# Aside

> Aside is a native macOS meeting copilot. It sits in the Mac's notch, or as a floating pill at the top of the screen if the Mac has no notch, never joins a call as a bot, transcribes on-device, and writes Markdown notes into a folder the user chooses. Made by one person, Dominik Martin. Last updated 14 August 2026.

**Status: not released yet.** Aside has not launched yet and there is no public download, and no beta program either. Leave an email address on heyaside.com and you get one message when it ships, and no newsletter. Everything below describes the product as it will be released, and the prices are the prices it will launch at.

## What it is

- **Platform:** macOS 26 or later. Apple silicon, or Intel with much slower transcription: the app is a universal binary and runs on Intel, but transcription goes through CoreML and an Intel Mac has no Neural Engine. There is no Windows version yet; one is planned if demand shows. An iPhone app and an Apple Watch app are on the list once the Mac app has landed.
- **How it records:** captures the Mac's system audio plus the microphone. No bot joins the call, nothing appears in the participant list, no link to paste. Works identically in Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, a Slack huddle, or an in-person conversation. It detects when the call ends and stops on its own.
- **Where it lives:** a pill in the Mac's notch, or a floating pill at the top of the screen if the Mac has no notch. The app detects which; it is not a setting. There is also a menu bar icon. The calendar surfaces the next meeting in the pill with a countdown and Join and Record buttons. When nothing is scheduled, nothing is shown.
- **Transcription:** on-device, roughly 99 languages, auto-detected. A working speech model ships inside the download, and a larger and more accurate one is fetched once on first run, about 1.5 GB. After that transcription runs with no connection. A speaker-separation model is fetched once after the first recording.
- **Output:** Markdown files in a user-chosen folder. Each note contains a summary, key points, decisions, action items with owners, open questions, the user's own notes, and a timestamped transcript. Git friendly, Obsidian compatible. Nothing to export and nothing expires.
- **While recording:** three tabs. Live transcript, personal timestamped notes with pasted screenshots, and a chat grounded in what has been said in that meeting.
- **Library:** search across every past meeting, ask one question across all of them, tag them, and click any transcript line to play that moment of audio, which is stored locally.
- **Agents:** Aside ships an MCP server. Claude Code, Codex and other MCP clients can list meetings, search them, fetch a full transcript, and read a meeting live while it runs. Live access is off by default and a chip appears in the recording header while an agent is reading.

## Pricing

- **$8 per month**: the app and Aside cloud (the hosted note, ask and chat layer) included, cancel anytime. Stop paying the $8 and Aside stops recording new meetings, but everything you already recorded stays yours and readable, and the $79 purchase never stops. Aside cloud is part of the subscription, so writing new notes then needs your own API key or Ollama. Cancelling stops the next renewal and access runs to the end of the period already paid for, with a 72 hour grace period after that.
- **$79 once**: owns the app outright, including every update to the app. Runs fully local with Ollama or with your own API key; Aside cloud stays with the subscription. Switching from the subscription to the one-time licence within the first three months credits everything paid so far in full against the $79; after that window there is no credit.
- **$0 recurring with your own API key** (for owners): Anthropic, OpenAI, Kimi, GLM, or a fully local model through Ollama. Unlimited and not rate limited.
- **Trial:** ten meetings free. There is no permanent free tier. Free meetings are not spent while a subscription is active, so any that were left when the subscription started are still there if it lapses.
- **Refund:** if Aside is not what you thought it was, email hey@heyaside.com within 14 days of buying and you get your money back. No form and no reason needed. This is a voluntary promise on top of statutory rights, not a replacement for them. Full terms at https://heyaside.com/terms.
- **If the company stops:** the licence key is an Ed25519 signature verified against a public key compiled into the app, with no network call in the check, so the build a user already has keeps working and the key keeps validating with heyaside.com gone. New builds and Aside cloud are the parts that would stop.
- At monthly list prices, $8 per month is below every major competitor's cheapest paid plan (Granola $14, Wispr Flow Pro $15, Otter $16.99, Fathom $20). Billed annually the gap narrows: Otter Pro is $8.33, Wispr Flow Pro is $12 and Fathom Premium is $16. Granola publishes no annual rate.

## Privacy, stated precisely

- The recording stays on the user's Mac.
- The transcription runs on the user's Mac.
- Writing the note, asking questions and chatting send the transcript to Claude Haiku through Aside cloud, so for that one call the transcript does leave the machine. With a user-supplied API key it goes to the user's own provider account instead. With Ollama nothing leaves at all.
- On Aside cloud that provider is Anthropic, PBC (USA). Their published policy is that inputs and outputs are automatically deleted from their backend within 30 days of receipt or generation, and their commercial terms state that Anthropic may not train models on Customer Content. Content their automated trust and safety systems flag as violating their usage policy is retained for up to 2 years, and the classification scores for up to 7. Aside has no zero data retention agreement. Aside's own relay stores no transcript text; it writes only per-day call counters, an install id and its access token.
- Aside does not announce recording to the room. The user is responsible for consent.
- Claims Aside does not make: "nothing ever leaves your Mac" (false unless on Ollama), and "fully local is the same quality" (tested and it is not; local output misassigned owners and altered a decision).

