Earkeep
The Plaud alternative with no device to buy
Last updated: · Reviewed quarterly
Plaud is a $159+ pocket recorder built to go where a laptop can't, and it uploads what it hears to Plaud's cloud to turn it into text. Earkeep is software only: it already hears everything your computer hears, transcribes on the device, and costs €39 once.
14-day full trial, no account required.
- No device to buy, charge or lose
- Transcribed on your computer, never uploaded
- €39 once, not $159 plus a yearly plan
The short answer
If your conversations mostly happen away from a computer, on a factory floor, on hospital rounds or on the handset itself, Plaud does something Earkeep genuinely can't, and the hardware plus its subscription is the right tool for that work. If your week is laptop-centred, online calls and meetings where the laptop is open on the table, then you are paying for a second device and a cloud round trip to capture what the computer in front of you already hears, and that is the gap Earkeep fills for €39 once.
Why people look for a Plaud alternative
Transcribed on your device, not in Plaud's cloud
Plaud's model is cloud-dependent by design: the device captures and stores audio, syncs it to Plaud's app over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, and cloud AI running on Plaud's infrastructure does the transcription, speaker labeling and summarization. Plaud compensates with compliance paperwork, ISO 27001/27701, SOC 2, GDPR and HIPAA claims, plus a stated policy that recordings aren't used for AI training. Those are real commitments, but they describe how Plaud's cloud handles your audio after it leaves your device, because leaving the device is a required step for every AI feature, transcription included.
Plaud's own community has raised this directly: users have returned devices specifically over privacy concerns, one Reddit thread is literally titled "Privacy-proof alternative?", and another flags that the app shipped without multi-factor authentication protecting a cloud full of private conversations for a period.
Earkeep's answer isn't a compliance badge, it's architecture: there's no cloud pipeline to trust, because there's no cloud pipeline at all. Audio from your mic and your computer's own output is transcribed locally, hardware-accelerated on Apple Silicon, processed only in memory and never written to disk. No upload, no API call for core functionality, no account.
A whole day you can grep, not the sessions you remembered to start
Earkeep never asks you to press anything. It continuously records mic and system audio while running, transcribes locally, and you define a meeting by selecting a span on the timeline after it happened, or let a connected calendar start and end the span automatically.
Plaud's devices are manual: you press a button to start and stop a recording. This is the single most-cited complaint in Plaud's own user community, missed and failed recordings from finicky touch controls, alongside a recurring feature request for pause and resume that the product doesn't have. One power user compared Plaud unfavorably to the always-on Limitless pendant on this exact point, before Limitless was acquired by Meta and shut down. Earkeep's retroactive-span model exists precisely to remove this failure mode: there's nothing to remember to press.
What it keeps is a plain .jsonl file per day in a folder you picked, so a meeting is something you can open, grep, back up or hand to any tool, rather than an entry in a cloud library you export from.
Your own agents read the record, not a chat box you can't leave
Plaud's intelligence lives inside Plaud: summaries from GPT and Claude with templates per profession, and "Ask Plaud," a closed chat interface over your own recording library, in a web workspace that exports to Notion and Word.
Earkeep runs in-app ACP agents directly against your meeting history, plus a built-in MCP server so any MCP-capable external tool can read your meetings too. Earkeep writes no summary of its own, and that is the honest trade: the notes are whatever the agent you point at the transcript writes, filed wherever your team already reads.
Side by side
| Capability | Earkeep | Plaud |
|---|---|---|
| Always-on, zero-interaction capture | Spans you mark afterward | Manual start/stop on the device |
| Bot-free | No participant joins | No participant joins |
| Captures away from the computer | Only what your device hears | The hardware's core strength |
| Audio processed on your device | Whisper or Parakeet, never written to disk | Transcription and summaries run in Plaud's cloud |
| Captures system audio | Native | Only via Plaud's 2026 desktop app |
| Retroactive meeting spans | Any span on the timeline, afterward | Discrete sessions you start and stop |
| AI summary when it ends | No, but an agent you connect writes them from the transcript | GPT and Claude, with templates per profession |
| Labels who said what | Not yet | Speaker labels, in 112 languages |
| Your own agents can read it | ACP agents plus an MCP server | A closed "Ask Plaud" chat only |
| Share and export what it captured | No, but your agent files the notes where your team already reads | A web workspace, exporting to Notion and Word |
| No hardware to buy | The computer you already have | A dedicated Plaud device |
| Pricing | €39 one-time, one device, no subscription | $159-189 hardware plus a subscription up to $239.99/yr |
Built inNo, but an agent you connect canPartlyNot available
What each one costs by year five
Switching takes an afternoon
- Install it, then let a normal day run. Earkeep starts listening as soon as it is running, so a day of desk meetings is captured before you have configured anything. There is no import tool and nothing can be migrated out of Plaud's cloud: what you recorded on the device stays in Plaud's app, and Earkeep starts from today.
