- Both take meeting notes with no bot in the call: each hears your microphone and your computer’s sound.
- Granola has more notetaker extras today: recording on phones, named speakers on Zoom, Meet and Teams, 31 languages, templates and team Spaces.
- Bob does the follow-ups. Tap Do it on an action item and he does it in your connected apps, from your ERP to your CRM to Gmail, with your approval before anything is sent or changed. Granola’s own actions are a Gmail email, a Slack post or a Google Calendar event.
- Granola uses anonymized customer data to train its own models by default on Free and Business. Bob never trains on your data.
- On price, Bob wins for teams. Ten people on Granola Business pay $140 a month. Bob’s $75 workspace plan covers the same ten people’s notes at five meeting hours each a month, and the follow-ups too. Granola is cheaper for one person who lives in meetings.
The short answer
Granola and HeyBob both write meeting notes without a bot joining the call. The difference is what happens next. Granola gives you polished notes and helps you share them. HeyBob’s Bob turns the action items into finished work: he sends the updated quote, updates the record and books the follow-up in your own tools, and waits for your OK before anything leaves.
What Granola is
Granola calls itself “the AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings.” You type rough notes during a call and Granola fills them out from the transcript, with templates and saved prompts it calls recipes. It runs on Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android and Apple Watch, labels speakers by name on Meet, Zoom and Teams once set up, and handles 31 languages on desktop.
After the meeting you can chat with your notes across meetings, share them in folders and team Spaces, push them to Slack, Notion, HubSpot, Attio or Affinity, and read them from other tools through its API and MCP server. Its chat can also send a Gmail email, post to Slack or create a Google Calendar event once you confirm. Granola lists SOC 2 Type II, with HIPAA, SSO and SCIM on Enterprise.
What Bob is
Bob is an AI coworker for your team, in Slack or in the HeyBob app. The app on Mac and Windows takes meeting notes the same way, with no bot: it hears your microphone and your computer’s sound, so it works on any call and in a room with no call at all. When you hang up, Bob turns your typed notes and the transcript into clean notes, a short summary and action items.
Then he offers to do them. Each action item has a Do it and a Skip button. Tap Do it and Bob starts the job with the 3,200+ apps your team has connected, the same way he does any request, and anything that sends or changes something waits for your Approve. Nothing runs until you tap.
Where they split: after the meeting
Say the call ends with “send them the updated quote with both ship dates.” With Granola, you have an excellent note that says so, and Granola can draft the email for you to send. The quote still lives in your ERP, and finding it, changing it and sending it is your job.
With Bob, you tap Do it. He finds the quote, makes the change, writes the email in your voice, and shows you exactly what will be sent and to whom. You press Approve. The same works for updating a deal in HubSpot, a task in Linear, a row in a Google Sheet or a purchase order in Odoo, because Bob works through the apps your team already connected, not a fixed list of three actions.
What it costs
Granola charges per person: Business is $14 per user a month for unlimited notes. Bob charges the workspace: one plan from $75 a month (half price through December 31, 2026) that covers everything he does, from meeting notes to reports to the follow-ups themselves. An hour of meeting uses about 600 credits, roughly $1.10 at the entry plan’s rate. A 17-minute call we recorded this week cost 168 credits, about 30 cents.
| Meeting hours a month, per person | Granola Business | Bob’s credits for the notes |
|---|---|---|
| 5 hours | $14 | About $5.50 |
| 12 hours | $14 | About $13.50 |
| 80 hours (back to back) | $14 | About $90 |
Where Bob is cheaper: teams. Granola adds $14 for every person. Bob’s plan is for the whole workspace, so a team’s meeting notes come out of one shared pool of credits. At five meeting hours a person each month:
| Team | Granola Business | Bob |
|---|---|---|
| 5 people | $70 a month | $75 plan, with 25,000 credits left for other work |
| 10 people | $140 a month | $75 plan, with 10,000 credits left for other work |
| 25 people | $350 a month | $140 plan (80,000 credits) |
And Bob’s plan also pays for the follow-ups the meetings produce. New plans are half price through December 31, 2026, so those Bob figures are halved until then.
Where Granola is cheaper: one person who lives in back-to-back meetings and only wants notes. At 80 meeting hours a month, Bob’s credits come to about $90 against Granola’s $14.
Side by side
What Bob’s meeting notes do not do yet
We would rather you hear the limits from us.
- Recording is on Mac and Windows today. Mac needs macOS 13 or newer. The app also runs on Linux, and a phone app is on the way.
- No speaker names. The transcript says Me for your microphone and Them for everything your computer plays.
- English. It is built and tested in English.
- No templates, export or shared folders. Notes stay private to whoever recorded them, and the summary can go to a Slack channel.
- The transcript lags. It shows up about a minute behind the conversation.
Which one should you pick?
Pick Granola if…
- You live in back-to-back meetings and want the best notes for the lowest per-person price.
- You need to record on your phone today, named speakers, or a language other than English.
- Your team shares notes in folders and Spaces, or needs HIPAA, SSO and SCIM today.
Pick Bob if…
- The meeting is where work starts, and you want the follow-ups done, not just written down.
- Those follow-ups live in your ERP, CRM, inbox or project tracker, not only in Gmail and a calendar.
- You want one coworker for meetings and everything after them, on one workspace bill.
- You want a guarantee your meetings never train anyone’s AI.
- You would rather pay once for the team than $14 for every person.
Plenty of people will take notes in one and work in the other. If you already love Granola, try handing Bob the to-do list from your next call and see what is left for you.
Fair questions
Is Bob a good Granola alternative?
Yes, if what you want after a meeting is the follow-up work done, not just the notes. Both take notes with no bot in the call. Bob then takes each action item you tap Do it on and does it in your connected apps, with your approval before anything is sent or changed. If you need to record on your phone, named speakers or many languages today, Granola is the stronger pick.
Does Bob join my call like a meeting bot?
No. Like Granola, the HeyBob app on Mac and Windows hears your microphone and your computer's sound, so nothing joins the call and nobody has to admit anyone. It works with any call app that plays sound on your computer, like Zoom, Google Meet or a Slack huddle, and in a room with no call at all.
Can Granola do my follow-ups?
Partly. Granola's chat can send a Gmail email, post to Slack or create a Google Calendar event once you confirm (desktop, Google only), it can draft follow-up emails, and its CRM integrations attach the note to records. It does not take each action item and do it across your other tools. That is the job Bob is built for.
Does Bob work on Windows or my phone?
Partly. Recording meetings works in the HeyBob app on Mac (macOS 13 or newer) and Windows today. The app also runs on Linux, and a phone app is on the way. Granola records on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android today.
Which is cheaper?
For a team, usually Bob. Ten people on Granola Business pay $140 a month; Bob's $75 workspace plan covers ten people at five meeting hours each a month, plus the follow-ups. For one person in back-to-back meetings, Granola is cheaper. Granola Business is $14 per person per month for unlimited notes. Bob is one workspace plan from $75 a month for everything he does, and an hour of meeting uses about 600 credits, roughly $1.10 at the entry plan's rate. Around 12 meeting hours a month per person is the break-even point for notes alone.
Does either one train AI on my meetings?
Bob never uses your data, prompts or meetings to train AI models. Granola's documentation says it uses anonymized data to train its own models by default on its Free and Business plans, with an opt-out, and keeps training off by default on Enterprise.
Granola is a trademark of its respective owner. HeyBob and Bob are products of Tiny Cloud Ventures. Comparison reflects public information as of October 6, 2026.