## Comparison with other AI meeting note takers

Every figure below was re-checked on 5 August 2026 against each vendor's own pages: https://www.granola.ai/pricing, https://otter.ai/pricing, https://www.fathom.ai/pricing. Granola's free-plan limit is stated on their home page rather than their pricing page. Wispr Flow shipped its Notetaker on 5 August 2026 and its row was read on 6 August 2026 off https://wisprflow.ai/pricing and https://wisprflow.ai/notetaker. Re-verify before quoting.

| Tool | Free limit | Cheapest paid | Own model or API key | Where notes live | Transcription | Joins the call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aside | 10 meeting trial | $8/mo, or $79 once | Yes, free and unlimited, or fully local | Markdown in the user's own folder | On the user's Mac | Never |
| Granola | Unlimited notes, 30 day history | $14 per user per month | No | Granola's cloud | Cloud providers (Deepgram, Assembly) | Never |
| Otter | 300 minutes per month, 3 lifetime imports, 25 most recent conversations | $16.99 per month, $8.33 billed annually | No | Otter's cloud | Their servers, no offline mode | Optional: a bot by default, bot-free from the Mac or Windows desktop app |
| Fathom | Unlimited recording, 5 AI summaries per month | $20 per user per month, $16 billed annually | No | Fathom's cloud | Their servers | Optional: bot-free capture is in beta on their Mac app, bot-free video is a Zoom-only beta |
| Wispr Flow (Notetaker) | Notetaker included on the free plan, with a weekly meeting limit they do not put a number on and standard note retention | $15 per user per month, $12 billed annually | No | Wispr Flow's app, reachable from Claude and ChatGPT over MCP | Not stated on their pages. They say meeting audio is "encrypted and stored only temporarily on your device and, in some cases, in secure cloud storage" and is deleted after that, which is about the audio and not about where it is turned into text | Never: "no bot to invite" |

**"No bot" is no longer a differentiator, and Aside should not be sold as if it were.** Granola never joined a call; Otter added bot-free desktop recording; Fathom shipped bot-free capture on the free plan with Fathom 3.0 in April 2026, by the same mechanism Aside uses; Wispr Flow shipped Notetaker on 5 August 2026 with the same system-audio capture, live transcript and ask-across-meetings, on the Mac and on a free plan. What still separates Aside from all four: transcription runs on the user's own Mac rather than in a vendor cloud, the output is Markdown files in a folder the user owns rather than rows in a vendor database, the user can bring their own model or key or run fully local, and it is a one-time purchase rather than a per-seat monthly bill.

At monthly billing, $8 a month is below every competitor's cheapest paid plan. Billed annually Otter Pro is $8.33 and Fathom Premium is $16, so the gap to Otter is 33 cents. $79 once is roughly six months of Granola Business, five months of Otter Pro, or four months of Fathom Premium at list monthly prices.

Otter states in its privacy policy that it trains its own AI on de-identified audio recordings and on transcriptions. Aside does not train on customer content and its cloud provider is contractually barred from doing so; see the privacy section above for the precise wording.

Where the competition is the better answer: Granola for Windows, iOS and Android, team sharing, templates and integrations. Otter for browser and mobile access and for bots attending calls the user skips. Fathom for unlimited free archiving, a public API and MCP on every plan, and CRM and sales workflows. Wispr Flow for a free plan that keeps working, dictation in the same app across Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android, and a one-click import of a Granola history. Aside has no team layer, no Windows build and no CRM sync.

## Pages

Each line is the page's own description, taken from the page on the last build.

