Best Board Meeting Minutes Software (2026): 5 Tools Compared
The 5 best board meeting minutes software tools in 2026, compared by features, pricing, and who they're best for. From $16.99 to $23,800/year.
Best Board Meeting Minutes Software (2026): 5 Tools Compared
If you're a board clerk, executive assistant, or secretary looking for software to help produce board meeting minutes, you have more options in 2026 than ever before. AI has made it possible to go from a meeting recording to a formatted draft in minutes rather than hours.
But not all tools are built the same. Some are designed specifically for board meetings. Others are general-purpose transcription tools that require significant manual work to produce proper minutes.
I'm Grace Esteban, founder of BoardBreeze and Executive Assistant to the Chancellor at City College of San Francisco. I've tested these tools and used them in real board meeting workflows. Here's an honest breakdown.
The Quick Comparison
| Tool | Best For | Starting Price | Board-Specific | Audio to Minutes | Compliance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BoardBreeze | Small-to-mid boards (education, nonprofit, healthcare) | $29.99/month | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ClerkMinutes | Municipal clerks | $99/month | Yes | Yes | Basic |
| Diligent | Enterprise / Fortune 500 | ~$1,983/month | Yes (portal, not minutes) | No | Yes (enterprise) |
| Otter.ai | General meeting transcription | Free / $16.99/month | No | Transcript only | No |
| Fireflies.ai | Sales teams and business meetings | Free / $18/month | No | Notes only | No |
1. BoardBreeze — Best for Small-to-Mid Boards
Price: $29.99/month (Essential) | $99/month (Pro) | $499/month (Enterprise) Free trial: 30 days, no credit card Best for: School districts, nonprofits, hospitals, community colleges, HOAs, small government agencies
BoardBreeze converts meeting recordings into formatted board minutes using AI. Upload a recording (or record live in your browser), and the AI transcribes the audio, identifies motions, seconds, and votes, and formats everything into a structured minutes template.
What stands out:
- Audio-first workflow. Built around uploading or recording meetings, not live video call integration
- Parliamentary procedure. Automatically identifies motions, seconds, votes, and action items
- GPT-4 formatting. Minutes are structured and formatted, not just transcribed
- Minutes Assistant chatbot. Ask questions about the meeting after processing
- Brown Act compliance. Built-in compliance checking for California public boards
- Long meeting support. Tested with 7+ hour meetings — processes in ~15 minutes
- Self-serve. Sign up and start using it in 2 minutes, no sales calls
Limitations:
- Newer company (smaller customer base)
- Export currently limited to text format (PDF and Word planned)
- English only
- AI output is ~90% accurate — requires human review
Who it's for: Board clerks and executive assistants at organizations that need professional minutes but don't have enterprise budgets or enterprise complexity. If you're spending 3-6 hours per meeting on minutes production, BoardBreeze brings that down to 20-30 minutes of review time.
Try BoardBreeze free for 30 days →
2. ClerkMinutes — Best for Municipal Clerks
Price: $99/month (entry) | Up to $249/month Free trial: Demo available Best for: City clerks, county clerks, town clerks, municipal government
ClerkMinutes is an established player serving 1,300+ municipalities. It's purpose-built for the municipal clerk workflow: upload a recording, get AI-generated minutes with motions and votes tracked.
What stands out:
- Deep municipal focus. Terminology, templates, and workflows tailored to city/county clerks
- Large customer base. 1,300+ municipalities means extensive experience with local government needs
- Strong content and education. Blog posts, guides, and educational resources for municipal clerks
- Established track record. Longer operating history than newer entrants
Limitations:
- Higher price point ($99-249/month vs. $29.99 alternatives)
- Focused on municipal government — less applicable to education, nonprofit, or healthcare boards
- No live in-browser recording
- No Minutes Assistant chatbot
Who it's for: Municipal clerks who want a purpose-built tool with a large community of similar users. The price premium is justified if your organization specifically values a vendor with deep municipal government experience.
Read full comparison: BoardBreeze vs ClerkMinutes →
3. Diligent — Best for Enterprise Boards
Price: $23,800/year ($1,983/month)
Free trial: No — requires sales process
Best for: Fortune 500, large public companies, enterprise governance teams
Diligent is the largest board management platform in the world, serving 700,000+ directors. It's a comprehensive governance suite that includes board portals, voting, entity management, ESG reporting, and compliance tools.
What stands out:
- Comprehensive governance suite. Far more than minutes — it manages the entire board lifecycle
- Board portal. Document sharing, collaboration, and secure communication for directors
- Enterprise compliance. Multi-framework regulatory compliance across jurisdictions
- Director tools. Onboarding, D&O questionnaires, and education modules
Limitations:
- No audio-to-minutes capability. Despite the $23,800/year price, Diligent doesn't convert recordings into minutes
- Enterprise pricing. 66x more expensive than BoardBreeze's entry plan
- Long procurement process. Sales calls, demos, contract negotiations — weeks to months before you can use it
- Overkill for small boards. If you need minutes, not a governance suite, you're paying for features you won't use
Who it's for: Large organizations with corporate secretary teams, complex governance requirements, and budgets that can accommodate enterprise software. If you need entity management, ESG reporting, and board portals, Diligent is the market leader.
