Review Insights · App Store
Otter Transcribe Voice Notes
Otter.ai, Inc. · 63,718 ratings · ★ 4.8
4.8
★★★★★
63,718 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 15 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"subscription"
5 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Frightened!. After reading reviews and seeing $106 and realizing how many people have been jerked around for the so-called “free trial”… also, seeing the less than stellar performance that delivers when my subscription to AI already provides me as much …" - PatrycSM
2
"meeting"
5 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Meh. Recording meetings and getting a transcript in AI you can ask questions to. It's helpful, don't get me wrong, but Vaught has let that be their ace, and they really haven't made a very good user experience. • If you go to hit record, you c…" - Phb9
3
"trial"
4 negative reviews mention this · 27% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Frightened!. After reading reviews and seeing $106 and realizing how many people have been jerked around for the so-called “free trial”… also, seeing the less than stellar performance that delivers when my subscription to AI already provides me as much …" - PatrycSM
4
"minutes"
4 negative reviews mention this · 27% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Great App / Poor Customer Service. The app itself is great but it doesn’t have any safeguards in case you don’t log out after a meeting. Otter over charged me about 2 hours worth of minutes because the program did not log out. Despite there being a 90 minute limit on minute…" - Locomojo30
5
"people"
3 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Frightened!. After reading reviews and seeing $106 and realizing how many people have been jerked around for the so-called “free trial”… also, seeing the less than stellar performance that delivers when my subscription to AI already provides me as much …" - PatrycSM
6
"recording"
3 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Meh. Recording meetings and getting a transcript in AI you can ask questions to. It's helpful, don't get me wrong, but Vaught has let that be their ace, and they really haven't made a very good user experience. • If you go to hit record, you c…" - Phb9
7
"immediately"
3 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Meh. Recording meetings and getting a transcript in AI you can ask questions to. It's helpful, don't get me wrong, but Vaught has let that be their ace, and they really haven't made a very good user experience. • If you go to hit record, you c…" - Phb9
8
"charged"
3 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Charged me for a yearly subscription and wouldn’t refund. I used the trial run of otter to see how it was and it didn’t work as well as it says it does. The words didn’t match what the speaker was saying in many cases. I thought I canceled before they were supposed to charge me but I guess I misse…" - athenav118
9
"otter"
3 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Charged me for a yearly subscription and wouldn’t refund. I used the trial run of otter to see how it was and it didn’t work as well as it says it does. The words didn’t match what the speaker was saying in many cases. I thought I canceled before they were supposed to charge me but I guess I misse…" - athenav118
10
"didn"
3 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Charged me for a yearly subscription and wouldn’t refund. I used the trial run of otter to see how it was and it didn’t work as well as it says it does. The words didn’t match what the speaker was saying in many cases. I thought I canceled before they were supposed to charge me but I guess I misse…" - athenav118
11
"doesn"
3 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Charged me for a yearly subscription and wouldn’t refund. I used the trial run of otter to see how it was and it didn’t work as well as it says it does. The words didn’t match what the speaker was saying in many cases. I thought I canceled before they were supposed to charge me but I guess I misse…" - athenav118
12
"money"
3 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "❌ Sneaky bait-and-switch. Do not trust their "trials.". I signed up for the 7-day trial of the $16.99 Pro plan specifically because it advertised 90 minutes of recording time per meeting. I needed it to keep track of a critical school district meeting for my daughter. Instead, the app cut me off…" - MsRobinsonn
📋 All 15 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Meh
Recording meetings and getting a transcript in AI you can ask questions to. It's helpful, don't get me wrong, but Vaught has let that be their ace, and they really haven't made a very good user experience.
• If you go to hit record, you can't start recording immediately.
• If you have a calendar event distinct, you've got to choose what meeting the recording is before it starts capturing anything. An unnecessary delay.
• If it's not internet connected, it won't record. Good luck if your Wi-Fi is spotty.
• If you've got a lot of meetings to sort through and organize, you can't move a meeting into a folder from the list. You have to go open that meeting, but then when you open the meeting, if you need to create a new folder, you can't. You have to go back to the list, and every time you go back to the list, it scrolls you to the top. If you're trying to organize meetings from several weeks ago and don't have the right folders created, good luck.
I'll be right back.
• If you go to hit record, you can't start recording immediately.
• If you have a calendar event distinct, you've got to choose what meeting the recording is before it starts capturing anything. An unnecessary delay.
• If it's not internet connected, it won't record. Good luck if your Wi-Fi is spotty.
• If you've got a lot of meetings to sort through and organize, you can't move a meeting into a folder from the list. You have to go open that meeting, but then when you open the meeting, if you need to create a new folder, you can't. You have to go back to the list, and every time you go back to the list, it scrolls you to the top. If you're trying to organize meetings from several weeks ago and don't have the right folders created, good luck.
