attendees and company names from calendar events and meetings. It pulls company information, job titles, and profile pictures every time you have a meeting.

This allows you to search for notes that include specific people by just clicking on the person or company with whom you had a meeting.

Unfortunately, Granola doesn’t support adding names manually or personalized speaker labelling on desktop. Instead, transcripts include ‘me’ and ‘them’ for speaker identification.

All users can use Granola's built-in chat to interact with meeting notes.

You can see it as your personal chatbot. Just ask the questions, and Granola can help with all types of requests, from finding specific information you need to identifying patterns and recurring themes.

Despite looking similar, the chatbot is different from the menu for automation and meeting analysis.

Granola offers customized chat prompts, called recipes.

There are plenty of recipe templates created by experts to improve note-taking and overall meeting analysis.

It takes the platform to a completely new level by helping you through all stages of a meeting, from prepping to structuring PRDs.

But the real strength comes from custom recipes. The sky is the limit for what recipes can create, and they can be shared with your team. So, if you come up with a great prompt that summarises the last six meetings on a subject, you can spread the word to everyone in the company and make processes that much simpler.

Granola doesn’t record audio or video, which is definitely a plus for privacy-focused users. However, that comes with a price – you aren’t able to review meetings in their original form.

Additionally, we noticed that by default, all Basic and Business accounts’ data is used to train and improve Granola's AI models. We would prefer this setting to be off, but at least you can easily opt out via the app’s settings, in the Security & Access tab.

Notes are stored in AWS Virtual Private Cloud and encrypted in transit and at rest. Granola is also compliant with GDPR and adheres to SOC Type 2 standards.

To start using Granola, you need to connect a Google or Microsoft account to the app.

After connecting the calendar, Granola displays upcoming meetings, allowing you to click them and create preparation notes. Otherwise, you can let Granola work its magic and start transcribing the meeting as soon as it begins.

Users who don’t use Google Calendar or Outlook can still use Granola, as the app automatically detects meetings. The downside is that, in this case, you won’t be able to add notes before meetings.

Granola has a mobile app for iOS, so Android users are out of luck and need to look for a different AI transcription service.

Even though it’s well designed, the iOS mobile app is a lite version of Granola's desktop software. It only transcribes and summarizes audio from the microphone, limiting its use to in-person meetings.

Moreover, transcriptions are processed when the meeting ends on the mobile app instead of in real time, like on desktop.

Since the mobile app is focused on face-to-face meetings, it comes with the exclusivity of speaker labelling.

Granola's pricing is as straightforward as it can be.

There are three plans available, including a limited free version, which is the best choice to test the service. In this case, you have access to limited meeting history, collaboration features, custom notetaking templates, and AI chat across meetings.

You need to go with Business (at $14 per user per month) to unlock Granola's true potential. This plan includes unlimited meeting history, advanced AI models, integrations, and centralized billing and user management. New users registering for this plan can try it for 30 days free.

On the other hand, bigger companies can subscribe to Enterprise for $35 per user per month. It offers all Business features, plus SSO, priority support, advanced admin controls, and API access.

Students and start-ups are eligible for 12 free months of the Business subscription.

Granola has a higher entry price than similar tools, but offers a more discreet solution than the competition, which is worth the higher price tag.

Granola supports various payment methods, including credit card, Google Pay, and Apple Pay.

Granola provides genuinely helpful support resources.

Besides a blog, it runs an AI-powered help center with guides and troubleshooting articles. There, you can also find the chatbot. During our testing, it worked flawlessly and answered almost all our questions in seconds.

When it struggles to answer a question, the bot has a button to contact a human agent. In this case, you need to be logged in. Alternatively, you can also contact support via email.

After sending an email, we received a clear, straightforward reply within one day.

If you want to keep track of Granola's latest updates, you can follow the company on LinkedIn, X, and YouTube.

There are a few downsides, such as the lack of support for additional languages, the limited iOS app, and the lack of speaker labeling on the desktop app.

Even so, Granola is still worth trying, especially for people who are constantly in meetings.

We recommend trying Granola for free with its Basic plan, which, despite its limited features, grants you plenty of tools to test the service before spending your hard-earned money.