CoHear vs Granola: Both Bot-Free — One Lives on Your Laptop, One in Your Pocket
CoHear and Granola agree on the big thing: no bot should join your meeting. Both record from your own device instead of sending a named participant into the call. Where they part ways is which device, and which conversations.
Granola is built around your laptop and a day of back-to-back video calls: it captures your computer's audio while you type rough notes, then enhances them. CoHear is built around your iPhone and the conversations that happen away from a desk — lectures, office hours, client visits, walking interviews — and turns them into structured notes, study plans, and traceable quotes.
Side by side
| CoHear | Granola | |
|---|---|---|
| How it records | On your iPhone — no bot, works anywhere | Device audio on your computer or phone — no bot; audio deleted after transcription |
| Free plan | 400 minutes/month, 3 file imports, up to 2 hours per recording | AI notes included, but meeting history kept for only 30 days |
| Main paid plan | Meeting Plus: $14.99/mo flat, after a 7-day free trial | Business: $14/user/month (Enterprise: $35/user/month) |
| Transcription minutes (paid) | Unlimited | Unlimited — no minute caps |
| Longest single session | 4+ hours | Not capped by minutes |
| Platforms | iPhone only | macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, Apple Watch |
| In-person & lectures | The core use case — phone in pocket, study plans and practice questions out | Possible via phone/desktop audio; designed around scheduled online meetings |
| Standout strength | In-person depth, lecture-to-study workflow, quotes traceable to timestamps | Invisible capture for laptop calls, your own notes enhanced by AI, audio deleted after transcription |
Prices are US list prices checked October 22, 2026 (Granola's from its official site and plan pages).
Where Granola wins
Your laptop is its home. Granola has real desktop apps for macOS and Windows, plus iOS, Android, and Apple Watch. If your workday is six video calls at a desk, Granola sits exactly where you already are. CoHear is iPhone-only — no desktop app, no Android — and that's a genuine limitation, not a footnote.
No minute math at all. Granola has no transcription caps on any plan. CoHear's paid plan is also unlimited, but its free plan's 400 minutes/month runs out fast if you record daily; Granola's free constraint is history (30 days), not minutes.
Notes that start from your words. Granola enhances the rough notes you type during the meeting, so the output is anchored in what you already judged important. Some people strongly prefer that to a fully automatic summary. CoHear's summaries are generated from the conversation itself, organized by its models — thorough, but not seeded by your own jottings.
A clear privacy mechanic. Granola deletes audio after transcription. That's a simple, strong policy for people who don't want recordings retained. (CoHear keeps your audio so quotes stay traceable to timestamps — a different, deliberate trade-off: verifiability over deletion.)
Where CoHear wins
It leaves the desk. Granola is designed around calls you attend at a computer. CoHear starts where the laptop isn't: a lecture hall, a site visit, a coffee with a client, a conference corridor. The phone records for 4+ hours with the screen off and the conversation undisturbed.
Lectures become study material. Granola produces excellent meeting notes; CoHear produces meeting notes and student outputs — study plans, practice questions, and exam-focused summaries built from the lecture. If "recording" for you means classes, that difference is the whole decision. See how it works
History that isn't on a 30-day clock. On Granola Basic, anything older than 30 days disappears from your history unless you upgrade. CoHear's free limit is minutes, not memory: what you record stays yours. For a semester of lectures or a long client engagement, retention matters as much as capture.
Flat price for one person. Granola Business is $14 per user per month — fair for teams, and it includes team features. CoHear Meeting Plus is $14.99/month flat for an individual, no seat counting. If you're one person, the arithmetic is simpler here.
Who should pick which
- Your day is back-to-back video calls at a laptop → Granola.
- You're on Android or Windows-first → Granola; CoHear doesn't run there.
- You type your own notes during meetings and want AI to enhance them → Granola.
- You record lectures, classes, or office hours → CoHear.
- Your conversations happen face to face, away from your desk → CoHear.
- You want a semester (or a project) of recordings kept, on a flat individual plan → CoHear.
For the rest of the field — Otter, Fireflies, Plaud, Fathom, tl;dv — see the full comparison. CoHear's full feature set; plans.
FAQ
If neither uses a bot, what's actually different?
The capture point and the setting. Granola captures audio on the computer (or phone) you're taking the call on, and is designed around scheduled online meetings and your own typed notes. CoHear captures on your iPhone wherever you are — in person included — and generates the full note structure automatically, including study outputs for lectures.
Which one works for in-person conversations?
Both can record in person through a phone. The difference is depth: in-person and lecture recording is CoHear's primary design case (long sessions, study plans, traceable quotes), while Granola's design centers on online meetings taken at a computer.
What are the free-plan limits?
Granola Basic: AI notes with a 30-day meeting history — older meetings fall out of your history. CoHear free: 400 recording minutes per month, 3 file imports, up to 2 hours per recording, with no history expiry on what you've kept. Paid plans remove these limits on both sides.
Which is cheaper for a small team?
Granola Business at $14/user/month includes team workspaces and integrations, priced per seat. CoHear is an individual product at $14.99/month flat and doesn't offer team admin or CRM features — for a team that needs those, Granola's per-seat price buys things CoHear doesn't sell.
How we compared
Prices, history limits, and plan details come from each vendor's official site and pricing pages, checked October 22, 2026 (US list prices). Vendors change plans; check their pages for current numbers.
