Skip to main content
Circleback is a polished, automation-heavy notetaker - it turns meetings into CRM updates, tasks, and Slack posts automatically. The catch is there’s no free tier at all (a 7-day trial, then you pay from day one), it’s per-seat cloud, and it’s after-the-call. Raven is free and open source, keeps meetings local, and helps you live during the call.

​
At a glance

​
Price

Circleback has no permanent free plan - after a 7-day trial you’re a paid seat: Individual $20.83/user/mo (annual; $25 monthly), Team $25/user/mo (annual; $30 monthly). So every active user costs from the first week. Raven is free and open source; you pay your own AI/transcription usage (a few dollars a month), with no trial clock and no seat fee.

​
Where your meetings live

Circleback runs in its cloud (and joins calls with a visible bot by default) to power its automations. Raven keeps transcripts and notes in a local SQLite database on your machine, with no bot in the meeting; audio only goes to the providers you chose with your own keys. Open source makes the data path auditable.

​
What Circleback does better (honestly)

  • Post-call automations - auto-update CRM, create tasks, post to Slack; plus email context and MCP.
  • Very accurate transcription with speaker names, and a clean product.
If your job is “meetings should automatically update my other tools,” Circleback’s automation engine is genuinely good - that’s what you’re paying for.

​
When Raven wins

  • You don’t want to pay from day one with no free tier.
  • You want meetings local and no bot in the call.
  • You want live help during the call, not just automations after.
  • You want a free, open-source, auditable tool with no per-seat fee.

​
Switching from Circleback

  1. Export anything you want to keep from Circleback.
  2. Download Raven, add your keys, enable meeting auto-start.
  3. Run Raven through your trial window; keep Raven instead of converting to a paid seat. (CRM push is on Raven’s roadmap; today, copy the follow-up email/action items out.)

Download Raven

Free, open source, Mac + Windows. Bring your own keys.

Post-call recap

Action items, follow-up email, export.
Circleback pricing verified August 2026 (circleback.ai); no free tier, 7-day trial only. Vendors change pricing often - confirm before relying on a figure.