Fireflies is a perfect example of everything wrong with modern SaaS pricing.
First, the product is wildly overpriced for what it does. AI note-taking is becoming a commodity, and with today’s tools it's honestly something a competent developer could prototype in a weekend. Yet Fireflies charges premium pricing for functionality that is increasingly trivial.
Second (and this is the part that really crossed the line for me), they make users pay to download their own data. These are your meetings, your transcripts, your information, yet Fireflies locks exports behind a paid plan. Holding user data hostage behind a paywall is a terrible practice and extremely anti-user.
Third, they charge for basic account management features that should be standard. Want to bulk delete your own meetings to free up storage? That's a paid feature. Paying just to clean up your own data is absurd.
The free tier is honestly one of the worst freemium experiences I've seen in the entire SaaS industry. It's designed less to provide value and more to pressure users into upgrading.
Finally, the pricing feels completely disconnected from reality. AI is rapidly becoming a deflationary force, and charging $10+/month for basic AI meeting notes is hard to justify when there are already better and more user-friendly alternatives emerging.
There are far better tools on the market that respect users and their data. I strongly recommend people look elsewhere before committing to Fireflies.
