Granola AI Review 2026: Is It Really Worth It?

Granola AI Pricing Breakdown

Let us look at what Granola charges as of February 2026:

Meet Remi8: A Feature-Rich Alternative That Goes Beyond Meetings

Now, here is where things get interesting. While Granola focuses narrowly on meeting notes, Remi8 Voice Notes takes a fundamentally different approach. Remi8 is designed as your AI-powered second brain for both work and life. It captures not just meetings, but every thought, idea, reminder, and conversation that matters to you.

Think of it this way: Granola is a meeting notepad. Remi8 is a personal memory assistant that also happens to be exceptional at meeting notes.

Why Remi8 Outperforms Granola: Feature-by-Feature

1. Works Everywhere You Do

Remi8 is available on iOS, Android, and web browsers with seamless real-time sync across all devices. Unlike Granola, which has no Android app and requires a Google Workspace account, Remi8 works for everyone regardless of their device or email ecosystem.

2. Beyond Meetings: A True Second Brain

Granola captures meetings. Remi8 captures everything. Record a quick voice note while driving with a new business idea. Dictate a reminder about your daughter’s school play. Capture client preferences during an informal phone call. Remi8’s AI automatically organizes all of this, identifies important dates, extracts action items, and creates connections between related information without you ever having to create a folder or tag.

3. Natural Language Recall

Instead of scrolling through notes or searching with exact keywords, you can ask Remi8 questions in plain language. “What books have I lent out and to whom?” “Who is handling the design from last week’s meeting?” “What did the client say about pricing?” Remi8 understands context and delivers precise answers instantly.

4. Smart Automatic Reminders

When you mention dates, deadlines, or commitments in any voice note or meeting recording, Remi8 automatically detects them and sets intelligent reminders. It even suggests pre-drafted follow-up messages based on context. Granola has no equivalent feature. You would need a separate task management tool to handle what Remi8 does natively.

5. Privacy by Default, Not by Price Tag

This is a critical difference. Remi8 encrypts your data by default and explicitly states that it never accesses, reads, shares, or trains AI models on your personal data. Period. No enterprise plan required. No manual opt-out needed. Your memories are private from day one. Compare this with Granola, where model training is on by default and organization-wide opt-out costs $35 per user per month.

6. 100+ Languages Supported

Remi8 supports voice input in 100 or more languages and text input is also in over 100 languages. Granola supports multiple languages but has reported struggles with heavy accents and rapid code-switching. For international teams and multilingual professionals, Remi8 offers significantly broader and more reliable language coverage.

7. Offline Access

Your memories are always accessible offline with Remi8. You can capture and recall information without an internet connection, and everything syncs automatically when you reconnect. Granola requires an active internet connection to function.

8. WhatsApp and Phone Call Recording

Remi8 offers a dedicated AI recorder that can capture WhatsApp voice calls, FaceTime calls, and regular phone conversations. The recordings are automatically transcribed, summarized, and made searchable. Granola is limited to desktop meeting platforms and has only recently added iOS phone call support through a separate mobile app.

9. Team Collaboration with Privacy Controls

With Remi8, you can selectively share specific memories with team members while keeping personal notes completely private. This granular sharing control makes it ideal for project handoffs, collaborative work, and team updates without compromising personal information. Granola’s team features are locked behind the $14 per month Business plan.

10. Affordable Pricing That Makes Sense

Remi8 offers a free tier that provides genuine value with unlimited text notes, 50 minutes of voice recording, and 1 GB of storage. The Professional plan costs just $4.99 per month, which is dramatically cheaper than Granola’s $18 per month Individual plan or $14 per user per month Business plan. For teams and advanced users, Remi8 offers custom Enterprise solutions.

Head-to-Head Comparison: Remi8 vs Granola AI

Who Should Consider Granola AI?

To be fair, Granola is not a bad product. It works well for a specific use case: professionals who are in back-to-back virtual meetings on macOS or Windows, who want lightweight note enhancement without a bot joining their calls, and who work within the Google Workspace ecosystem. If your needs begin and end with online meeting notes, and you do not mind paying $18 per month for an individual plan, Granola can serve you adequately.

Who Should Choose Remi8 Instead?

Remi8 is the better choice if any of the following apply to you:

• You need a tool that works beyond just scheduled meetings, capturing ideas, reminders, and everyday conversations.

• You use an Android device or prefer not to be locked into the Google Workspace ecosystem.

• Privacy is non-negotiable and you want your data protected by default without paying a premium.

• You want smart reminders that automatically detect deadlines and commitments from your voice notes.

• You need to record and transcribe WhatsApp calls, FaceTime calls, or phone conversations.

• You work in multiple languages and need reliable multilingual transcription.

• You want a powerful tool at a fraction of the cost, starting at just $4.99 per month.

• You need offline access to your notes and memories.

• You want to ask natural questions and get instant, context-aware answers from your entire knowledge base.

The Verdict: Why Remi8 AI Voice Notes Is the Smarter Choice in 2026

Granola AI has earned its place in the conversation. The bot-free approach is smart, the note enhancement feature is well-designed, and the $43 million in funding suggests the team has big plans ahead. But when you look at the complete picture, the limitations are hard to ignore: no Android support, no audio playback, unreliable speaker identification, privacy controls locked behind expensive plans, and a narrow focus that only covers meeting notes.

Remi8 Voice Notes offers everything Granola does for meetings, plus an entire ecosystem of features that extend into your daily life. Smart reminders that catch your commitments. Natural language search that finds anything you have ever captured. WhatsApp call recording for the conversations that happen outside of Zoom. Offline access for when you are on the move. And real privacy by default, not by price tag.

At $4.99 per month for the Professional plan versus Granola’s $18 per month, the value proposition is not even close. You get more features, broader device support, stronger privacy, and a tool that grows with you beyond just your meeting calendar.

If you are looking for a meeting notepad, Granola is a decent option. If you are looking for an AI-powered second brain that transforms how you capture, organize, and recall information across your entire work and personal life, Remi8 is the clear winner.