- Mark yesterday, or connect a calendar. Drag a span across the timeline where a meeting was, or point Earkeep at Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook or any ICS URL and let every event title its own span.
- Stop paying for minutes once you trust it. The trial runs 14 days with no account and no card, long enough to see how much of your week actually happens in front of the computer. If it's most of it, the plan renewal is the thing to cancel, and the device is worth keeping only for the conversations that happen away from a desk.
Which one fits you
Choose Earkeep if
Your meetings happen where your computer already is, and you'd rather not buy a second one to hear them.
- Your week is online calls and meetings with the laptop open on the table
- The audio must not leave the machine, as architecture rather than as a certificate
- You'd rather pay €39 once than roughly $460-890 over two to three years for a Note or NotePin plus its plan, or $600-1,100+ for a Note Pro
- You don't want to ration minutes: Plaud's free tier stops at 300 a month, about 2.5 hours, and Pro at 1,200
- Your own agents should be able to read your meetings directly, not through someone else's chat box
Choose Plaud if
If your conversations mostly happen away from a computer, Plaud does something Earkeep genuinely can't, and that is worth paying for.
- Your work is off-computer: a factory floor, hospital rounds, courtroom proceedings, sales calls in the field, lectures, or a wearable clipped on all day at a conference
- You need phone calls recorded on the handset itself, where a laptop isn't there to listen
- You want an AI summary the moment a session ends, with templates per profession
- You need to know who said what: Plaud labels speakers, across 112 languages, and Earkeep does not yet
- You want the dedicated hardware and accept its cost: $159 for a Note or NotePin, $179 for a NotePin S, $189 for a Note Pro, then $99.99/yr for Pro or $239.99/yr for Unlimited
Plaud sells to people whose recording problem is physical, so its positioning follows the device: field work, clinical and legal settings, and anyone who needs a recorder in a pocket rather than software on a laptop. Earkeep's audience is the opposite case, product and engineering roles running 8-15 meetings a week at a computer that is already in the room. See Earkeep for product managers for the role-specific version.
Other tools people weigh this against
Anyone shopping for a Plaud alternative usually has a few other tabs open. Each of these gets the same treatment as this page: Granola, Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, Fathom, tl;dv, Jamie, MacWhisper and Limitless, or all nine side by side.
Frequently asked questions
Is Earkeep a good Plaud alternative?
It is, if the meetings you want kept happen where your computer is. Earkeep captures the same conversations with no hardware to buy or charge, transcribes them on your device instead of in a cloud, and costs €39 once instead of a device plus a yearly plan. What it can't do is follow you away from the computer, and it doesn't label speakers or write a summary on its own, which are the two things a Plaud user would notice missing on day one.
Is Plaud always-on like Earkeep?
No. Plaud recording is manual: you start and stop it on the device. Earkeep continuously captures mic and system audio while running and lets you mark any span as a meeting afterward, or have a connected calendar do it automatically. Missed or failed manual recordings are a commonly reported Plaud complaint.
Does Plaud process audio locally?
No. The device captures and stores audio, then syncs it to Plaud's cloud app for transcription and summarization on Plaud's infrastructure. Earkeep transcribes on-device and never writes audio to disk or uploads it anywhere.
How much does Plaud actually cost over time?
A device is $159-189 up front. Beyond the 300-minute free tier, real use needs a subscription: $99.99/yr for Pro or $239.99/yr for Unlimited. A serious user is typically looking at $260-430 in year one and $100-240 every year after. Earkeep is €39 once, with no subscription.
Can Earkeep capture in-person meetings and phone calls away from my device?
Earkeep captures meetings where your computer is present: online calls and in-person meetings with the laptop open. It can't follow you away from the computer the way a pocket recorder or wearable can; that's a genuine Plaud strength for field work and all-day wearable capture.
Does Plaud support agents or MCP the way Earkeep does?
Plaud offers "Ask Plaud," a closed chat interface over your own recording library. Earkeep runs in-app ACP agents directly against your meeting history, plus a built-in MCP server so any MCP-capable external tool can read your meetings too.
Try Earkeep free
14-day full trial, no account required.