Guides · Published October 18, 2026 by PasteQuill

PasteQuill vs Notta vs Otter for YouTube Transcripts

PasteQuill, Notta and Otter can all leave you with a transcript of a YouTube video, but they're built for very different jobs. Here's how they compare on the details that matter for YouTube: how you start, whether you need an account, what the free version allows and which files you can export. We make PasteQuill; Notta and Otter details come from their own websites, checked on October 18, 2026.

The short answer

• Choose PasteQuill if you want the transcript of a YouTube video as text, now, with no account: paste a link, then copy it or download TXT or SRT.
• Choose Notta if you want an AI transcription workspace with summaries and translation, and you also transcribe meetings or files.
• Choose Otter if your main need is meeting notes and you can play the video aloud or upload a video file you have.

Side-by-side comparison

Sources: Notta pricing, Notta YouTube transcript generator, Otter pricing, Otter YouTube transcript generator and the Otter Help Center.

How each tool gets the words

PasteQuill: existing captions first

PasteQuill reads the caption track that YouTube already has for the video, including auto-generated captions when YouTube makes them available, and shows it as text with timestamps. Because it isn't transcribing the audio, a typical result appears quickly, often within seconds. The trade-off is that the text is only as accurate as those captions, and a video with no captions has nothing to read. For that case, public videos up to 3 minutes may be offered a free AI transcription step that you confirm first.

Notta: AI transcription from a link

Notta's YouTube page asks you to paste the link, select the video's language and click Confirm. Notta then transcribes the video with its AI and, according to the same page, supports 58 languages. That makes it useful for videos without captions, within the limits of your plan. On the Free plan, Notta's pricing page lists up to 3 minutes per conversation, so longer videos need a paid plan.

Otter: play it aloud or import a file

Otter's Help Center says it doesn't support pasting a YouTube URL or link to be transcribed. Instead, Otter's YouTube page suggests two routes: play the video aloud while Otter listens through your microphone, or upload the video file if you have it. Playing aloud works for any video you can watch, but it takes as long as the video itself and picks up room noise. Importing a file is cleaner, but the free Basic plan includes 3 lifetime audio or video file imports. Only download a video file if you own it or have the right to.

Sign-up and free limits

PasteQuill has no accounts at all. You open the page, paste a link and get the result. To keep the free service running for everyone, request limits apply, and saved results stay available for 24 hours, so download anything you want to keep.

Notta and Otter are account-based apps. Notta's Free plan includes 120 transcription minutes a month, up to 3 minutes per conversation, 50 file uploads a month and 10 AI summaries a month. Otter's Basic plan includes 300 monthly transcription minutes and 3 lifetime audio or video file imports. Both sell paid plans with higher limits; prices change and both pages were showing discounts when we checked, so confirm on Notta's pricing page and Otter's pricing page.

Export formats

If your goal is a file, export options matter. PasteQuill gives you two downloads from every result: TXT, plain text without timestamps for notes and documents, and SRT, numbered subtitle cues with start and end times for video editors and subtitle tools. Copy text puts the whole transcript on your clipboard in one click.

Otter's pricing page lists mp3 and txt exports on Basic, and mp3, txt, pdf, docx and srt on Pro. Notta's YouTube tool page says you can download the transcript with timestamps or copy it, while its pricing page lists exporting transcripts as a Pro feature in the app. If you need DOCX or PDF specifically, Otter Pro covers it; if you need TXT or SRT without an account, PasteQuill does.

AI features: summaries, translation and chat

This is where Notta and Otter offer more. Notta includes AI summaries on its Free plan, with 10 a month, and lists transcript translation on Pro. Otter is built around AI meeting notes, and its pricing page lists AI chat within and across meetings.

PasteQuill deliberately stays a transcript tool: it doesn't summarize or translate. If you want a summary, you can copy the transcript and use the AI assistant of your choice; our guide to summarizing a YouTube video with ChatGPT includes prompt templates you can paste in. Keeping the two steps separate also lets you check the summary against the full transcript.

Speed and accuracy

None of these tools publishes an accuracy figure we could verify for YouTube videos, so we won't claim one. In practice, a caption-based tool returns exactly what's in the caption track: creator-uploaded captions are usually clean, while auto-generated captions can mishear names and technical terms. AI transcription can do better or worse than YouTube's own captions depending on audio quality, accents and the language. Whichever tool you use, check quotes against the video; PasteQuill's timestamps open that exact moment on YouTube to make that quick.

Which should you choose?

Pick PasteQuill for speed and simplicity on YouTube: one link, no sign-up, the full text with timestamps, and TXT or SRT. Pick Notta if you need AI transcription for videos without captions, in many languages, plus summaries in the same app. Pick Otter if you already use it for meetings and want YouTube content alongside your meeting notes, accepting the play-aloud or file-import step.

Many people end up combining them: a free transcript tool for quick YouTube text, and a meeting app for calls. For a wider look at free options, see our roundup of the best YouTube transcript generators in 2026.

Need the text of a YouTube video without creating another account? Try the free YouTube transcript generator, then copy the text or download TXT or SRT.