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Illustrative study with synthetic respondents — not the company's data. Pricing teardown · Granola · September–October 2025

Granola replaced its free trial with a free plan and dropped its $18 Individual plan. Did it pay?

Between September and October 2025, per Granola's archived pricing page, the offer changed. On September 3 it listed a 25-meeting free trial, an $18 Individual plan, and Business at $14 per user. By October 8 it listed a free Basic plan with no meeting limit but only recent history, and Business at $14 as the one self-serve paid plan. This teardown looks at the decision behind it, and how you'd test it.

Public sources only, each citedPrices in USD per user per monthChecked October 3, 2026
In short
  • Before: try Granola free for 25 meetings, then pay $18 a month alone, or $14 per user as a team.1
  • After: use it free for as many meetings as you like, but see only recent notes; pay $14 per user for full history and integrations, alone or as a team.2,4
  • So individuals who pay now pay $4 less. The test: does a free plan gated on history bring in enough payers to make up for it?
Situation

Paying alone cost more than paying as a team

Granola writes notes from your meetings without a bot joining the call. Until September 2025, new users got 25 free meetings, then had to choose: Individual at $18 a month, sold as Unlimited meetings for you, or Business at $14 per user, for the whole team.1

Granola's plans in September 2025

PlanPriceFor
Free trial$025 free meetings
Individual$18 a monthUnlimited meetings for you
Business$14 per user a monthUnlimited meetings for the whole team
EnterpriseFrom $35 per userAdmin and security controls

Granola's pricing page as archived on September 3, 2025.1

Task

End the free use at 25 meetings, or gate it on history?

We found no public statement from Granola explaining or dating the change; the dates here come from its archived pricing page.1,2 This teardown doesn't assume a reason.

The pricing decision was this: a trial that stops after 25 meetings pushes people to pay early. A free plan with no meeting limit keeps them using it, and asks them to pay once their older notes matter. Removing Individual also means anyone paying alone pays $14 instead of $18.

Before deciding: what you'd want to know

Four questions a pricing study can answer

  1. Which parts of an AI meeting-notes app are worth paying for: history, integrations, or team features?MaxDiff →
  2. Should the free option end after 25 meetings, or stay free with recent history only, and should individuals pay $18 or $14?Conjoint →
  3. What is the acceptable price range for a paid plan with unlimited history and integrations?Van Westendorp →
  4. At what price will free users pay to keep all their past notes?Gabor-Granger →

The order runs from the offer to the price: what buyers value, how to package it, the range they accept, then the exact price. Each question is asked separately of the two groups the change affects differently: people who buy for themselves, and people who buy for a team. The study, run in Albi, is at the end.

Action

A free plan with recent history, and one paid plan at $14

Between September 3 and October 8, 2025, per Granola's archived pricing page, the offer changed. By October 8, the page listed three plans: Basic at $0, Business at $14 per user For individuals and small teams, and Enterprise at $35. The free trial and the Individual plan were gone.2

Archived Sep 3, 2025Archived Oct 8, 2025
Free25-meeting trialBasic: no meeting limit, recent history only
Paying aloneIndividual · $18Business · $14
Paying as a teamBusiness · $14 per userBusiness · $14 per user

Basic launched showing 14 days of history2; Granola's help pages now give the last 30 days in the app, with older notes kept.4 Business adds unlimited history, advanced AI models and integrations with Notion, Slack, HubSpot and others.2,3

Free got bigger; paying alone got cheaper

$0$5$10$15$20Free · before25-meeting trialFree · afterBasic, no meeting limitIndividual · before$18Business · before and after$14 per user
Per user per month, list prices from Granola's pricing page before and after.1,2 Individual was removed: −$4, or −22%, for someone paying alone. Our arithmetic.
Result

What is public about how it went

A year later, the structure is the same: Basic free, Business $14, Enterprise $35.3 The free plan's history window now reads 30 days in Granola's help pages, up from the 14 days shown at launch.2,4

What isn't public: how many free users went on to pay, or what happened to revenue from people paying alone. This teardown makes no claim about either.

The study

From the four questions to the decision

Illustrative study with synthetic respondents — not the company's data.

