An In-depth Zoom Review: Pricing, Features, Add-ons, and Alternatives

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1. What is Zoom?

Not only do webinars boast an average 55% conversion rate, but with a market size also estimated to reach $4.44 billion by 2025, they aren’t leaving any time soon.

Zoom's popularity for businesses reached new heights in 2020 when it reached a milestone of 300 million users a day.

The platform allows businesses to host video conferences and online webinars, but is the price tag still worth it?

In this post, we’ll look at Zoom’s pricing and features, as well as some alternatives, to help you find the perfect platform for your business.

Zoom logo

Founded in 2011, Zoom is a platform that focuses on video communication by hosting online meetings and conferences.

With a market cap exceeding $75 billion, they’re a force to be reckoned with.

Zoom offers a lot of features and add-ons, that include:

Zoom Meetings
Zoom Phone
Zoom Events and Webinar
Zoom Rooms
Zoom United

Let’s explore these features and their respective add-ons in more detail.

1.1. Zoom Meetings

An example of Zoom Meeting’s slideshow sharing features

Zoom Meetings focuses on offering simplified video conferencing and messaging across any device.

These features include:

HD audio and video quality — Meetings can support up to 1,000 video participants and 49 HD videos on screen
Built-in collaboration tools — Multiple participants can share their screens simultaneously and add notes to presentations
Recording — Record meetings and store them on Zoom’s cloud, or download them to your storage cloud
Streamlined calendaring — Start or schedule Zoom meetings using Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, or iCal

Zoom’s video conferencing software also makes use of live chats, polls, filters, and reactions (such as hand raising) to make your meetings more engaging.

You can also share video and audio files during meetings.

The Team Chat feature allows users to share files, search chat history, generate 1-on-1 video calls, or create a group chat.

Any notes made during your video meetings can be transcribed and used in your local recording of the meeting or saved as searchable cloud recording transcripts for later use.

Lastly, Zoom Meetings also offers some additional features aimed at all the users working from home:

Clear audio quality with advanced background noise suppression
Share slides as your virtual background
“Touch up my appearance” and lighting controls
Immersive View — Place up to 25 meeting participants in one virtual background to help simulate an in-person meeting or classroom

An example of Zoom’s Immersive View

1.1.1. Zoom Meetings add-ons

Zoom Meeting offers 5 add-on packages to choose from.

Their main features include:

Audio conferencing — This plan is specifically for international calls. It offers features like global toll-free dialing and no charges to participants calling in
Cloud storage — You can store and download up to 3TB of recordings per month
Premier developer support — Get expert assistance to help with App Marketplace submissions, releases, and maintenance, as well as troubleshoot and quickly resolve development issues
Large meetings — Increase participant capacity and have up to 1,000 more participants
Premier support — Get support that focuses on minimizing downtime. Engineers can be contacted via phone, chat, or email

The pricing of the add-on packages will be discussed in a later section. For now, we’re still only focusing on the features.

1.2. Zoom Phone

Source: Zoom.com

Zoom Phone is a mixture of multiple cloud-based business phone systems that allow your users to make phone calls with the same ease and familiarity as Zoom video meetings.

With Zoom Phone, you can:

Use basic call features such as voicemail, transferring, forwarding, or blocking calls
Record calls with automated transcripts that can be easily archived and retrieved
Delegate calls to administrative assistants on behalf of executives
Elevate calls to Zoom meetings without requiring participants to manually join

Zoom Phone also includes a mobile and desktop app for video, phone, meetings, and chat on Windows, Apple, and Google Android devices.

This software integrates with Salesforce and Slack and allows you to make calls on their respective user interfaces.

It also comes with desk phone support to help with any software issues you might experience.

Zoom Phone has even more features, such as Whisper, Shared Line, and Call Monitoring — if you’d like a detailed rundown of them, click here.

