What Plaud does

Plaud is a San Francisco-headquartered AI company that builds hardware-software integrated products for capturing, transcribing, and summarizing conversations. The company's hardware portfolio comprises four recording devices — Plaud Note Pro ($189), Plaud Note ($159), Plaud NotePin S ($179), and Plaud NotePin ($159) — paired with Plaud Intelligence, a multimodal AI platform that processes audio, text, images, and user-applied highlights together. The platform serves individual professionals and enterprise teams in over 170 countries, with more than 2 million users and 2 million-plus units sold as of mid-2026, spanning use cases in sales calls, patient consultations, client meetings, lectures, and creative work.

The core AI stack runs on frontier third-party large language models — GPT-5.5, Claude Sonnet 4.6, and Gemini 3.1 Pro — wrapped in Plaud's proprietary multimodal processing pipeline. Capabilities include 112-language transcription with speaker diarization, 10,000+ professional summary templates, multidimensional summaries that reframe one conversation into multiple role-specific outputs, and Press to Highlight, which allows users to mark content in real time and have the model align to that intent. The hardware differentiates Plaud from software-only competitors: credit-card-sized Note products use 2-4 MEMS microphones plus a vibration conduction sensor that automatically switches between phone-call and in-person recording based on device orientation, while NotePin wearables enable hands-free capture. The software ecosystem adds Plaud Desktop for online meeting capture (Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack), Plaud Team for enterprise seat and billing management, and a Developer Platform with APIs and SDKs for CRM and EHR integration.

Plaud operates a hybrid hardware-plus-subscription model. Every device ships with a free Starter Plan (300 minutes per month); upgrades to Pro ($17.99 per month or $99.99 per year, 1,200 minutes) and Unlimited ($29.99 per month or $239.99 per year) drive recurring revenue, while the Team Plan at $20-28 per user per year bundles centralized billing, device management, data residency controls, and a Zapier integration. Distribution is multi-channel: direct-to-consumer via plaud.ai, Amazon marketplace, Harvey Norman and Officeworks in Australia, an enterprise field-sales motion through Plaud Team, and developer-led B2B via APIs. The company reached $100 million in ARR in June 2026 from a roughly $1 million base approximately two years earlier — a near-100x trajectory achieved without external venture funding — and is projecting roughly $500 million in total 2026 sales, with Asia-Pacific contributing approximately $100 million, anchored by the new Singapore hub.

Name

Plaud

Legal name

Plaud Inc.

Website

https://plaud.ai

Company type

Private

Founded year

2023

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

251–500 employees

Short description

Plaud is a San Francisco-headquartered AI company that pairs dedicated recording hardware (Note, Note Pro, NotePin, NotePin S) with a multimodal AI platform to capture, transcribe, and summarize conversations for individual professionals and enterprise teams across 170-plus countries.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

AI Voice Recorders

NAICS

Other Sound Recording Industries (512290), Teleproduction and Other Postproduction Services (512191)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Computer & Office Equipment (3570), Services-Computer Programming Services (7371)

akta.pro primary industry

Audio & Speech Analytics (call analytics, QA, insights) (HDAAAFAH)

akta.pro secondary industries

On-Device Speech & Audio AI (wake word, ASR, enhancement) (HDAAAJAF), Speech Recognition, Dictation & Medical Transcription Platforms (HLACAAAI), Voice Assistants & Voice UI (VUI) (HDAAAFAD), Contact Center Speech AI (agent assist, IVR automation) (HDAAAFAL), Microphones, Headsets & Audio Input Devices (HDACAFAH)

Keywords

• AI voice recorders
• Wearable note takers
• AI hardware devices
• Conversation intelligence
• Meeting transcription tools

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices4 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Supply Chain, Operations, Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Hardware Device Sales: Plaud sells four AI hardware products: Plaud Note Pro ($189), Plaud Note ($159), Plaud NotePin S ($179), and Plaud NotePin. Each device is sold as a one-time hardware purchase bundled with a free Starter Plan (300 min/month AI transcription). Bulk discounts of up to 13% are available for team purchases.
2. Subscription Plans (Starter, Pro, Unlimited, Team): Recurring subscription revenue from AI transcription and advanced features. Starter Plan is free (300 min/month). Pro Plan is $17.99/month or $99.99/year (1,200 min/month). Unlimited Plan is $29.99/month or $239.99/year (unlimited transcription). Team Plan is $28/user/month or $20/user/month billed annually. The company reached $100M ARR in June 2026, growing from $1M in approximately two years.
3. Developer Platform APIs & SDKs: Plaud provides APIs and SDKs for businesses and developers to integrate omnichannel note-taking and conversation intelligence into enterprise technology ecosystems, with integrations to CRMs and EHRs.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels7 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