We ran the four questions above as one Albi survey. The respondents are US professionals who use or choose an AI meeting-notes app: 150 who would buy one for themselves, and 150 who would buy one for a team.

These results come from synthetic respondents: AI-modelled buyer profiles, not people. Use them to shape the question, then confirm with real respondents. Run in Albi on October 3, 2026, with 300 synthetic respondents generated by Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite. Every chart below meets the minimum sample Albi sets for its method.

1

Which parts of an AI meeting-notes app are worth paying for: history, integrations, or team features?

MaxDiff · all 300
10 = average Notion, Slack, HubSpot integrations22.1 Unlimited meetings20.8 Unlimited note history20.8 Calendar sync10.4 Shared team folders8.6 Advanced AI models in chat6.1 Transcript export6.0 Single sign-on, admin controls3.0 Mobile app1.5 API and MCP access0.7
Preference score; the 10 features sum to 100. Purple: what Business adds over free Basic. Grey: the rest. Names shortened; the survey described each feature in full. Synthetic respondents, n = 300.

Result. Three features lead, close together: integrations with Notion, Slack and HubSpot (22.1), unlimited meetings (20.8) and unlimited note history (20.8). Everything else is far behind; API and MCP access came last (0.7). The groups split: people buying for themselves put note history first, while people buying for a team put integrations first and history third.

For the decision: history is a strong thing to gate on for individuals, and integrations for teams. Unlimited meetings, which Basic now gives away, is valued as highly as either.

2

Should the free option end after 25 meetings, or stay free with recent history only, and should individuals pay $18 or $14?

Conjoint · all 300 · 5 prices × 2 history levels × 3 feature levels

Old packaging vs new: who buys what, and what it earns

Archived September 3, 2025

A 25-meeting trial, then pay

Individual$18
per month · "for you" · unlimited history, Zapier
Business$14
per user · "for the whole team" · team folders, admin
Share of users
Share of revenue
UsersRevenue
No plan bought (vs. these options)2%—
Individual48%55%
Business50%45%
Monthly revenue per 100 users$1,562
Archived October 8, 2025

Free Basic, and one paid plan

BasicFree
recent history only, no advanced integrations
Business$14
per user · "for individuals and small teams"
Share of users
Share of revenue
UsersRevenue
No plan bought (vs. these options)0%—
Basic2%0%
Business98%100%
Monthly revenue per 100 users$1,368 -12%
Simulated from the conjoint: each respondent picks the plan they value most at these prices, or none of them ("No plan bought" means none of these options, not a measured move to a rival). The old free trial is not a plan anyone could stay on, so it is not an option here. Following Granola's old positioning, people buying for themselves see Individual and people buying for a team see Business; in the new lineup everyone sees both plans. Modelled separately for the two groups, half of each. Prices per user per month; revenue per 100 users in the survey. "Free" was shown as a price label only, combined with every history and feature level like the other prices; respondents chose it less often than $8 (42% vs 52% of the times shown), so price scores are fitted to never rise with price (a cheaper price never scores lower); without that fit, Basic would be chosen even less. The result depends on the mix: with 10% buying for themselves, revenue changes −4% ($1,429 to $1,377); with 50%, −12%; with 90%, −20%. If people buying for themselves could already pick Business, the change is −5% ($1,443 to $1,368). Early read: synthetic respondents, n = 300.

Result. Price drove 53% of the choices, integrations and team features 26%, and note history 20%. In the simulation, almost everyone pays in both lineups: few choose free Basic (2%). The change is in what people buying for themselves pay: $14 instead of $18. Revenue per 100 users falls from $1,562 to $1,368 a month, −12% at a 50/50 mix, and between −4% and −20% depending on how many buy for themselves.

For the decision: among people who already pay, the free plan doesn't cost sales, but the $4 cut for individuals costs revenue. For the change to pay, Basic has to turn more people into payers than the 25-meeting trial did, which this study can't measure.

3

What is the acceptable price range for a paid plan with unlimited history and integrations?

