Sembly AI
Transcribe a call and produce structured minutes, tasks, and searchable topics
The core loop is buildable, but a dependable replacement becomes a real weekend or multi-day project. For Sembly AI, transcribe a call and produce structured minutes, tasks, and searchable topics. The hard boundary is meeting bots, team collaboration, automations, and broad integrations, plus capture reliability, integrations, and collaboration.
Build verification: not recorded. How we judge buildability
What you give up
- meeting bots, team collaboration, automations, and broad integrations
- calendar auto-join
- reliable speaker diarization
- mobile capture
- team search and sharing
Why people still pay
People still pay for Sembly AI because a meeting tool must capture every call without surprising anyone, then make the result searchable and shareable across a team. The recurring cost buys audio permissions, model updates, calendar APIs, storage, speaker correction, and sync, not just the visible interface.
Your build guide
The stack, security requirements, and agent rules for a focused replacement.
Before you start
- Runtime and tools: Python, FastAPI, SQLite, FFmpeg and a local faster-whisper worker with a React transcript editor.
- Before starting: An installed speech model, adequate local disk space and a recording made with participant permission; any optional hosted model needs a separately disclosed API key.
Use these project rules and optional skill references alongside the prompt. Review each skill before adding it to your agent; the AGENTS.md export includes the same guidance.
Project rule — domain: Store Meeting, Segment, Decision, Risk, Action and Approval; a mentioned risk is not a confirmed fact, and assignments/deadlines require spoken evidence or explicit user edits.
Project rule — scope and recovery: Start with imports and manual speaker correction. No automatic meeting attendance or employee evaluation; generated minutes must remain distinguishable from the original transcript.
Project rule — acceptance: The speaker says a deadline is tentative; retain that uncertainty and require review before exporting it as a committed action date.
Project rule — delivery: document real setup commands and permissions; do not claim a build, accuracy level, performance result or security certification that has not been demonstrated.
Recommended skill: modern-python — structure the Python worker or explicitly optional read-only utility with pinned dependencies, typed boundaries and clear failure handling. Follow the maintainer's installation instructions and match its requirements to the chosen runtime.
Recommended skill: web-design-guidelines — review keyboard access, focus, validation, error recovery and the readable work/review interface or HTML report. Follow the maintainer's installation instructions and match its requirements to the chosen runtime.
Implementation plan
Phase 1
Pin the working slice and create its example input: Turn a recorded call into formal minutes with reviewed decisions, risks and action items, then export a meeting record with evidence links. Confirm setup: An installed speech model, adequate local disk space and a recording made with participant permission; any optional hosted model needs a separately disclosed API key.
Phase 2
Implement persistence and write-time invariants before decorating the UI: Store Meeting, Segment, Decision, Risk, Action and Approval; a mentioned risk is not a confirmed fact, and assignments/deadlines require spoken evidence or explicit user edits.
Phase 3
Connect the working view to real saved state. Keep original timing alongside corrected text. Speech recognition does not itself establish speaker identity; permit manual speaker labels. Show undecodable audio and uncertain passages without inventing words.
Phase 4
Expose the app-specific limits and recovery path in context: Start with imports and manual speaker correction. No automatic meeting attendance or employee evaluation; generated minutes must remain distinguishable from the original transcript.
Phase 5
Walk through this concrete acceptance case and preserve its exported evidence: The speaker says a deadline is tentative; retain that uncertainty and require review before exporting it as a committed action date. Finish the README and backup/restore instructions; report unfinished capabilities explicitly.
Build the following focused alternative to Sembly AI. This is a deliberately limited personal or small-team substitute, not parity with the paid service. WORKING SLICE Turn a recorded call into formal minutes with reviewed decisions, risks and action items, then export a meeting record with evidence links. SETUP AND ARCHITECTURE Use Python, FastAPI, SQLite, FFmpeg and a local faster-whisper worker with a React transcript editor. Prerequisites: An installed speech model, adequate local disk space and a recording made with participant permission; any optional hosted model needs a separately disclosed API key. Before integrating anything, record actual versions and permissions, plus model files or provider limits only where used, in the README; make unavailable dependencies visible rather than simulating success. DOMAIN MODEL AND INVARIANTS Store Meeting, Segment, Decision, Risk, Action and Approval; a mentioned risk is not a confirmed fact, and assignments/deadlines require spoken evidence or explicit user edits. IMPLEMENTATION CONTRACT Keep original timing alongside corrected text. Speech recognition does not itself establish speaker identity; permit manual speaker labels. Show undecodable audio and uncertain passages without inventing words. Provide an input/setup view, the main work view, and a review/export view appropriate to this workflow. Preserve the last saved state if a job or save fails. Include empty, loading, permission-denied, partial and retryable-error states. Log identifiers and error categories without secret values or unnecessary private content. APP-SPECIFIC BOUNDARY AND RECOVERY Start with imports and manual speaker correction. No automatic meeting attendance or employee evaluation; generated minutes must remain distinguishable from the original transcript. ACCEPTANCE SCENARIO The speaker says a deadline is tentative; retain that uncertainty and require review before exporting it as a committed action date. Also reopen the app after an interrupted operation, confirm the saved record/export remains inspectable, and document the recovery action. These are implementation acceptance requirements, not a claim that this guide has been tested. DELIVERY Deliver a runnable repository with migrations or project-format versioning, a non-sensitive example, environment/permission setup, the exact manual acceptance steps, and a backup/export-and-restore walkthrough. Implement the working slice before optional integrations; list any deferred paid-product capabilities honestly. Do not add capabilities outside the working slice just to resemble the original product. PROJECT RULES FOR AGENTS.md Keep the domain invariants above executable at the write boundary. Propose scope changes before adding providers or permissions. Never fabricate source evidence, publish results, identity matches or successful delivery. Preserve user originals and require an explicit confirmation for destructive changes or external publication.
