Limemo is built for the conversation happening in front of you. You start it on your iPhone or on your watch, and what comes back is the transcript split by speaker with a summary in the format you picked. Otter is built for the call you dial into, and the difference shows on their pages and on Apple’s listing of their app: no watch app, no PDF, and a clock on every recording — 30 minutes on the free plan, 90 on Pro. If you are weighing apps like Otter AI, that clock is the first thing to check against the length of what you actually record.
What Limemo does that Otter does not
- Records from your wrist. Start on the Apple Watch, leave the phone in your bag, and the recording arrives on your iPhone as the same kind of note. Otter’s App Store listing names iPhone and iPad, and no Apple Watch app.
- Takes a PDF into the same place as your recordings. A reading list and a lecture end up in one app, searchable together. PDF appears in Otter’s help center only as something you can export, never as something you can bring in.
- Lets your phone’s free space decide how long you record. Otter’s plans cap a single conversation at 30 minutes free, 90 minutes on Pro and four hours on Business. Limemo’s limit is the free space on your phone — the recorder watches it while you record and, if it runs low, ends the recording with a save rather than a loss. No tier decides how long you can talk.
- Encrypted on both legs, and deletable. Limemo’s recordings, transcripts and summaries are encrypted in transit and at rest, and can be deleted at any time.
Two more that only show up once you are using it. A Limemo recording is never lost — an interruption pauses it and it picks up again, a full disk ends a recording of ten seconds or more with a save, a failed upload leaves it on the main screen to retry. And the summary comes in seven formats — Brief, Executive, Key KPIs, Memo, Standard, Study and Custom — plus your own written instructions when none of the seven summary templates is what you meant, in 99+ languages, translatable after the fact.
Pricing side by side
- Limemo
Limemo is a subscription and there is no free tier. After the free trial it is $8.99/week or $79.99/year. Billing runs through the App Store, the subscription renews until you cancel, and you cancel in Settings › Apple ID › Subscriptions at least 24 hours before the renewal date. The pricing page has the plans and the refund position in full.
- Otter
Four tiers. Pro and Business are charged per user; Basic is free and Enterprise is by quote. Each published tier caps how long one recording can be, and the free plan also limits you to three file imports for the life of the account.
The number to compare is not the price, it is 30 minutes. That is Otter’s cap on a single conversation on its free plan. A lecture does not fit. A two-hour meeting does not fit. Its free plan also allows three imported files for the life of the account, so bringing in a voice memo you already have runs out on the third one. Go up a tier and the clock stays: 90 minutes per meeting on Pro, four hours on Business. In Limemo what ends a recording is the free space on your phone, and even then it ends with a save — the plan does not decide how long you can talk.
Then the price itself. A year of Limemo costs less than a year of Otter’s cheapest paid tier. Limemo does not charge per user: one price, whatever the size of the team around you.
Limemo runs on iPhone and Apple Watch, and it records the room you are in rather than joining a call you dial into.
Privacy and data handling
Limemo’s recordings, transcripts and summaries are encrypted in transit and at rest, and can be deleted at any time. If encryption is the question that decides this for you, how Limemo handles your recordings explains what is encrypted and where transcription and summarizing happen.
Otter states “TLS encryption” and “AES-256 encryption for real-time content” on its pricing page. Its privacy policy, effective June 16, 2026, says only that it maintains “physical, administrative, and technical safeguards”.
If you found this page looking for an Otter AI alternative, the deciding question is where your recordings start. If they start in the room in front of you — a lecture, a table, a corridor, a walk — that is what Limemo is built for, on the phone already in your pocket and on the watch already on your wrist.