Verdict
Plaud is the AI gadget people actually pay for, ranked 16th by consumer spending in a16z's October 2026 list. The £159 NotePin S and £169 Note Pro record at a button press, and reviewers and owners praise the transcripts and summaries. The free plan covers 300 minutes a month, and Trusted Reviews says the paid plans feel expensive.
Best for
People who sit in a lot of meetings, lectures or interviews and want notes afterwards
Skip if
Anyone whose meetings are mostly on video calls, where meeting-notes software does the same job without hardware
Key facts
- Made by
- Plaud Inc.
- Based in
- United States
- Launched
- 2023
- Works on
- hardware, iPhone, Android, Web, Windows, Mac
- In the UK
- Yes
- Price from
- £159 a month
- Free plan
- Starter plan with 300 minutes of transcription a month, included with any device
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Billed |
|---|---|---|
| Pro (monthly) | £17.99 | month |
| Pro (billed annually) | £8.33 | month |
| Unlimited (monthly) | £29.99 | month |
| Unlimited (billed annually) | £18.75 | month |
| Team (monthly, per user, excl. VAT, offer to 30 Nov 2026) | £30 | month |
| Team (billed annually, per user, excl. VAT, first-year offer) | £18.8 | month |
What it does
- records meetings, calls and conversations on a wearable device
- transcribes recordings in more than 112 languages
- writes summaries from over 10,000 templates
- answers questions about recordings with Ask Plaud
- exports and shares notes and connects to Zapier and Google Calendar
Ratings
What people say
Owners in user reviews in 2026 are mostly enthusiastic about transcripts and AI summaries catching follow-ups, with complaints about a fragile glass back, the magnetic phone mount and noisy rooms. The main recurring criticism, from reviewers and rivals on X, is the subscription on top of the hardware. Store ratings of 4.7 to 4.8 broadly match this mood.
“There's days I wonder how I managed without it. I'm a lot less concerned about staff being off thanks to plaud and chatgpt”
Individual user review, 2 July 2026 · source
“it caught the fact that something was mentioned yesterday, but nobody had a follow up plan or idea or a deadline or who it was assigned to, but the AI notes pointed that out.”
Individual user review, 8 July 2026 · source
“I dropped my Plaud Note Pro with the cover from waist height, and it shattered when it hit the concrete floor. I'm really disappointed by how fragile the glass is.”
Individual user review, 19 July 2026 · source
“My biggest complaint is this halfway thought out magnetic device that supposedly holds the plaud to the phone. I keep dropping mine.”
Individual user review, 5 July 2026 · source
“Plaud Note Pro is an excellent AI-powered recorder that I carry everywhere”
Post on X, 29 December 2025 · source
Press reviews
- Trusted Reviews 2026-07-17
Note Pro is 'a slick, premium AI recorder with strong battery life and smart transcription, but frustrating charging and pricey subscriptions hold it back from true greatness.'
- Tom's Guide 2025-01-28
Recommended: 'A journalist's best friend', with accurate AI transcription and summaries, though heavily reliant on the phone app.
- Tom's Guide 2025-07-08
The Plaud NotePin won best wearable in the Tom's Guide AI Awards 2025.
Privacy
- Trains on your data
- No by default. The app privacy policy (updated 16 Jun 2026) says Plaud will never use audio, photos or text to train its own or third-party AI models without explicit prior consent, and LLM providers are contractually barred from training on it.
- Opt-out
- Not needed for training (opt-in only). Recordings and the account can be deleted in the app; connected services can be disconnected, with their data deleted within 30 days.
- Retention
- Kept while the account is active; deleted or anonymised when the account is deactivated. Data stored in regional data centres (US, Germany, Japan, Singapore).
- Incidents
- Aug 2025: Hong Kong and Taiwanese reports raised security concerns over links to Shenzhen company Jizhi Connect (iZYREC) and old terms-of-service wording (unwire.hk, 25 Aug 2025); Plaud said Shenzhen Jizhi is its contract manufacturer (Digitimes, Sep 2025). No regulator action or breach found in news searches. Bystander note: the ICO says recordings for purely personal or household use fall outside UK GDPR, but work recordings make the user's organisation a data controller.
- Age limit
- Not for children under 13 per the app privacy policy (website notice says 16); UK App Store 4+, Google Play PEGI 3
Official videos
- Plaud Note Pin S | Introduction 2026-01-04
- Plaud Note Pro | The World's Most Advanced AI Note-Taker 2025-08-27
FAQ
Does Plaud need a subscription?
No. Each device includes a free Starter plan with 300 minutes of transcription a month. The Pro plan adds 1,200 minutes for £17.99 a month or £99.99 a year.
Is it legal to record conversations with Plaud in the UK?
The ICO says recordings made purely for personal or household use fall outside UK GDPR. Recording at work brings data protection duties for the organisation, so telling people and getting agreement is the safe course.
Does Plaud use my recordings to train AI?
Its June 2026 privacy policy says it will not use recordings, photos or text to train AI without explicit consent, and that its AI providers may not train on them either.
NotePin S or Note Pro?
The £159 NotePin S clips on or hangs on a lanyard for in-person chats. The £169 Note Pro is a card-sized recorder with four microphones that user reviews owners prefer for large rooms.
Scores are based on published evidence, not lab tests. How we score.
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