$ open in your agent (prompt prefilled, you press enter), copy the prompt or copy or download AGENTS.md · generated from this app's build plan
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Alternatives to building your own
all 4 free alternatives to Sembly AI →· no votes, no pay-to-list · just what's real
Sembly AI pricing
| plan | monthly | annual (per mo) | what you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| basic | $17/user | $10/user | Unlimited meeting hours; 5 upload hours per paid user; 1-year history; 3 native automations. |
| pro | $29/user | $20/user | Up to 40 users/workspace; 10 upload hours, 5 AI documents, 5 AI insights, 5 native automations, and 5 webhooks per paid user; 2-year history. |
| max | $39/user | $30/user | Minimum 3 users, maximum 500; 15 upload hours, 40 AI documents, 40 AI insights, 20 automations, and 20 webhooks per paid user; unlimited history. |
| enterprise | — | — | Custom invoicing, security reviews, support, and success package; no public numeric price.Contact sales. |
free tierno free tier
billingmonthly + annual (annual advertised 30% lower); free trials offered with no duration published
hidden costsMAX requires at least 3 paid users. Upload hours, AI documents, AI insights, automations, and webhooks remain per-user quotas despite unlimited meeting hours. The former $15 'Professional' plan on file is not in the current live lineup.
pricing sources checked 2026-08-14 · pricing source ↗
Questions about Sembly AI
Can you build your own Sembly AI with AI?
Partly. The core loop is buildable, but a dependable replacement becomes a real weekend or multi-day project. For Sembly AI, transcribe a call and produce structured minutes, tasks, and searchable topics. The hard boundary is meeting bots, team collaboration, automations, and broad integrations, plus capture reliability, integrations, and collaboration.
What does the Sembly AI build prompt cover?
The prompt starts with this scope: Turn a recorded call into formal minutes with reviewed decisions, risks and action items, then export a meeting record with evidence links. Full-product capabilities excluded from the comparison include: meeting bots, team collaboration, automations, and broad integrations; calendar auto-join; reliable speaker diarization. Follow the implementation plan and its prerequisites before expanding the build.
How do I use the prompt, AGENTS.md and agent skills?
Start with the Sembly AI prerequisites and stack, then copy the prompt into your coding agent. Save the project rules as AGENTS.md in the project root. Linked skills are optional packages or source instructions for specific tasks; review their current contents and install only those matching the chosen stack. A skill does not supply API credentials or verify the finished app.
How long will this Sembly AI project take?
The catalogue estimate is multi-day for the limited scope. Setup, integration approvals, debugging, deployment and ongoing maintenance can add time. This is an estimate, not a delivery guarantee.
What would I give up by replacing Sembly AI?
meeting bots, team collaboration, automations, and broad integrations; calendar auto-join; reliable speaker diarization; mobile capture; team search and sharing. People still pay for Sembly AI because a meeting tool must capture every call without surprising anyone, then make the result searchable and shareable across a team. The recurring cost buys audio permissions, model updates, calendar APIs, storage, speaker correction, and sync, not just the visible interface.
What price is this guide comparing against?
The recorded Basic plan is $17/mo per seat (monthly per user), checked 2026-08-14. Check the linked pricing source before buying. Building your own also has hosting, API and maintenance costs; the recorded amount is not a guaranteed saving.
What can I use instead of building Sembly AI?
OpenWhispr: Records or imports audio, labels speakers, generates notes and keeps the result searchable. Speakr: Self-hosted transcription, templates, topics, tasks, search and chat in one polished web app. Muesli: Local transcripts plus configurable notes, decisions and action items; the searchable notebook stays on your Mac. Compare all listed options at https://howtovibecodeit.dev/sembly-ai/alternatives. Check each option's license, hosting needs and feature limits.