1.2.1. Zoom Phone add-ons

Zoom Phone is for business use only and has 5 add-ons that include the developer support plan, as well as:

Toll-free numbers — Add Toll-Free numbers to your company or personal number to allow others to contact you for free
Unlimited international calling
Power pack — Get call-queue analytics and historical reports in real-time
Additional phone numbers — Add additional local, toll-free, or international numbers to your plan

1.3. Zoom Events and Webinars

An example of what you can do on Zoom webinars

Zoom’s Events and Webinar features go hand-in-hand to give you the best video communications and conference room systems for your business.

With Events, you can use Zoom’s step-by-step editor to create your own branded event hubs.

You can also create private or public online events (free, paid, live, or on-demand) and share customized URLs to your events.

Zoom Events allows you to:

Host different types of virtual events with customizable registration and built-in ticketing options
Set the number of free and paid tickets available per event
Schedule single-session, multi-session, or concurrent session, single day or multi-day events, with the ability to post recordings after the event
Track event registration, attendance, ticket sales, revenue, and more using Zoom’s performance analytics

Attendees are also able to network with each other and event sponsors, and they can exchange contact info, chat, and initiate meetings with other attendees in the event lobby.

In terms of Zoom’s Webinar features, you can screen share live HD video presentations and make use of virtual backgrounds, studio effects, and background noise suppression for optimal presentations.

Webinars can also be recorded and can carry up to 50,000 attendees.

You can live stream your webinar on YouTube Live, Facebook Live, and other streaming services that integrate with Zoom.

Here are some additional features that come with Zoom Webinar:

Create a post-webinar landing page, customize your webinar registration page and reminder emails, and create a video watermark for your brand
Generate Q&As, polls, and surveys, and allow meeting attendees to share media or raise their hands during in-session chat
Analyze survey, Q&A, and poll answers to measure audience engagement and report on webinar attendance
Export all analytic data into a CSV file
Partner with a Zoom expert to help you set up your webinars and moderate live events

1.3.1. Zoom Events and Webinar add-ons

Zoom’s Webinar add-ons include cloud storage, audio conferencing, and large room packages.

What sets it apart is that it also comes with their Event Services that includes expert event consulting, live support, and white-glove (formal) event management.

1.4. Zoom Rooms

Zoom Rooms is a video conferencing tool that turns whatever space you're in, be it a classroom, office, or simply at home, into a conference room using HD video collaboration.

Zoom Rooms has a few features that include:

Smart gallery — Use AI to take a single-camera view of multiple people in a room, and send up to 3 unique video streams to better display the in-room participants to remote attendees
Kiosk mode — Engage face to face with a virtual receptionist, brand the display, and customize the message to match the environment and purpose
Scheduling display — See how many people are in the room, whether there’s a meeting taking place, when the next meetings are, or quickly reserve the room
Voice Commands — Control your meetings with voice-activated commands. Support is also available on additional hardware platforms
Digital signage — Share announcements and information in the form of images, videos, and URLs across any display on your network

You can also host a Zoom Room meeting on any device.

With the new Hot Desk feature planning to be debuted later this year, you’ll be able to book desks and spaces using an interactive map.

You can also select seats or arrangements recommended by Zoom’s AI, giving you the ability to reconfigure your workspaces for flexible working.

1.4.1. Zoom Rooms add-ons

Zoom Rooms’ add-ons include the developer support package, as well as these 3 additional packages:

Conference room connector — Link all your business’ devices, sound systems, smartboards, and any other system you might use for effective communication throughout meetings
Professional services — A project manager will help design the optimal configuration for your meeting spaces. Zoom certified experts can finish the installation either on-site or remote
Hardware as a service — You can lease and upgrade Zoom hardware monthly, and add Managed Services to install and monitor your hardware

1.5. Zoom United

If you want to combine all the communication aspects that Zoom offers into one package, then Zoom United is for you.

This tool offers all the Meetings, Phone, and Chat features in one to help streamline workflow and increase productivity.

1.5.1. Zoom United add-ons

Although Zoom United’s features differ from Zoom Phone, this plan offers the same add-on packages.

