Circleback Adds a Free Tier to Its AI Meeting Notetaker — Unlimited Transcription With a 30-Day History Limit
The Y Combinator-backed, profitable meeting-notes startup opens a free plan on August 31, 2026, betting that letting more people record meetings for nothing is cheaper than buying ads.
2026-08-31 · by Moe Ameen
Published 2026-08-31 · Updated
Short answer
Circleback, the AI meeting notetaker founded in 2023 by Ali Haghani and Kevin Jacyna, launched a free tier on August 31, 2026. It gives unlimited meeting transcription but keeps only the last 30 days of history, plus mobile and Apple Watch apps, AI transcript search, and Slack and Linear integrations. Paid plans now start at $15 per user per month billed annually.
Key takeaways
- Circleback's free tier (August 31, 2026) offers unlimited transcription with a 30-day history limit.
- Paid plans start at $15 per user per month billed annually, down from $20.83.
- Circleback says it spends nothing on Google or Meta ads and treats the free tier as its marketing.
- The eight-person, YC-backed company has been profitable since 2024, with about $8 million in ARR.
What is in Circleback's new free tier?
Circleback, an AI meeting notetaker founded in 2023 by Ali Haghani and Kevin Jacyna, introduced a free subscription tier on August 31, 2026. The free plan lets anyone transcribe an unlimited number of meetings, with the catch that history is capped at the most recent 30 days. It also includes the mobile and Apple Watch apps, the ability to query transcripts with AI, and Slack and Linear integrations. Until now Circleback had no free tier at all.
The company reworked its paid plans at the same time. Paid subscriptions now start at $15 per user per month billed annually, down from a previous entry price of $20.83 per month. Paid tiers add longer recording history and automations across the full integration catalog. Every plan, free included, gets speaker-labeled transcripts and AI meeting notes with action items, and Circleback's pricing page lists API, MCP, and CLI access on the free plan too.
The strategy is the story. Haghani framed the free tier as the company's marketing channel: "If we just open the gates and allow more people to use the product, that's gonna bring Circleback in front of more people." The startup says it spends nothing on Google or Meta ads. It's an unusual position to give product away from — Circleback is Y Combinator-backed, raised about $2.5 million in 2024, has been profitable since 2024, and reports run-rate revenue exceeding $1 million per employee on an eight-person team. Treat the exact prices and limits as the launch-day figures; confirm the current plan details on Circleback's pricing page before quoting them.
Why does a free meeting notetaker matter for creators?
- A free, always-on notetaker means far more people will accumulate a searchable archive of everything they say in meetings, sales calls, interviews, and standups — which is a pile of raw, quotable source material most of them will never turn into anything.
- The 30-day free history cap is the quiet catch: your transcripts vanish on a rolling basis unless you upgrade or export them. If you want to mine meetings for content, pull the good parts out while they're still there.
- For creators and founders, the highest-signal content you produce all week is often something you already said out loud on a call. A transcript turns that spoken insight into text you can actually repurpose.
- Circleback's giveaway is part of a broader shift: meeting AI is commoditizing fast, so the differentiator moves downstream — from capturing the words to doing something useful with them.
- A transcript is not content. It has no hook, no captions, no format, and no path to a feed. The gap between "I have the transcript" and "I published from it" is exactly where most of this new raw material will sit unused.
How do you turn Circleback transcripts into posts with Kompozy?
A free Circleback account quietly builds the thing creators are always short on: a steady stream of real, in-your-own-words source material. Every sales call, customer interview, advisory chat, and team debrief becomes a speaker-labeled transcript. The problem is that a transcript is inert — and on the free tier it disappears after 30 days. Kompozy is the layer that turns that spoken record into published content before it ages out. Paste a Circleback transcript in as a source, and Kompozy pulls the sharp moments into finished posts: a Persona Short that narrates your best line on camera with a face-locked avatar, a brand-exact Carousel that walks through the framework you explained to a customer, Quote Graphics that lift the one sentence worth remembering, plus a Blog Article and Email Newsletter for the audience that wants the long version.
Everything is rewritten under your Persona Brief so a rambling call becomes on-brand copy in your voice, not a raw dump. Then Autopilot schedules and publishes the set across the eight social platforms plus blog and email behind a per-post review. The workflow is a standing habit: after each meeting worth mining, one transcript in, a week of content out — so the archive Circleback now hands out for free actually leaves your feed, instead of expiring quietly at day 30.
What are the key facts about Circleback's free tier?
- Circleback launched a free tier on August 31, 2026 with unlimited meeting transcription, a 30-day history limit, mobile and Apple Watch apps, AI transcript querying, and Slack and Linear integrations.
- Paid plans now start at $15 per user per month billed annually (down from $20.83), adding longer history and automations across all integrations.
- The profitable, YC-backed startup treats the free tier as its marketing — it says it runs no Google or Meta ads.
- The free tier hands more people a searchable meeting archive; Kompozy turns those transcripts into captioned video, carousels, and blogs and publishes them before the 30-day free history expires.
What does this look like in Kompozy?
A quote graphic from the Kompozy workspace. A sharp line from a sales call or interview can end up looking like this. This one did not come from a Circleback transcript.
Who is this for, and who should skip it?
Best for:
- Founders and creators who record many calls and want a free, searchable transcript archive.
- People who will pull the useful parts out within 30 days or upgrade.
Not ideal for:
- Teams that need long recording history on the free plan. It keeps 30 days.
- Anyone expecting finished posts from a transcript. Circleback captures the words; turning them into content is separate.
Frequently asked questions
Is Circleback free now?
Circleback added a free tier on August 31, 2026. It lets you transcribe an unlimited number of meetings but keeps only the most recent 30 days of history, and it includes the mobile and Apple Watch apps, AI transcript querying, and Slack and Linear integrations. Paid plans (from $15 per user per month billed annually) add longer history and automations across all integrations.
What is the catch with Circleback's free plan?
Transcription itself is unlimited, but the free plan only retains the last 30 days of meeting history, and automations across the full integration catalog start on the paid tiers. If you want to keep or reuse older transcripts, you either upgrade or export them before they roll off.
How much does Circleback cost after the free tier?
Paid plans start at $15 per user per month billed annually, down from a previous entry price of $20.83 per month, with higher tiers adding longer history and automations across the full integration set. Confirm current pricing on Circleback's site, as launch figures change.
How can creators use Circleback transcripts?
A transcript is raw source material, not a finished post. Creators feed it into a content engine like Kompozy, which rewrites the best moments in their brand voice and generates captioned short-form video, carousels, quote graphics, a blog, and a newsletter, then publishes across eight social platforms plus blog and email — so a recorded call becomes a week of content.
How do we know this?
We checked every figure, date and quote on this page against the sources listed below on 2026-10-23, and removed or rewrote claims we could not confirm. Kompozy plan and format details come from kompozy.io/pricing.
Sources
- TechCrunch — Meeting notetaker Circleback adds a free tier to attract more customers (read 2026-10-23)
- Circleback — Pricing (read 2026-10-23)
- Kompozy — Pricing (read 2026-10-23)