Otter.ai vs tl;dv for Nonprofits

Why Meeting Transcription Matters for Nonprofits

Nonprofit staff are stretched thin. Board meetings produce critical decisions that get buried in notes nobody can find six months later. Donor calls surface insights that never make it into the CRM. Grant research interviews with community members capture nuanced feedback that disappears when the meeting ends. AI meeting assistants solve all of these problems simultaneously, and the two most commonly evaluated options for nonprofits are Otter.ai and tl;dv.

Both tools auto-join your Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams calls, transcribe the conversation, and generate AI summaries. Both are dramatically better than manual note-taking, reducing post-meeting documentation time from 30-60 minutes to near zero. But they make meaningfully different trade-offs that matter depending on your organization's size, language needs, compliance requirements, and budget.

Otter.ai has built the stronger nonprofit story: a formal TechSoup partnership delivers a 40% discount on its Business plan, and the platform achieved HIPAA compliance in 2025, making it the only option in this category with a BAA for healthcare-adjacent nonprofits. Its real-time live transcription is also a standout feature for board meetings where participants want to see what's being said as it happens.

tl;dv takes a different approach. Its 30+ language support makes it indispensable for organizations serving immigrant communities or working internationally. Its claimed transcription accuracy of up to 96% outperforms Otter.ai's ~85% average, and its multi-meeting intelligence feature, which synthesizes patterns across multiple calls, gives teams a way to spot recurring themes in donor conversations or program feedback that no single-meeting tool can replicate.

What Is tl;dv?

tl;dv (short for "too long; didn't view") launched in 2021 with a focus on making meeting recordings actually usable. Where most meeting tools produce a recording that nobody watches, tl;dv uses AI to extract the signal from the noise: timestamped summaries, searchable transcripts, shareable video clips of specific moments, and a multi-meeting intelligence layer that synthesizes insights across dozens of conversations at once. The platform records both video and audio, giving teams something to show stakeholders rather than a wall of text.

For nonprofits in donor development, tl;dv's CRM auto-fill on the Business plan is particularly compelling. When a fundraiser finishes a major donor call, tl;dv automatically populates the donor's Salesforce or HubSpot record with a summary of what was discussed, what commitments were made, and what follow-up actions were identified. This eliminates the post-call CRM data entry that fundraisers often skip under time pressure, keeping donor records current without adding to anyone's workload.

The multi-meeting intelligence feature sets tl;dv apart from every competitor in its category. Rather than reviewing one meeting at a time, staff can ask the AI to analyze patterns across all donor calls from the past quarter, or to surface recurring concerns from a month of program feedback sessions. For strategic planning, impact reporting, or grant writing, having the ability to query across a body of recorded conversations rather than relying on individual notes is a genuine capability leap.

Language support is tl;dv's headline advantage: 30+ languages for transcription with localized platform interfaces available in seven languages. For organizations serving immigrant populations, managing international programs, or hosting multilingual board meetings, this breadth is often the deciding factor. The platform's transcription accuracy is also consistently rated higher than Otter.ai, particularly in meetings with multiple simultaneous speakers or participants with non-native English accents.

The main limitation is the free plan's hidden restriction: tl;dv's free tier includes full AI notes for only the first 10 lifetime meetings. After that threshold, AI summaries are limited to the first 10 minutes of each subsequent meeting. This cap does not reset monthly, making it a genuine constraint rather than a generous trial. Organizations relying on the free tier for ongoing transcription will get unlimited recordings and transcripts but will need the Pro plan ($18/month/seat) for sustained AI summaries. tl;dv also has no formal nonprofit discount program, which changes the total cost calculation significantly compared to Otter.ai's TechSoup discount.

Our Recommendation

For most nonprofits operating in English and one or two other major languages, with a genuine budget constraint and 3 or more staff who attend meetings regularly, Otter.ai Business with the TechSoup discount is the stronger starting point. The 40% discount is real and significant, the real-time transcription is a standout feature for board meetings, and the HIPAA compliance option provides a clear upgrade path if your programs require it.

For organizations serving multilingual communities, running active major gift programs that live in Salesforce or HubSpot, or needing to synthesize insights across dozens of meetings for strategic or reporting purposes, tl;dv is the more capable platform. Its higher transcription accuracy, 30+ language support, video recording, and multi-meeting intelligence justify the higher cost when those capabilities are genuinely needed.

Both tools offer free trials. We recommend testing both with real meetings before committing. For more context on other meeting tools in this space, see our comparisons of Otter.ai vs Fireflies.ai and Fathom vs tl;dv.