Zoom Pricing and Subscriptions: How Much Does Zoom Cost?

By Matt RedererUpdated on June 22, 2020

Zoom has several different online conferencing solutions, which all have their own pricing plans and subscription models. On top of the service(s) you choose, certain products have different service tiers. These include more of the features Zoom is capable of, allowing you to get the tools and performance you want.

There are also a whole bunch of add-ons available that let you further customize your experience. But how much do you have to pay for all of it? Don’t worry– we’re here to make sense of Zoom’s costs for you.

What is covered in this article

Alright, let’s get to answering the million-dollar (not literally, though) question here: how much does Zoom cost?

Zoom subscriptions and account basics

How much does a Zoom account cost to create? Zero! It’s entirely free. But with the free account, you’re limited to just the Zoom Meetings platform, and have other restrictions on how it’s used (we’ll get to those later). Purchasing a subscription to an upgraded tier of Meetings – or another product entirely – unlocks additional functionality.

Zoom plans and their prices vary, based mainly on three things:

  1. Which services you use
  2. How long you use them (including whether you’re billed monthly or annually)
  3. How broadly you deploy services within your organization, such as how many “hosts” you license to schedule meetings

So what does Zoom’s pricing actually look like? We’ll break it down for you by service and subscription options below.

Important

The prices listed below are Zoom’s U.S. pricing. You can change which currency prices appear on Zoom’s website by scrolling to the bottom of any page, clicking the drop-down menu marked “Currency,” and selecting one of the available options.

Zoom Meeting plans comparison and breakdown

Zoom Meetings (https://zoom.us/meetings) is the most well-known of Zoom’s services, offering reliable teleconferencing that supports audio, video, text chat, screen sharing, and more. Here’s a quick price breakdown of the four different tiers of service, and a comparison of the features shared between them.

Service Level

Basic

Pro

Business

Enterprise

Base Price

Free!

$14.99/month/host

$19.99/month/host
*10-host minimum

$19.99/month/host
*100-host minimum

Base Participant Limit

100

100

300

500

Meeting Length Limit (for 3+ Participants)

40 minutes

24 hours

24 hours

24 hours

Customer Service Level

Ticketing support

Ticketing support

Dedicated phone support

Dedicated customer success manager

Meeting Recording Options

Local file recording (PC/Mac only)

1GB cloud storage

1GB cloud storage + auto transcripts

Unlimited cloud storage + auto transcripts

A full table can be found on Zoom’s Plans & Pricing page.

In the meantime, we’ll take a quick look at each tier of Zoom Meetings, including what it costs, what it features, and who it’s best for.

Zoom Meetings Basic

Cost: Free!

Best for: Person-to-person calls or short meetings of small groups

Basic keeps your Zoom Meetings cost as low as it can go, because it’s absolutely free! There is no limit on either the number of meetings you can schedule or the amount of time a meeting with two or fewer participants can last. However, meetings joined by at least 3 people (including the host) can only last a maximum of 40 minutes. On the other hand, even the Basic plan allows you to have up to 100 people on a call at once – which is many more than some of Zoom’s competitors!

A Basic plan also allows you to make recordings of the meeting’s audio/video/text chat. However, they can only be saved locally on your desktop computer; this feature doesn’t work at all with mobile devices (i.e. those running iOS or Android). Customer support is also limited.

Zoom Meetings Pro

Monthly cost: $14.99/month/host

Annual cost: $12.49/month/host (billed as $149.90/year/host)

Best for: Small business teams needing more control, flexibility, and analysis in their conferencing

Pro tier is a step up from the Basic package. Its main draw is that it extends the time limit for group calls to a full 24 hours. The participant limit is still capped at 100, but it can be expanded to 500 or even 1000 with purchasable add-ons. Pro also unlocks 1GB of cloud storage space on your Zoom account, so you don’t necessarily have to save meeting records locally on your device. This is the only way to record meetings on an iOS or Android device.

In addition, Pro offers a suite of handy management tools so you can add more members to your account and assign roles within your group, including additional hosts. You also get analytics functions so you can track things like how many meetings you’re having, how many participants attend them, and how long they last. Finally, Pro allows you to integrate third-party apps to enhance your Zoom Meetings experience and get more from the tool.

Zoom Meetings Business

Monthly cost: $19.99/month/host with a 10-host minimum ($199.90/month min.)

Annual cost: $16.66/month/host with a 10-host minimum ($1999/year min.)

Best for: Medium-size businesses or schools looking to coordinate between branches

Business tier is for larger organizations wanting to really integrate Zoom into their teleconferencing and marketing systems. For example, it lets you send custom invites to clients, design unique virtual meeting rooms with your company’s name and branding images, and allow users to login to Zoom through your institution’s credentials. That last feature works for schools, too, and it makes it a snap to include Zoom as a key tool in many common learning management systems.