2. Zoom’s pricing

Zoom’s pricing plans

Each of Zoom’s paid plans can be billed monthly or yearly, with the following discounts for annual subscriptions:

Zoom Meetings — 17% discount
Zoom Phone — 0% discount
Zoom Event’s and Webinar — 27% discount
Zoom Rooms — 15% discount
Zoom United — 17% discount

Let’s examine each plan in more detail.

2.1. Zoom Meeting’s pricing plans

Zoom Meetings comes with 4 pricing plans. Each plan has a maximum amount of licenses that can be bought.

A licensed user is a paid account user who can host unlimited meetings on the public cloud.

These paid plans offer all of the benefits of their previous plans and include:

Basic plan — $0/month

Host up to 100 participants
Unlimited group/team meetings for up to 40 minutes
Unlimited one-to-one meetings with a 30-hour time limit per meeting
Private and Group Chat

This plan is free forever and requires no credit card details to sign up.

Pro plan — $14.99/month/license or $149.90/year/license

Access to the Large Meetings add-on to increase participants up to 1,000
Group meetings for up to 30 hours
Social media streaming
1 GB cloud recording (per license)
Purchase up to 9 licenses per account

Business plan — $19.99/month/license or $199.90/year/license

Host up to 300 participants
Single sign-on
Access to recording transcripts
Manage your company domains
Add company branding
Starting at 10 licenses for $1,999/year (99 licenses max)

Enterprise plan — $19.99/month/license or $240/year/license

Host up to 500 participants
Unlimited cloud storage
Starting at 50 licenses for $12,000/year

To get this plan you'll need to contact Zoom’s sales team.

2.2. Zoom Phone’s pricing plans

These plans are business-only and aimed at numbers from the US and Canada.

Metered plan — $10/month/user or $120/year/user

Domestic SMS and MMS — This is available for direct numbers (not company numbers)
Extension to extension and outbound calling. All outbound minutes will be metered
Make and receive calls from multiple devices and apps
Advanced phone features (device support, integrations, etc.)

Unlimited plan — $15/month/user or $180/year/user

Unlimited calling within the US and Canada
Optional add-on: Unlimited calling to 18 countries/territories (see pricelist)

Pro Global Select plan — $20/month/user or $240/year/user

Access to a direct-dial number
Unlimited domestic calling to 40+ countries and territories

2.3. Zoom Events and Webinar pricing plans

Here the pricing depends on the number of attendees you’d like to facilitate.

Zoom Events:

Zoom Webinar:

2.3. Zoom Rooms pricing plans

Zoom Rooms has a 30-day free trial that offers all of their features.

There are also 2 pricing plans to choose from:

Licenses plan — $49/month/room or $499/year/room

Purchase up to 49 Zoom Rooms licenses online

Enterprise plan — $49/month/room or $499/year/room (you’ll need to contact Zoom’s sales team)

Both plans come with the following features (does not include hardware):

720p HD video and audio
1,000 video participants, or 10,000 webinar viewers
Unlimited Digital Signage in and out of rooms
Unlimited Scheduling Displays
Touch interactive whiteboarding and co-annotation
Lighting and environmental room controls
10 room controllers
Up to 3 displays
Supports unlimited cameras in the room
Calendar integrations with Office 365, Google, and Exchange
User-friendly and intuitive interface
Cloud meeting recording and transcription

And more.

2.4. Zoom United’s pricing plans

Zoom United comes with 3 plans and for each plan, you’ll need to contact their sales team to opt-in.

Pro plan — $30/month/user or $300/month/user (annual subscription)

(Phone)

Unlimited calling within Global Select
Global Select phone number for every user
Dial by name directory
Automatic call distribution
Optional add-on: Unlimited calling in up to 18 other countries

(Meetings)

Host meetings up to 100 participants
1 GB cloud storage recording (per license)
Social media streaming
Purchase up to 9 licenses per account

Business plan — $35/month/user or $350/month/user (annual subscription)

(Phone)

Includes all the phone features of Zoom United Pro

(Meetings)

Host meetings up to 300 participants
Single sign-on
Access to recording transcripts
Manage your company domains
Add company branding
Starting at 10 licenses for $350/month

Enterprise plan — $35/month/user or $420/month/user (annual subscription)

(Phone)

Includes all the phone features of Zoom United Business

(Meetings)

Host meetings up to 500 participants
Starting at 100 licenses for $42,000/year

Now that you know all of Zoom’s pricing options, let’s weigh up their pros and cons to see if they’re worth the price tag.