I'll be right back.
Charged me for a yearly subscription and wouldn’t refund
I used the trial run of otter to see how it was and it didn’t work as well as it says it does. The words didn’t match what the speaker was saying in many cases. I thought I canceled before they were supposed to charge me but I guess I missed the final step. When I saw the charge notification I immediately canceled and requested a refund as the item
did not work as expected. I was denied the refund and now I have to go to my bank and get them involved. Do not sign up for the trial run unless you want to be charged the 106 dollars for an item that doesn’t work as expected.
did not work as expected. I was denied the refund and now I have to go to my bank and get them involved. Do not sign up for the trial run unless you want to be charged the 106 dollars for an item that doesn’t work as expected.
Awful
Not intuitive not easy to use not fun
One of the worst apps I have ever purchased
Completely overpriced
Lore building
Perfect for lore building. Like im making ocs and i suck at keeping track of my lore and keeping it concise and so i just talk about my lore and tell it to organize it and tell it when to add something or not and it summarizes it in an easily digestible way its so good for lore and world building
It does OK
I needed this app to transcribe a meeting for me. It really did a half way ok job. It doesn’t differentiate voice well. It would be easier to just take shorthand notes instead. Accidentally forgot to delete it so unfortunately I paid for a subscription and didn’t get a usable product.
❌ Sneaky bait-and-switch. Do not trust their "trials."
I signed up for the 7-day trial of the $16.99 Pro plan specifically because it advertised 90 minutes of recording time per meeting. I needed it to keep track of a critical school district meeting for my daughter. Instead, the app cut me off at exactly 30 minutes right in the middle of the meeting. I didn't even get the extra time promised for the premium trial.
This feels like incredibly sneaky, dishonest advertising. How can anyone trust these tools to manage important parts of their life or business if the company can't be 100% honest about what they deliver in their advertisements? Don't ask people to try a product to earn their money, and then hold the actual features hostage until the card clears. It's frustrating and completely unreliable when you're counting on it. Absolute trash user experience.
This feels like incredibly sneaky, dishonest advertising. How can anyone trust these tools to manage important parts of their life or business if the company can't be 100% honest about what they deliver in their advertisements? Don't ask people to try a product to earn their money, and then hold the actual features hostage until the card clears. It's frustrating and completely unreliable when you're counting on it. Absolute trash user experience.
DO NOT USE
Signed up for the “Free” 7 day trial and was immediately charged $16.99. I want my money back. Do not download this app.
Subscriber for 4+ years logged me out without warning
Logged me out and won't let me login saying needs email. I use my Apple ID to login and never had a problem before. Won't even let me set an email.
Do Not Dowload
Be sure to read their terms of service very carefully. Do not try it out. Would not refund a canceled annual subscription that was not used
Huge dip in quality
I discovered Otter in 2022, and it basically helped me write half of my book. The speech to text was clean and quick, and it would break up the transcription into actual sentences. Today, I returned to it as I’m writing another book. I did two 20 min recordings. It lost the last 5 minutes of one of these recordings. Back in 2022, I paid for premium and used it hundreds of hours, and not once did it lose any of my recordings. 4 minutes isn’t a lot of material by any means, but I no longer trust it and will be switching to another company. I can’t believe how much this app has declined in quality. It’s disgraceful.
subscription
every app just HAS to include some sort of money grab/subscription. what lecture is only 30 minutes? just taking advantage of students/people with disabilities who would really benefit from this. $16.99 a month is also insane!! so greedy, you can make money from advertising or make it more affordable. i’ll be looking for an alternative.
Frightened!
After reading reviews and seeing $106 and realizing how many people have been jerked around for the so-called “free trial”… also, seeing the less than stellar performance that delivers when my subscription to AI already provides me as much discernment in as many options as I really (thank you ChatGPT)
I decided to close from my phone for the time being. If I become aware of improvements, I may look this direction again. But not today.
I decided to close from my phone for the time being. If I become aware of improvements, I may look this direction again. But not today.
Great App / Poor Customer Service
The app itself is great but it doesn’t have any safeguards in case you don’t log out after a meeting. Otter over charged me about 2 hours worth of minutes because the program did not log out. Despite there being a 90 minute limit on minutes used at a time they refused to credit me my time. Even if you can prove there was no activity and the transcript is empty they don’t care. There is no sense of customer loyalty with them. When my year is up I will most likely find a different app and move on.
Limited functionality
Beyond recording, limited functionality. Meeting notes and action items need are in beta. Cannot train it to recognize terms or voices
Sentiment summary
95%
Positive (4-5★)
2%
Neutral (3★)
3%
Negative (1-2★)