Business tier also ups the meeting participant cap to 300 (although you can still purchase add-ons to increase that limit to 500 or 1000) and allows you to auto-generate transcripts of meeting recordings you save to your Zoom account. You can also set up your recordings to be shared on your organization’s private cloud. Finally, you get more powerful analytics controls and dedicated phone-in customer support.

Zoom Meetings Enterprise

Cost: $19.99/month/host with a 100-host minimum ($1999/month min.)

Best for: Large companies that need multinational communication and coordination

Enterprise tier is for huge organizations that may be looking to use multiple Zoom teleconferencing solutions at once. The regular Enterprise plan caps meetings at 500 participants, while the Enterprise Plus plan stretches that limit to 1000 people. You also get unlimited cloud storage for all your call recordings, even more powerful analytics tools in the form of executive business reviews, and a dedicated customer success agent for support.

Choosing the Enterprise plan can also get you discounts on Zoom pricing if you bundle in other Zoom services, such as Zoom Rooms and Zoom Video Webinars. However, it’s still the most expensive Zoom Meetings pricing plan.

Zoom Phone: cloud telecom solutions

Zoom phone call and Zoom meeting call

Zoom Phone is an add-on service that upgrades Zoom from a teleconferencing hub into a full-on call management center. It includes features for making and receiving phone calls over either WiFi or cellular data/minutes, receiving voicemail messages, and exchanging text messages. It can also reroute and record calls, too! And it has apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. You can even keep your existing phone number to use with it!

Important

You must have at least one person on your account with at least a Zoom Meetings Pro subscription to use this feature.

Zoom Phone pricing

Feature

Monthly Plan Cost

Annual Plan Cost

Unlimited Calling Plan

$15/month/user

$180/year/user

Pay-As-You-Go-Plan

$10/month/user

$120/year/user

$20/Month Prepaid Call Plan

$20/month + $10/month/user

N/A

$100/Month Prepaid Call Plan

$100/month + $10/month/user

N/A

$1200/Year Prepaid Call Plan

N/A

$1200/year + $120/year/user

Extra Phone Numbers

$5/month/number

$60/year/number

Pro Tip

Standard Zoom phone call rates apply to Zoom Phone pricing for all plans in the table above, except for the “Unlimited Calling” plan (and the extra phone numbers).

Best Zoom Phone use cases

Zoom Phone is a handy addition to Zoom’s standard functions if your company or other organization uses telephone as a key method of external communication. For example, your company may need a centralized place to call potential customers or partners from. Or you may set up Zoom Phone to act as your customer service hotline, responding to calls and messages from clients who need their questions answered.

Zoom Rooms: conference room pricing

Zoom Rooms offers a specialized software-driven solution that turns space in your office into a custom conference room! All you need in terms of equipment is a computer, video & audio input and output, a device with the control app installed, and a display. Check out some of Zoom’s hardware recommendations to get the most from your service.

As for installing the system, you can do it yourself by following these instructions. If you don’t feel you have the time or know-how, though, you can hire one of Zoom’s partnered professional integrator services, or ask Zoom’s dedicated team.

There are also ways of retrofitting rooms that have previously-installed conferencing hardware and software with Zoom’s technology. And Zoom Rooms prices are the same whether you’re doing a complete overhaul of a room, or just adapting the system that’s already there.

Zoom Rooms

Monthly cost: $49/month/room

Annual cost: $41.58/month/room (billed as $499/year)

Best for: Organizations looking to build a conferencing solution from the ground up

Zoom Rooms make it simple to do things like start and join Zoom meetings, as well as share content wirelessly with coworkers in your immediate vicinity. It even supports touch screen displays, and integrates with several common calendar apps to make booking, monitoring, and managing your room(s) a snap!

H.323 Room Connector

Monthly cost: $49/month/room

Annual cost: $41.58/month/room (billed as $499/year)

Best for: Organizations with existing conference equipment looking to upgrade it

If you have one or more rooms in your office that are already set up with professional conferencing systems from the likes of Polycom, Cisco, or Lifesize, then you’re in luck! You can purchase this add-on to order special devices that integrate your on-hand hardware with Zoom Rooms!

Important

You must have a Zoom Rooms license for at least one other room in your office to use this feature.

Zoom Webinars pricing: live virtual events & broadcasts

Zoom logo with audience members

Zoom even has a platform for hosting large-scale interactive online webinars with up to 100 panelists and anywhere from 100 to 10,000 attendees (depending on the plan you select). It streamlines the registration process by allowing you to add your branding to invitation emails and sign-up forms, integrating with many common CMS platforms, and even permitting pay-for-admission through a Zapier PayPal add-on.

Zoom Video Webinars has a bunch of other neat features, too. You can engage attendees by running polls and including a section for asking questions. Increase accessibility with closed captioning and auto-generating transcripts, all while automatically recording the session for future use. You can even simulcast to Facebook Live and YouTube to extend your audience even further! And when it’s all done, a suite of analytics tools will give you a quantifiable overview of how your presentation did.

Important

You must have at least one person on your account with at least a Zoom Meetings Pro subscription to use this feature.