3. Zoom’s pros and cons

Here are the pros and cons as listed by Zoom users:

Pros

Offers high video and audio quality (if you have the right hardware)

Interactive features make meetings more engaging and realistic

The free Zoom plan is free forever and requires no card details

It’s easy to learn

Users don’t have to sign up or log in to Zoom to join meetings

Cons

Zoom mobile app will need to be installed to use, even for one-off meetings

The mobile app has repetitive audio issues

Requires high internet connection and bandwidth to function properly

Security and privacy aren’t reliable

You’ll need to subscribe to 2 different plans if you want the meeting and webinar features

Background noise management needs improvement

If Zoom’s pricing doesn’t seem worth it for the features you’ll get, some alternatives might suit your needs better.

4. Zoom alternatives

4.1. Systeme.io

systeme.io logo

Systeme.io is an all-in-one platform that offers everything you need to start and grow your business.

One of the main features we offer is the evergreen webinar feature included in our Webinar plan for up to 10,000 contacts.

This plan comes with 10 webinars.

With our Enterprise plan, you can create an unlimited amount of webinars for up to 15,000 contacts and (compared to Zoom) save more than $60,000/year!

When it comes to marketing, evergreen refers to fresh, sustainable content.

Systeme.io’s evergreen webinars can be automated, which means a host can record a live webinar and then schedule it as an event on specific days.

You can set up recurring webinars for as long as you want to, and this is what makes it sustainable.

Webinars can also be linked to a webinar-specific funnel and email sequences to help you rake in more leads and improve your sales.

Here at systeme.io, we understand that some webinars are larger than others and require more storage space.

As such, if you decide to create a webinar (or any other product using systeme.io), you’ll get unlimited storage space on any of our plans.

If you’d like to expand your business past webinars, we also offer the following features:

Sales funnel creator — Create different types of funnels based on proven templates
Email marketing — Send unlimited emails and create email campaigns
Website builder — Design a website from scratch or use our text or video templates to get the job done faster
Affiliate management — Create an affiliate program and automate your affiliate payouts
Business automation — Automate your whole business with rules and workflows to help you save time and energy
Online courses — Create online courses and modules and manage student access
Blogging — Create high-converting content using our templates to help you get more traffic

For a more extensive look into all the features systeme.io offers, click here.

4.1.1. Systeme.io’s pricing

systeme.io’s pricing plans

Systeme.io has 4 pricing plans to choose from, but for this post, we’re only focusing on 2.

The Webinar plan for $47/month or $396/year includes:

10 evergreen webinars
50 sales funnels and 300 funnel steps
100 automation rules, email campaigns, and 1-click upsells

And more!

This plan is also available for up to 10,000 contacts.

We also offer the Enterprize plan for $97/month or $828/year that includes unlimited everything for up to 15,000 contacts.

(A steal for any business owner!)

Each plan also comes with these core features:

Unlimited emails, blog posts, storage space, and membership site members
Deadline funnels
Stripe and PayPal integration
Affiliate program management
24/7 email support with a response time of under 2 hours

Systeme.io also offers a Free plan. Although it doesn’t come with the webinar features, it still includes everything else you need to run your online business.

It’s free forever and also requires no card details with sign-up.

4.2. Google Meet

Google Meet logo

As Google’s video conferencing feature, Google Meet aims to bring secure, high-quality business meetings to anyone, on any device.

Livestreams can hold up to 100,000 viewers per domain and all video webinars are secured with up-to-date Google encryption.

Guests can join meetings via any web browser (no installation needed), the mobile app, or through Google Nest Hub Max.

Google Meet also adjusts to your network speed to ensure high-quality video calls wherever you are.

