Looking for an online conferencing option that meets your needs for attendance capacity and customization can be hard to find. Zoom and GoToMeeting are two of the best options available, but each has its own unique features. Read on to find out which platform is best for your business.
Zoom vs GoToMeeting Price Differences
GoToMeeting separates its pricing plans depending on the type of product you’re looking for. It offers the same features like Zoom, including webinars and rooms.
However, there are separate plans for each, making pricing simpler to understand. Zoom, on the other hand, offers several features on the same plan.
Zoom Pricing
Because Zoom has grown to become more than just an online conferencing platform, they offer five different pricing categories to choose from. These include Zoom Meetings, Zoom Phone, Zoom Video Webinar, Zoom Rooms, and Zoom United.
All categories offer the option to pay monthly or annually. If you pay annually, you’ll save more than if you pay monthly.
Most online users use Zoom Meetings, which is Zoom’s only free option. This category allows you to host meetings with up to 300 participants, record meetings, add company branding, and more.
Prices range from free to $300 a year / $19.99 per host per month. The highest plan includes Zoom Phone as well as Zoom Meetings.
Zoom Phone has four different price plans that range from $120 to $300 a year or $10 to $30 monthly per user. The lower price plans are for the USA and Canada calls only. But, the higher packages allow you to place calls globally.
Zoom Video Webinar is another popular option due to its popularity with companies and organizations. There are seven different price plans, all based on the number of attendees you want to have.
You can purchase these for 100 up to 10,000 attendees, and if you have more than 10,000, you will need to contact their sales team to negotiate the price.
Zoom Rooms technically has two different pricing plans, but there is a 30-day free trial to get you to try the service first. The two plans start at $499 a year, but the higher version allows more than 49 rooms. Anyone interested in the higher plan needs to contact the sales team to negotiate the price.
The last category is Zoom United which has three different pricing plans ranging from $250 to $360 a year or $25 to $30 per month. This option is a combination of the other Zoom categories, and it includes Zoom Meetings, Zoom Phone, and Zoom Chat.
GoToMeeting Pricing
The pricing for GoToMeeting is straightforward and only offers three different plans: Professional, Business, and Enterprise.
Professional is $12 a month and allows 150 participants, Business is $16 a month and allows 250 participants, and Enterprise requires getting a quote from the sales team for an official price. The Enterprise plan allows up to 3,000 participants.
They also offer an option to pay yearly instead of monthly to save 12% and 16% for Professional and Business plans, respectively. There are add-ons like GoToWebinar you can purchase if the plan doesn’t already include the features you need.
The brand offers other services like GoToRoom, GoToWebinar, and GoToConnect. The latter is a combo plan that combines video, phone, and chat software.
Zoom vs GoToMeeting features
Zoom and GoToMeeting both offer basic features including, call recording, HD streaming, screen sharing, and scheduled meetings. What separates them is their unique settings and configurations that make conference calls unique according to your needs.
Call Recording
Both Zoom and GoToMeeting offer the ability to record your calls both locally and in the cloud. A local storage system stores your calls locally on your computer, but a cloud storage system uploads your calls to a remote server. This gives you the ability to access them at any time.
Each platform supports free and unlimited local recording on all plans, but using a smartphone prevents you from taking advantage of the feature. Cloud storage is your only option for hosting conference calls through a smartphone.
Zoom only provides cloud storage if you purchase their Pro plan, which is inclusive of up to 1GB of recording. Both GoToMeeting and Zoom will record the video and audio of your meetings, but they will also record any comments made throughout.
Businesses that work with Protected Health Information need to record each call. They would also require a higher Zoom plan to accommodate the storage needs.
However, GoToMeeting provides unlimited cloud storage with all plans, and you can even search and share recorded meetings.
HD Conferencing
Both platforms offer 1080p online video options for clear communications with your attendees and hosts. This is only affected by the internet strength you have at a given time.
Zoom allows for 49 simultaneous webcam views depending on the grid view you select inside a meeting. It has a clear advantage over GoToMeeting, which only supports 25 simultaneous webcam views. Zoom is a better choice for companies that have a large attendance requirement.
It’s really in the video settings where GoToMeeting sets itself apart from Zoom. GoToMeeting for video conferencing has settings like video brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, sharpness, and gamma. All of them are adjustable with convenient sliders for full control.
Zoom enables you to change the aspect ratio and features a unique tool called Touch up my Appearance, which softens the speaker’s appearance if he/she is broadcasting from home or has harsh lighting.
This is not nearly the amount of customization you can get inside of GoToMeeting, but it does make it easier for you.
Screen Sharing
Both Zoom and GoToMeeting offer a similar set of capabilities for screen sharing. These include sharing screens, web-browser sharing, application sharing, whiteboard sharing, and sharing multiple screens simultaneously.
Where Zoom pulls ahead is allowing you to have more control over precisely what you are sharing. Like choosing a portion of your screen or allowing dual-screen participants to share.
Scheduled Meetings
Again, both platforms allow you to schedule meetings quite similarly. You can set recurring or one-time meetings, choose specific dates and times, and even integrate particular calendars with them.
However, Zoom offers more integration options, and you can configure the meeting options even further by requiring a password before joining.
Which is Better: Zoom or GoToMeeting
For companies that operate in a larger space and are seeking a reliable online conferencing platform, Zoom would be an appropriate option.
GoToMeeting is the platform for small businesses that need more customization options or unlimited cloud storage for recordings.