Van Westendorp · all 300, then each group
0%25%50%75%100% $5$10$15$20$25$30 Business at $14 Acceptable range $12–$18 · optimal ≈ $15 Too cheap A bargain Getting expensive Too expensive $5$10$15$20$25$30Buy for themselves$12$18Buy for a team$14$18○ optimal price
Top: share of all 300 who call each price too cheap or a bargain (falling), and getting expensive or too expensive (rising). The acceptable range runs from where "too cheap" crosses "getting expensive" to where "a bargain" crosses "too expensive"; the optimal price is where "too cheap" crosses "too expensive". Below: the same range for each group, n = 150 each. Per user per month. Synthetic respondents.

Result. Across all 300, the acceptable range was $12 to $18, with the optimal price at about $15. So $14 sits inside it, just below the optimum, and the old $18 sits at the top edge. People buying for themselves give the same range, $12 to $18. People buying for a team give $14 to $18, with the optimum at the top, about $18.

For the decision: $14 is comfortably accepted. The old $18 for individuals was at the limit of what they accept.

4

At what price will free users pay to keep all their past notes?

Gabor-Granger · each group · prices $6, $10, $14, $18, $24
Share who would buy 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% Monthly revenue per 100 users $0 $500 $1,000 $1,500 $6$10$14$18$24 Buy for themselves Buy for a team All 300 ◯ peak
Top: share who, on a free plan showing only the last 30 days of notes, would pay this price to keep all their past notes and connect them to Notion, Slack and HubSpot (demand curve). Bottom: price × that share, as monthly revenue per 100 users; the circle marks each group's peak. Per user per month. Synthetic respondents, n = 150 per group.

Result. Up to $14, almost everyone would pay (97%). Above it, demand drops: 69% at $18 and 24% at $24. Revenue per 100 users peaks at $14 ($1,353) for both groups, about 9% above $18 ($1,242).

For the decision: asked as an upgrade from the free plan, $14 is the revenue-maximising price of the five tested, for individuals as well as teams.

What the four add up to

$14 is the right price, but cutting it from $18 for individuals costs revenue that only more payers can win back.

  • Value: history and integrations are the right things to gate; unlimited meetings, now free, is valued as highly (question 1).
  • Price: $14 is inside the acceptable range and where upgrade revenue peaks; $18 was at the top of the range (questions 3 and 4).
  • Risk: among people who would pay either way, dropping Individual cuts revenue by 12% at a 50/50 mix, and by more the more of them pay alone (question 2).

What this study can't tell you: whether a free plan with no meeting limit turns more people into payers than a 25-meeting trial. The respondents are people who use or choose these apps, and the simulation counts plan choices, not how many free users convert over time. That is the next thing to test, with real respondents. Granola hasn't published what happened (see Result).

The full report · the PDF Albi produced for this survey: every question's chart, synthetic results labelled on every page PDF · 6 pages · download

How each method works, and how many respondents you need: Van Westendorp · Gabor-Granger · MaxDiff · Conjoint · Sample size

Find out what your buyers will pay, before you change the price

Run this survey yourselfStart from this Granola survey and change it for your plans. $199 a survey, or $499 with conjoint, plus respondents: real people via Prolific, or synthetic.Use this survey →
Have Albi run itWe design, field and analyse a study on your own pricing question. Fixed price, invoiced.Talk to us about a study →

Granola is a trademark of its owner. Albi has no affiliation with Granola, and this teardown is not endorsed by it.

Sources

  1. Granola pricing page, archived September 3, 2025: Free trial, 25 free meetings; Individual, $18 per month, Unlimited meetings for you; Business, $14 per user per month, Unlimited meetings for the whole team; Enterprise from $35. web.archive.org
  2. Granola pricing page, archived October 8, 2025: Basic, $0, See 14 days of meeting history; Business, $14 per user per month, For individuals and small teams, with Unlimited meeting notes and history and advanced integrations; no Individual plan or free trial listed. web.archive.org
  3. Granola pricing page, checked October 3, 2026: Basic $0 with limited meeting history; Business $14 per user per month; Enterprise $35 per user per month. granola.ai
  4. Granola Docs, "Subscriptions and billing": Basic shows the Last 30 days only in the app, with older notes stored; Business and Enterprise keep unlimited history. docs.granola.ai

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