Here are some additional features you can expect with Google Meet:

Speech recognition and live captions to help viewers with hearing impairments (available in English only)
Scheduling, recording, and adaptive layouts to boost engagement
Screen sharing with participants
Meetings can hold up to 250 internal or external participants

4.2.1. Google Meet’s pricing

Google Meet’s pricing options

Google Meet offers 3 pricing plans and each plan allows for unlimited meetings and 1:1 calls that can last up to 24 hours.

The Google Meet plan (free) — Includes a group meeting (max 3 participants) time of 1 hour and can host up to 100 participants
The Google Workspace Individual plan ($9.99/month) — Includes a group meeting time of 24 hours and can host up to 100 participants
The Google Workspace Enterprise plan (contact Google’s sales team) — Includes a group meeting time of 24 hours and can host up to 250 participants

The Google Workspace plan comes with a 14-day free trial to test out all their features.

To discover more of these plans’ features, click here.

4.3. WebinarJam

WebinarJam logo

WebinarJam is an all-in-one webinar-oriented platform that gives you everything you need to get your webinars to your audience.

With WebinarJam you can:

Host HD webinars on any device for up to 5,000 attendees with 6 presenters
Incorporate live or private chat with sticky notes and Q&A sessions
Automatically record your live broadcasts and replay them
Schedule meetings
Choose from a library of templates and design the best landing page to increase the number of registrations (comes with built-in A/B testing)
Follow up on registrants through customized messaging, email automation, and SMSes

And more.

4.3.1. WebinarJam’s pricing

WebinarJam’s pricing plans

WebinarJam only offers yearly subscriptions that are priced monthly.

Each plan comes with unlimited webinars, live chat, email, and SMSes (to name a few) and is billed as follows:

The Starter plan ($39/month or $468/year) — Includes 1 host, space for up to 100 attendees, and 1-hour max duration
The Basic plan ($79/month or $948/year) — Includes 2 hosts, space for up to 500 attendees, and 2 hours max duration
The Professional plan ($229/month or $2,748/year) — Includes 4 hosts, space for up to 2,000 attendees, and 3 hours max duration
The Enterprise plan ($379/month or $4,548/year) — Includes 6 hosts, space for up to 2,000 attendees, and 4 hours max duration

WebinarJam also offers a 14-day trial for $1 and a30-day money-back guarantee.

To discover all the features their plans include, you’ll need to visit WebinarJam’s website.

5. Common Zoom FAQs

Below we’ve compiled a list of some of the most common questions people ask about Zoom:

5.1. Do I need to install Zoom to join a meeting?

No. You can join any Zoom meeting through a web browser without needing to download Zoom. Just click on the Zoom link URL that the host shared via email or text

5.2. Do I have to pay for Zoom after 40 minutes?

No. You are limited to the meeting duration times based on the plan you’re subscribed to
However, if a Free user starts a meeting from a paid Zoom Room on the same account, the meeting will not end after 40 minutes, despite the number of participants

5.3. Why does Zoom stop after 40 minutes?

This is simply Zoom’s limitations. If the total number of hosts and participants is 3 or more, the call will have a set time to end after 40 minutes. This changes if you host a meeting in a paid Zoom Room

5.4. Are Zoom calls recorded?

Zoom Phone calls are automatically recorded. You can manually select to have meetings recorded and you can customize an audio prompt to notify parties that the call or meeting will be recorded

5.5. How do I save a Zoom meeting?

Start your Zoom meeting, then click the “Record” button that appears along the bottom of the meeting window
Select “Record on this Computer” if you want to save an MP4 file of the recording on your computer

6. Conclusion: Is Zoom Worth it?

If you use all their features, and if you're a large company with a focus on meetings, then Zoom is absolutely worth it.

For webinars alone, there are platforms like WebinarJam that will give you more features — but at a higher price.

For small teams that need a platform for meetings, there are options like Google Meet, which is inexpensive and easy to use.

The best option remains systeme.io.

Not only are our prices affordable, but we offer everything you need to get your online business off on the right track.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up with systeme.io today!