ReferatA private alternative to Otter.ai on iPhone
Want Otter's transcript, speaker labels and summary without sending your recordings to a server? Use an app that does the work on the phone. Referat records in the room or opens an audio file, transcribes it on your iPhone, splits it by speaker and writes a summary with action items. There's no account and no minute cap, and the audio never leaves the phone.
What Otter's free plan includes
According to Otter's pricing page (October 2026), the free Basic plan gives you:
- 300 transcription minutes a month, with at most 30 minutes per conversation.
- 3 imported audio or video files in total.
- Transcription in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese.
Pro raises the limit to 1,200 minutes a month.
Where your recordings go
Otter transcribes on its own servers. Its privacy policy (effective June 16, 2026) says it uses de-identified audio recordings to train its own AI, and it names Amazon Web Services in the United States as a provider for computing and data storage.
Referat works the other way round: the audio, the transcript and the summary stay on your iPhone. There's no account and no server to send them to. Only the speech model is downloaded, once.
Otter and Referat side by side
- Where the work happens: Otter on its servers, Referat on your iPhone.
- Limits: Otter Basic has 300 minutes a month and 30 minutes per conversation. Referat has no minute limit.
- Languages: Otter does English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese. Referat does English, Danish, German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Korean.
- Account: Otter needs one. Referat has no accounts.
- Video calls: Otter's assistant can join Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet calls. Referat records what the phone hears, or transcribes the call's recording file afterwards.
- Devices: Otter works in a browser and on iPhone and Android. Referat is iPhone only, from iOS 17.
When Otter is the better choice
If you need a bot that joins video calls for you, a shared workspace for a team, or your notes on a computer or an Android phone, Otter does that and Referat doesn't. Referat is for meetings, interviews and lectures you record yourself, when keeping the audio to yourself matters more.
Getting started with Referat
- Install Referat and open it. The first time, it downloads its speech model once.
- Tap Record, or tap Import audio file to open a recording you already have (m4a, mp3, wav, mp4 or mov).
- When the transcript is ready, tap Rename speakers to give the speakers names.
- Copy the summary into an email, or export the transcript as text, Markdown, PDF or subtitles.
Summaries need iOS 26 and an iPhone with Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro or newer); transcripts work from iOS 17. See also how to record a meeting on iPhone.