Comparison · 5 fields · checked 19 Aug 2026
Granola vs Circleback
Quick answerGranola has a permanent free plan and costs $14/user/month; Circleback has no permanent free plan (only a trial) and costs more at $20.83/user/month billed annually, with data access limited to manual copy, webhooks, or an MCP server rather than a conventional REST API.
Rows shaded in sienna are where the two differ. Unshaded rows are where they match — listed so you know we checked, not because we skipped them.
| Field | Granola | Circleback |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Perpetual — AI meeting notes with limited meeting history, AI chat within and across meetings, shared folders, custom templates; MCP access capped to the last 30 days and excludes transcript access | Trial |
| Starting price | $14/mo | $20.83/mo, billed annually |
| Data export | Full export | Partial export |
| API | REST | Limited |
| Integrations | 6 listed | 8 listed |
Choose Granola when
Choose Granola when you want a permanent free plan for personal meeting notes — the paid Business plan is a flat $14/user/month, adding self-serve CSV export and a REST API rate-limited to 5 requests/second.
Try Granola →Choose Circleback when
Choose Circleback when you're fine testing on a free trial rather than a permanent free plan — the Individual plan is $20.83/user/month billed annually ($25/month billed monthly), and data leaves the product via manual copy, webhooks, or an MCP server rather than a dedicated REST API.
Try Circleback →Ordered alphabetically, not by commission.