Interpreter vs Otter.ai
Quick answer
Otter.ai is a meeting transcription tool. It joins your Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet calls and takes notes. Built for business meetings.
Interpreter is real-time transcription for professional interpreters. It captures phone calls and any audio source, with two-way translation and 60+ languages.
If you're an OPI interpreter, Otter won't work for your phone calls. It only does meetings. And it only supports three languages.
What Otter.ai does
Otter joins your Zoom, Teams, or Meet call as a bot. It listens, transcribes, labels speakers. After the meeting, you get a searchable transcript and AI summary.
It's meeting notes software. Business people use it to skip note-taking during internal calls. Works fine for that.
Three languages: English, French, Spanish. English works best. Not really designed for multilingual work.
What Interpreter does
Interpreter captures any audio from your computer. Phone calls, video calls, browser platforms, your agency's portal. If you hear it, it transcribes it.
Medical call: Lisinopril 10mg, Metoprolol 25mg twice daily. On your screen before you need to say it. No writing while listening while interpreting.
Two-way translation: English on the left, Spanish on the right. Both directions, both speakers labeled.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Interpreter | Otter.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Live call support | Meeting notes |
| Languages | 60+ | 3 |
| Two-way translation | ||
| Phone call support | ||
| Works with any audio | ||
| Speaker identification | ||
| HIPAA compliant | Enterprise only | |
| Real-time (sub-second) | Slight delay | |
| Pricing model | Pay-as-you-go | Subscription |
Pricing comparison
Monthly cost comparison:
$0.25–$0.40/hour
Polyglot Mini: $0.25/hr. Polyglot: $0.40/hr. 20 hours = $5–$8/month.
$16.99/month
1,200 minutes included. Overage requires Business plan ($30/mo).
For 20 hours: Interpreter costs $5–$8, Otter costs $16.99. Interpreter has no minute caps.
Choose Otter.ai if
- You need meeting notes, not live interpreting support
- You only work in English, French, or Spanish
- You want AI summaries after meetings
- Your meetings are on Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet
Choose Interpreter if
- You're an OPI interpreter working phone calls
- You need more than three languages
- You want two-way translation
- You need HIPAA compliance for medical calls
- Your calls aren't on Zoom/Teams/Meet
- You want to pay per hour, not per month
The real question
Otter is for people who want to remember what was said in a meeting.
Interpreter is for professional interpreters who need to catch every detail while they're working.
If you're doing OPI work, Otter probably won't help. It doesn't do phone calls, only has three languages, and can't show you both sides of a conversation translated. Interpreter was built for exactly this job.