Sembly AI is a bot-based meeting intelligence platform built for sales and professional-services teams that want deep analytics on top of transcripts. CraftNote is a bot-free AI note taker built for capture beyond scheduled meetings: lectures, in-person conversations, phone calls, and uploads. The clearest differences are capture method, free-plan structure, and how much you pay per seat. This page is written against Sembly's own published pricing page as of 2026-08-26, not against assumptions.
Overview
CraftNote
CraftNote is a bot-free AI note taker available on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and the web. It records directly from your device — nothing joins your calls as a visible participant — and works equally for scheduled meetings, lectures, in-person conversations, phone calls, and uploaded audio/video/PDF/YouTube/podcast content. The free plan meters by weekly usage (2 hours of recording, 10 uploads) on an ongoing basis, with no lifetime cap.
Sembly AI
Sembly AI is a bot-based meeting assistant that joins Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex calls as a visible participant (it announces itself in chat when it joins), records audio and video, and layers on meeting intelligence features like multi-meeting AI chat, custom document generation, and — on its top tier — HIPAA compliance. It's positioned for professional-services and sales teams that want analytics across a meeting history, not for capture outside scheduled calls.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | CraftNote | Sembly AI | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capture method | Bot-free on every platform — records from your own device, no visible call participant. | Bot-based only — Sembly joins the call as a visible participant and posts a chat notification announcing itself. | ✓ |
| Free plan | 2 hours of recording + 10 uploads/imports per week, ongoing — no lifetime cap, no credit card. | As of March 2026, the old free Personal plan was replaced with a limited 'Basic free trial': 60 minutes of video recording per month, restricted uploads. | ✓ |
| Entry paid pricing | $9.99/month, or $8.33/month billed annually ($99.99/year) for one flat individual tier. | Basic plan: $17/month, or $10/month billed annually — single user, up to 5 hours of media upload, single-meeting AI chat only. | ✓ |
| Mid/team pricing | Team: $15/user/month, or $12/user/month billed annually ($144/year/user) — shared notes, centralized billing, admin controls. | Pro: $29/user/month, or $20/user/month billed annually — adds multi-meeting AI chat and unlimited video recording. | ✓ |
| Beyond scheduled meetings | Built for lectures, in-person conversations, phone calls, and uploaded audio/video/PDF/YouTube/podcasts as first-class use cases. | Designed around scheduled video calls that Sembly's bot can join; capture outside a calendar-linked meeting relies on file upload only. | ✓ |
| Cross-meeting AI chat | Ask AI answers questions about any single note's content. | Multi-meeting AI chat on the Pro tier and above lets you query across your entire meeting history — a genuine differentiator for heavy users. | ✓ |
| Meeting intelligence & document generation | 30+ summary templates for structured, single-note output. | Generates AI documents (proposals, status reports, change requests) from meeting content — up to 40/month on the Max tier — plus sentiment and talk-ratio analytics. | ✓ |
| Compliance | No specific compliance certifications currently claimed. | HIPAA compliance and custom SSO available on the Max plan ($39/user/month, or $30 annual). | ✓ |
| Platform coverage | iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and web — full parity across all five. | Works through the meeting platform integrations (Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex) and a Chrome extension; no dedicated mobile app for on-the-go capture outside a joined call. | ✓ |
Who Should Pick Which?
Choose CraftNote if…
Anyone who wants a single bot-free tool across meetings, lectures, in-person conversations, and phone calls without a visible bot joining every call, and without paying $17-39/month per seat for a meeting-only tool.
Choose Sembly AI if…
Sales and professional-services teams standardized on scheduled video calls who want Sembly's cross-meeting AI chat, automated document generation, and (on the top tier) HIPAA compliance — and don't mind a bot announcing itself in every meeting.