Grain vs Horch

A side-by-side look at pricing, capabilities, pros, cons, and our editorial scores.

	Grain Audio	Horch Audio
Tagline	AI meeting notes, coaching, and an MCP feed for your agents	Privacy-first, on-device meeting assistant for macOS
Category	Audio	Audio
Pricing	Freemium· Free (45-min meeting cap, 90-day history) / Starter ~$15 per user/mo (unlimited meetings, advanced AI) / Business & Enterprise tiers with CRM sync and admin controls	Paid· One-time purchase: €49 once
Model	Claude, ChatGPT	Whisper (local) for transcription; optional Ollama / MLX local LLMs for summarization
Editorial score	8.3 / 10	—
Use cases	AI meeting notes and summariesSales call transcription and coachingCustomer discovery call analysisCRM auto-updates from meetingsHighlight clip sharing to Slack/NotionCross-meeting AI Q&A searchMCP feed into Claude or ChatGPT agentsProduct research interview libraryDeal review and pipeline insightsCustomer success handoff documentation	Confidential client meeting transcriptionAutomatic action-item extractionPer-contact relationship historyPre-meeting briefings from prior callsLocal Whisper transcription without cloud uploadFeeding meeting context into Claude or Cursor via MCPPersonal second-brain in MarkdownLegal, medical, or NDA-bound conversation notes
Pros	Bot-less desktop capture is much less intrusive than a Zoom bot on every call MCP server + API make it one of the easier notetakers to plug into Claude/ChatGPT/custom agents Deal views and CRM sync (HubSpot, Salesforce) cover most GTM workflows without Gong-tier pricing Highlight clips and shareable moments make handoffs between sales, CS, and product genuinely fast 130+ language transcription and cross-meeting AI search work well on real, messy call libraries Perpetual free tier is generous enough to actually evaluate the product on real meetings	Fully on-device by default — audio and transcripts never leave the Mac unless the user opts in One-time €49 purchase instead of a recurring per-seat SaaS bill Records at OS level so no bot appears in the meeting and any app (Zoom, Meet, Teams, in-person) works Notes stored as plain Markdown in ~/Meetings — portable, greppable, Obsidian-friendly Auto-generates action items, topic summaries, and per-person profiles from spoken content MCP server exposes meeting history to Claude, Cursor, and other agent clients Local Whisper transcription plus optional Ollama/MLX means you pick the summarizer
Cons	Conversation intelligence and coaching depth still trail Gong and Chorus for large enterprise teams Advanced AI, CRM sync, and coaching features are gated behind paid tiers — free plan is limited to 45-minute meetings Does not disclose which underlying LLM powers its own summaries, which matters for compliance reviews Video/scorecard analytics are lighter than dedicated revenue intelligence platforms MCP + agent integrations are new and the ecosystem around them is still maturing	macOS only — no Windows, Linux, iOS, or web client Local Whisper and summarization need a reasonably modern Apple Silicon Mac to feel fast No cloud sync or team workspace, so sharing across a team requires bring-your-own storage Small independent product without the integrations catalog of Fireflies, Otter, or Fathom OS-level capture depends on macOS screen/audio permissions, which some corporate MDM setups block
Website	grain.com	horch.app

Pick Grain if

✅ Bot-less desktop capture is much less intrusive than a Zoom bot on every call
✅ MCP server + API make it one of the easier notetakers to plug into Claude/ChatGPT/custom agents
✅ Deal views and CRM sync (HubSpot, Salesforce) cover most GTM workflows without Gong-tier pricing
✅ Highlight clips and shareable moments make handoffs between sales, CS, and product genuinely fast

Pick Horch if

✅ Fully on-device by default — audio and transcripts never leave the Mac unless the user opts in
✅ One-time €49 purchase instead of a recurring per-seat SaaS bill
✅ Records at OS level so no bot appears in the meeting and any app (Zoom, Meet, Teams, in-person) works
✅ Notes stored as plain Markdown in ~/Meetings — portable, greppable, Obsidian-friendly

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