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Granola vs Macro

A side-by-side comparison of Granola and Macro, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.

Compared from listings verified as of

Granola

Meeting

AI notepad for back-to-back meetings — captures your Mac's audio, no meeting bot.

View Granola

Macro

Productivity

The unified system for work.

View Macro

At a glance

Feature comparison of Granola and Macro
AttributeGranolaMacro
Category (differs)MeetingProductivity
PricingFREEMIUMFREEMIUM
License (differs)ProprietaryOpen core
Deployment (differs)CloudHybrid
Platforms (differs)macOS, Windows, iOSWeb
Model support (differs)—Multi-model
Vendor (differs)GranolaMacro
Capabilities (differs)
  • Chat with documents
  • Transcription (STT)
  • Summarization
  • Meeting notes
  • Trigger-action automation
  • Email assistant
  • Task management
  • Meeting notes
  • CRM automation

The honest brief

Granola

Captures system audio with no bot in the call, then blends your raw notes into the AI summary.

  • No bot joins the meeting
  • Works with any video platform
  • Polished notes from your own context
  • AI chat across your notes
  • Stores transcript, not audio/video replay
  • Free tier limits history and integrations
  • Desktop-app dependent capture

Macro

Folds email, docs, tasks, calls and a CRM into one open-source workspace where AI agents share full context across all of it.

  • Self-hostable on the Enterprise tier
  • Unifies email, docs, tasks, CRM, calls
  • Agents get full workspace context
  • SOC 2 Type II; zero data retention
  • CRDT real-time collaborative editing
  • Pro plan is $40/seat per month
  • Self-hosting gated to Enterprise tier
  • Early-stage; smaller ecosystem
  • Free plan adds a 'Sent with Macro' signature

When to pick which

Both cover Meeting notes.

Pick Granola if you need Chat with documents, Transcription (STT), and Summarization.

  • Chat with documents (secondary capability)
  • Transcription (STT) (primary capability)
  • Summarization (secondary capability)

Pick Macro if you need Trigger-action automation, Task management, Email assistant, and CRM automation.

  • Trigger-action automation (primary capability)
  • Task management (primary capability)
  • Email assistant (secondary capability)
  • CRM automation (secondary capability)

Granola leans on Meeting notes as a headline capability; Macro treats it as secondary.

  • Meeting notes (primary capability)

They also differ on:

License
Proprietary · Open core
Deployment
Cloud · Hybrid
Platforms
macOS, Windows, iOS · Web
Granola detailsMacro details