Read full comparison: BoardBreeze vs Diligent →
4. Otter.ai — Best for General Transcription
Price: Free (basic) | $16.99/month (Pro) | $30/month (Business) Free trial: Free tier available Best for: Business meetings, lectures, interviews — not board minutes specifically
Otter.ai is one of the most popular meeting transcription tools available. It joins your Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet calls and produces transcripts with speaker identification, summaries, and action items.
What stands out:
- Free tier. Genuinely useful for basic transcription
- Live meeting integration. Otter joins video calls automatically
- Strong speaker identification. Useful for multi-speaker meetings
- Wide integrations. Connects to calendars, CRMs, and productivity tools
- OtterPilot chat. Ask questions about your transcripts
Limitations:
- Produces transcripts, not minutes. You get words, not a formatted legal document
- No parliamentary procedure. Doesn't identify motions, seconds, or votes
- No compliance. No awareness of Brown Act, Robert's Rules, or open meeting laws
- 4-hour meeting limit on the Business plan
- Significant reformatting needed. Plan to spend 1-2+ hours converting transcript to proper minutes
Who it's for: Professionals who need affordable transcription for everyday business meetings. For board meetings, Otter gives you a starting point — but you'll need to do substantial manual work to turn the transcript into minutes.
Read full comparison: BoardBreeze vs Otter.ai →
5. Fireflies.ai — Best for Sales and Business Teams
Price: Free (basic) | $18/month (Pro) | $29/month (Business) Free trial: Free tier available Best for: Sales teams, customer success, team collaboration — not board minutes
Fireflies.ai is an AI meeting assistant focused on business workflows. It records meetings, generates notes, and pushes data to CRM and project management tools. It's particularly popular with sales teams for conversation intelligence.
What stands out:
- CRM integrations. Salesforce, HubSpot, and dozens more
- Conversation intelligence. Talk-to-listen ratios, sentiment analysis, topic tracking
- AskFred AI. Search across all your past meetings
- Team collaboration. Shared notes, comments, and highlights
- Cross-meeting search. Find information across hundreds of recorded meetings
Limitations:
- Not built for governance. No understanding of parliamentary procedure
- No board minutes formatting. Produces meeting notes, not official minutes
- No compliance features. No awareness of open meeting laws or Robert's Rules
- CRM features are irrelevant. Board clerks don't need Salesforce integration
- Same reformatting problem as Otter.ai. You still spend hours converting notes to proper minutes
Who it's for: Business teams that want meeting data flowing into their CRM and project management tools. Not designed for governance or official meeting documentation.
Read full comparison: BoardBreeze vs Fireflies.ai →
Feature-by-Feature Matrix
| Feature | BoardBreeze | ClerkMinutes | Diligent | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Audio upload | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Live recording | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Board-specific formatting | Yes | Yes | N/A | No | No |
| Motion/vote tracking | Auto | Auto | Manual | No | No |
| Brown Act compliance | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Robert's Rules | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Minutes chatbot | Yes | No | No | OtterPilot | AskFred |
| Board portal | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| CRM integration | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| ESG reporting | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Max meeting length | 12 hrs | Unlimited | N/A | 4 hrs | Varies |
| Self-serve signup | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Entry price/month | $29.99 | $99 | ~$1,983 | Free | Free |
How to Choose
Choose based on your primary need:
- "I need board minutes from audio recordings." → BoardBreeze or ClerkMinutes
- "I need a complete governance platform." → Diligent
- "I need general meeting transcription." → Otter.ai or Fireflies.ai
- "I need meeting data in my CRM." → Fireflies.ai
Choose based on your budget:
- Free: Otter.ai or Fireflies.ai (but expect hours of manual reformatting for board minutes)
- Under $50/month: BoardBreeze ($29.99) — purpose-built for board minutes
- $99-249/month: ClerkMinutes — if you're a municipal clerk specifically
- $23,800+/year: Diligent — if you need enterprise governance, not just minutes
Choose based on your organization:
- School district, nonprofit, hospital, community college, HOA: BoardBreeze
- City or county government: ClerkMinutes or BoardBreeze
- Fortune 500 or large public company: Diligent
- General business (sales, teams, projects): Otter.ai or Fireflies.ai
My Recommendation
I'm biased — I built BoardBreeze. But here's my honest take:
If you're producing official board meeting minutes and your budget is under $500/month, the real choice is between BoardBreeze and ClerkMinutes. General transcription tools (Otter, Fireflies) will give you a transcript, but you'll spend hours converting it into proper minutes. Diligent is excellent but priced for enterprises.
Between BoardBreeze and ClerkMinutes, the decision comes down to your organization type (municipal vs. broader), your budget ($29.99 vs. $99), and which features matter most to you.
The best way to decide is to test with your own meeting. BoardBreeze offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card required. Upload a recording from your last board meeting and see if the output meets your needs.
Have questions about which tool is right for your organization? Email me at grace@appboardbreeze.com — I personally respond to every message.
Detailed comparisons:
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