Plaud designs and sells AI-powered hardware recording devices—Plaud Note Pro, Plaud Note, Plaud NotePin S, and Plaud NotePin—that capture in-person conversations, phone calls, and online meetings and feed the audio to Plaud Intelligence, a multimodal AI platform providing 112-language transcription with speaker diarization, multidimensional role-specific summaries from 10,000+ professional templates, Ask Plaud conversational Q&A grounded in original audio, and AutoFlow workflow automation. Each device ships with a bundled free Starter Plan (300 transcription minutes/month) and supports paid Pro, Unlimited, and Team subscription tiers, with enterprise teams additionally served through the Plaud Team platform (centralized billing, seat management, data residency) and developers served through the Plaud Developer Platform with APIs, SDKs, and MCP integration.

Product overview

Plaud is a San Francisco-based AI company offering a portfolio of hardware and software products for AI-powered note-taking and conversation intelligence. The product lineup includes four hardware devices: Plaud Note Pro (premium credit-card-sized recorder with smart dual-mode recording and AMOLED display at $189), Plaud Note (original credit-card-sized recorder at $159), Plaud NotePin S (wearable with Press to Highlight feature at $179), and Plaud NotePin (original wearable at $159). These are powered by Plaud Intelligence, a multimodal AI platform supporting 112-language transcription, multidimensional summaries, and Ask Plaud conversational AI. The software ecosystem includes Plaud Desktop (Beta) for online meeting recording, Plaud Team for enterprise deployment, and a Developer Platform with APIs/SDKs for integration. The company achieved $100M ARR in June 2026, serving over 2 million users across 170+ countries.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Plaud Note Pro Premium credit-card-sized AI voice recorder with smart dual-mode recording for automatic switching between phone calls and in-person meetings; 4 MEMS + 1 VPU microphones, 16.4 ft pickup, AMOLED display, and up to 50 hours recording. Targets high-performing professionals and teams needing clarity in larger spaces; priced at $189 with bundled free Starter Plan (300 transcription min/month).
• Plaud Note Original credit-card-sized AI voice recorder with dual-mode recording for phone calls and in-person meetings; 2 MEMS + 1 VPU microphones, 9.8 ft audio pickup, 30 hours continuous recording, 60 days standby, 64 GB storage. Targets professionals in back-to-back meetings doing hybrid work; priced at $159 with bundled free Starter Plan (300 transcription min/month).
• Plaud NotePin S Wearable AI note taker with tactile record button and Press to Highlight feature; 0.61 oz, 20 hours recording, 40 days standby, 64 GB storage; includes magnetic pin, clip, lanyard, wristband, charging dock, and USB-C cable. Targets professionals who need hands-free capturing for in-person conversations; priced at $179 (does not support phone call recording).
• Plaud NotePin Original lightweight wearable AI note taker with pressure-sensitive button-free control, 0.59 oz, for hands-free in-person conversation capture; includes magnetic pin, clip, charging dock, and USB-C cable. Targets professionals who need lightweight, everyday wearable capturing without holding a phone or device.
• Plaud Desktop Desktop application for Windows and macOS that records online meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams without bots and manages all audio through Plaud App and Web. Currently in Beta; targets professionals whose meetings span both in-person and virtual formats.
• Plaud Team Enterprise team intelligence platform offering centralized billing, user/device management, secure offboarding, data residency control, 10,000+ professional templates, Zapier integration, Plaud MCP Server (beta), and priority support. Priced at $20–$28 per user per month (annual or monthly billing); targets organizations deploying Plaud across teams in regulated industries.
• Plaud Developer Platform APIs, SDKs, MCP server, and CLI enabling businesses and developers to integrate Plaud's omnichannel note-taking and conversation intelligence into enterprise technology ecosystems, including CRM and EHR integrations. Targets software platforms and developer teams embedding AI-powered conversation capture in their own products.
• Plaud Intelligence Core AI platform powering all Plaud devices and software, providing multimodal AI processing that combines audio, text, images, and highlights. Features 112-language transcription with speaker diarization, multidimensional summaries from 10,000+ professional templates, Ask Plaud conversational AI with reference-grounded answers, and AutoFlow workflow automation.

Quantifiable outcome

• Saves 260+ hours per person per year from post-meeting summaries and related work
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers11 records

Segments8 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration9 records

AI capability9 records

Feature10 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered potential, core and minor.