Zoom Webinars pricing

Zoom conference pricing is based on the maximum number of attendees (not including panelists) you want to allow at each webinar, as well as how many people have host licenses to schedule webinars.

Maximum Participants

Monthly Plan Cost

Annual Plan Cost

100

$40/month/host

$33.33/month/host

500

$140/month/host

$116.67/month/host

1000

$340/month/host

$283.33/month/host

3000

$990/month/host

$825/month/host

5000

$2490/month/host

$2075/month/host

10,000

$6490/month/host

$5408.33/month/host

Best Zoom Webinars use cases

Zoom Video Webinars is best used by larger-scale companies looking to show off what services they have to offer, or what their product can do, to a broad audience. It’s a great tool for networking, both with potential new clients and with partner firms that can take what your company does to the next level.

Zoom add-ons that improve functionality

Zoom offers a few other add-on packages to increase accessibility. These include the Audio Plan, for making phoning into meetings easier, and the Additional Cloud Recording Storage plan, to keep more meeting records if your conferences tend to last a while.

Important

You must have at least one person on your account with a Zoom Meetings Pro subscription or higher-level subscription to use either of these features.

Audio plan

Plan cost: $100/month minimum + Zoom global telephone conferencing rates

Dedicated dial-in number cost: $10/number/month

Best for: Companies with teams/clients in remote regions with little Internet access

The Audio Plan add-on provides some extra flexibility for when people may need to join your meetings by phone instead of via the Internet. Some of the things it provides include toll-free call-in numbers, or even dedicated call-in numbers for particular meeting rooms (though this costs extra). You can even get the “call out” feature, where you can type someone’s phone number in the chat window to invite them to a meeting.

Additional cloud recording storage

Cost: $40/month (100 GB), $100/month (500 GB), or $500/month (3 TB)

Best for: Companies who hold and record frequent and/or lengthy meetings

A Zoom Meetings Pro plan comes with 1GB/month of memory space on your account to store recordings of your conferences. But if you hold meetings often, and/or they tend to go long, you may find yourself running out of space quickly. If that’s the case, you can purchase one of the above add-ons to expand your account’s storage capacity.

Pro Tip

There is an additional charge per GB used if you go over the limits specified by these plans. For the 100 GB plan, it’s $1.50. For the 500 GB plan, it’s $0.50. For the 3 TB plan, it’s $0.10.

Zoom costs by industry: plans for education, telehealth, & developers

Zoom has specialized plans and prices for particular industries and applications that Zoom is well-suited for. For example, schools can use it for on-demand and off-campus learning; doctors can use it to remotely and jointly examine, diagnose, and even treat patients; and developers for cloud-based software companies can build Zoom’s collaboration features into their service instead of making similar ones from scratch. Let’s take a quick look at Zoom’s nonprofit pricing and plans, based on specific applications that Zoom is ideally suited for.

Zoom for Education

Cost: $90/host/year (minimum 20 hosts)

Zoom has packages available for both elementary and post-secondary schools that can be leveraged in many different ways. For instance, multiple classes of similar levels or subjects can share class recordings and notes, or participate together in a virtual or hybrid seminar/field trip with a guest speaker. Virtual meetings and office hours can make mentorship opportunities between students and teachers more accessible, such as study groups, tutoring sessions, and career counseling.

Of course, Zoom can also facilitate inter-faculty management with classroom analytics, staff training and work groups, and even meetings and announcements across campuses and other school networks.

Zoom for Telehealth

Cost: Starting at $20/host/month (minimum 10 hosts)

Zoom has various applications in the healthcare sector. Physicians, patients, family members, and other specialists can collaborate for joint consultations that allow for sharing and annotating test results. These, of course, can all be saved for further follow-up and review. Zoom is also great for behavioral and other mental health counseling, and it can even integrate with some medical devices so doctors can perform exams and treatments remotely!

It’s also useful on the staff side for things like timely communication between hospital employees, as well as continuing education/training for all types of professional healthcare workers. It can even be used for purposes such as community webinars for at-risk populations to educate themselves and take preventative action on conditions, as well as coordinating medical responses to disasters or other crises.

Zoom for Developers

Annual fee: $5000/year

Cost: $2500/month (based on per-minute / per-participant; 50,000 included minutes)

If you’re a software developer looking to give your app similar functionality to Zoom Meetings without coding it from scratch, you can just integrate the real deal instead! The ISV Partner Program lets you build Zoom into your existing app, which provides a two-fold benefit. First, you don’t have to worry about building and managing a separate function on your app. Second, your customers don’t have to spend time learning how that function works, as many will likely already be familiar with Zoom. Additionally, the integration won’t redirect customers to the Zoom platform itself, letting them focus on using your product and your product only.


So, how much does a Zoom subscription cost? Depending on how you use Zoom, it can end up costing you anywhere between absolutely nothing and several thousand dollars per month. So be sure to look carefully at Zoom membership prices and weigh them against what amount of value each plan can bring to your team or organization.