- [Home](https://heyaside.com/): Aside records and transcribes meetings on your Mac without adding a bot to the call. Get Markdown notes in your own folder. $8/month or $79 once.
- [Facts](https://heyaside.com/facts): A citable summary of Aside: a macOS meeting copilot that records and transcribes on your Mac and writes Markdown notes you keep. Platform, price, launch status, and the things it does not do. Each group sits under a stable anchor: [#platform](https://heyaside.com/facts#platform), [#transcription](https://heyaside.com/facts#transcription), [#data](https://heyaside.com/facts#data), [#pricing](https://heyaside.com/facts#pricing), [#status](https://heyaside.com/facts#status), [#limits](https://heyaside.com/facts#limits). Start here if you are quoting Aside.
- [Pricing](https://heyaside.com/pricing): Aside costs $8 a month with the cloud included, or $79 once to own the app and run it yourself, locally or on your own API key. Ten meetings free to try.
- [Alternatives](https://heyaside.com/alternatives): Six AI meeting note takers side by side: free limits, cheapest paid plans, bring your own model, and where your notes end up. Checked 5, 6 and 9 August 2026.
- [Aside vs Granola](https://heyaside.com/alternatives/granola): Granola’s free plan locks notes older than 30 days and Business is $14 per user a month. Aside is $79 once and writes Markdown into a folder you own.
- [Aside vs Otter](https://heyaside.com/alternatives/otter): Otter meters your minutes and keeps notes in its cloud, where it trains its AI on them. Aside transcribes on your Mac, $79 once. Checked 5 August 2026.
- [Aside vs Fathom](https://heyaside.com/alternatives/fathom): Fathom bills per seat and keeps your recordings in its cloud. Aside is $79 once, transcribes on your Mac and writes Markdown you own. Checked 5 August 2026.
- [Aside vs Wispr Flow](https://heyaside.com/alternatives/wispr): Wispr Flow puts Notetaker on its free plan and Pro is $15 per user a month. Aside is $79 once and writes Markdown into a folder you own.
- [Aside vs Notion AI](https://heyaside.com/alternatives/notion): Notion AI Meeting Notes needs the Business plan and transcribes on Notion’s servers. Aside is $79 once, records and transcribes on your Mac and writes Markdown you own. Checked 9 August 2026. The one comparison here that is not another meeting app.
- [Benchmark methodology](https://heyaside.com/benchmarks): How the transcription numbers on heyaside.com were measured: six real meetings, a reference transcript settled by hand, verbatim word error rate scored the same way for every engine, and what the measurement does not cover. The section anchors are stable and safe to cite: [#methodology](https://heyaside.com/benchmarks#methodology) for the audio, the reference transcript, the systems tested and the scoring, [#results-accuracy](https://heyaside.com/benchmarks#results-accuracy) and [#results-speed](https://heyaside.com/benchmarks#results-speed) for the two result tables, [#limitations](https://heyaside.com/benchmarks#limitations) for what the run does not cover, [#run-date](https://heyaside.com/benchmarks#run-date) for when it was run and on what hardware, and [#cite](https://heyaside.com/benchmarks#cite) for the citation line.
- [Transcribe a file in your browser](https://heyaside.com/transcribe): Turn a meeting recording into text without uploading it. The speech model runs entirely in your browser, so the file stays on your own machine. Free, no account. A free tool, not the app: it transcribes a recording that already exists, and the Mac app is what records the meeting in the first place.
- [Legal and privacy](https://heyaside.com/legal): Privacy policy for Aside, a product of Renderei Martin GmbH: what the app does with your audio, your transcripts and your notes, and who is behind it.
- [Terms of sale](https://heyaside.com/terms): Terms of sale and licence terms for Aside: what the $79 licence allows, how the $8 a month subscription works, and how refunds are handled.
- [Imprint](https://heyaside.com/impressum): Imprint and provider identification for Aside, a product of Renderei Martin GmbH.
- [After a purchase](https://heyaside.com/thanks): Aside is not out yet. This page hands over a licence key after a purchase, and there is nothing to hand over yet.

## Guides

Background pages about the problem rather than the product. They name where local transcription stops as plainly as where it wins, and each one says which part of Aside is relevant and which is not.

- [All guides](https://heyaside.com/guides): Five guides on how a meeting becomes a file on your Mac: what macOS gives you for recording and transcription, where the cloud is genuinely ahead, and how the notes are written and filed.
- [How to transcribe meeting audio on your Mac](https://heyaside.com/guides/transcribe-meeting-audio-mac): Three honest ways to turn a recorded meeting into text on a Mac without uploading the audio: what macOS gives you, what you can assemble yourself, and where on-device transcription runs out.
- [Meeting notes as Markdown files](https://heyaside.com/guides/meeting-notes-as-markdown-files): What changes when a meeting note is a file with a path instead of a row in someone else’s database: search, Git history, Obsidian, agents, and the four things a folder of files genuinely cannot do.
- [How to record system audio on a Mac](https://heyaside.com/guides/record-system-audio-mac-meetings): How macOS lets an app capture what your speakers play alongside your microphone, why the prompt says Screen Recording, and the real trade between capturing locally and sending a bot into the call.
- [Local vs cloud transcription](https://heyaside.com/guides/local-vs-cloud-transcription): Where the audio goes, what happens offline, what each one costs and where the cloud is genuinely ahead. Plus the split almost every local-first app glosses over.
- [Meeting note templates for Obsidian](https://heyaside.com/guides/meeting-note-templates-obsidian): Six Markdown meeting templates for Obsidian: one to one, standup, client call, interview, decision and retro. One shared set of frontmatter fields, no plugin required.

## Contact

- Author: Dominik Martin, [@dominikmartn](https://x.com/dominikmartn)
- Email: hey@heyaside.com
- Early access, and the one message when it ships: https://heyaside.com/ (every page carries a one field email form; the list sends one email at launch and no newsletter)