• TencentpotentialStrategic or Co-development Partner · 17 June 2026Plaud was reportedly exploring a deeper partnership with Tencent, including potential collaboration involving hardware from the Chinese technology giant. This would represent a significant strategic partnership in the Asia-Pacific region given Tencent's strong market position in China.
• Singapore Government (EDB, EDBI)coreGTM or Marketing Partner · 10 June 2026Singapore government actively courting AI firms through incentives including dedicated AI talent visas and tax breaks for IP registration. Plaud committed $10 million investment in Singapore operations as Asia-Pacific hub. The city-state offers fast visa approvals, IP protections, and tax incentives attractive to AI companies.
• InstaCódigocoreTechnology or Integration · 4 January 2026InstaCódigo and Plaud announced an integration combining Plaud's wearable AI NotePin and Note devices with InstaCódigo's custom software to create an AI-powered workplace solution for business meetings. The system uses Multimodal AI to transcribe spoken content into text and visual summaries, while Autonomous Knowledge Graphs automatically extract tasks and deadlines from audio recordings. Both companies position this as an enterprise solution for organizations seeking to scale human capital in the era of pervasive AI.
• InstaCódigocoreGTM or Marketing Partner · 4 January 2026Joint go-to-market for AI-powered workplace solutions targeting enterprise customers through combined product offering.
• Zoom, Slack, Google MeetcoreTechnology or Integration · 4 January 2026Plaud Desktop integrates with Zoom, Slack, and Google Meet for seamless online meeting capture and conversation intelligence. The desktop app enables bot-free recording of online meetings on PC or Mac.
• StarJarcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 15 April 2025Plaud acquired StarJar, a Y Combinator-backed medical AI company, aimed at accelerating the launch of its enterprise platform, PLAUD for Business. This acquisition brings medical AI expertise to support HIPAA-compliant enterprise workflows in healthcare.
• Enterprise CRM and EHR SystemscoreTechnology or IntegrationPlaud Developer Platform integrates with enterprise systems including CRMs and EHRs (Electronic Health Records), enabling automated note-taking workflows across healthcare, sales, legal, and other regulated industries.
• PITAKAminorOEM/ Whitelabel/ Licensing PartnerPlaud partnered with PITAKA for a Special Edition magnetic case for Plaud Note Pro, combining premium materials with functional design.

Scale indicators13 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Direct peers

• Otter.ai: Otter is the leading software-only AI meeting transcription and notetaking service. It competes directly with Plaud on meeting capture, summarization, and team workflows, but lacks Plaud's hardware form factor and in-person/phone-call recording capabilities.
• Granola: Granola is an AI meeting notes platform frequently benchmarked against Plaud in tech press. It targets the same professional knowledge-worker use case but is software-only, making Plaud's hardware-enabled, in-person capture a key point of differentiation.
• Fireflies.ai: Fireflies is an AI meeting assistant that records, transcribes, and analyzes meetings across Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams. It overlaps with Plaud Desktop and Plaud Team on online meeting intelligence and enterprise workflows.
• Krisp: Krisp provides AI-powered meeting assistance including noise cancellation, transcription, and meeting notes. It targets the same professional meeting productivity buyer as Plaud and competes head-to-head on AI-powered conversation capture.
• Fathom: Fathom is a free AI meeting notetaker that records, transcribes, and summarizes video meetings. It is frequently cited as Plaud's primary software-only competitor on online meeting capture, and its free pricing forces Plaud's subscription tiers to justify themselves.
• Avoma: Avoma is an AI meeting assistant with strong positioning in sales and customer-facing teams, including CRM integration and conversation intelligence. It overlaps with Plaud's sales professional segment and Plaud Team enterprise offering.

Broad incumbents

• Microsoft (Copilot): Microsoft Copilot bundles meeting transcription, summarization, and task automation across Teams and the Office suite at massive scale. As a BROAD_INCUMBENT, it overlaps with Plaud's online meeting and enterprise workflows as part of a much wider productivity portfolio.
• Zoom: Zoom's native AI Companion offers meeting recording, transcription, and summarization free to paid Zoom users. As the incumbent in online meetings, it competes directly with Plaud Desktop and pressures the value of Plaud's standalone meeting capture.

Emerging players

• Limitless: Limitless builds the Pendant, an always-on AI wearable for conversation capture and memory augmentation. It is an emerging hardware peer in the same ambient-AI-wearable category where Plaud's NotePin competes, and was co-featured with Plaud in Forbes Best AI Wearables 2025.
• Rabbit: Rabbit builds AI-native hardware devices focused on ambient interaction with AI agents. While more consumer-oriented, it represents the broader category of AI-first hardware devices where Plaud positions itself as a productivity-focused entrant.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/PLAUDAI
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@PLAUDAI
• Facebookfacebook.com/plaudai
• Instagraminstagram.com/plaud_official
• TikToktiktok.com/@plaud_official
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/plaudai

Compliance6 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A1 record

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Plaud