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| Best for Large Teams |  |
| Best for Small Teams |  |
| Best for One Time Payment |  |
With virtual teams popping up everywhere and collaborating with others using video conferencing on the rise, knowing the best way to share information with one another in a virtual workplace is increasingly important. Let’s face it — a phone call doesn’t always do it these days. Being able to share screens, documents, and see people face to face is much more simple, efficient and cheaper through an online meeting than traveling across the country. This also applies to how you interact with clients and even potential new customers. We compare the best video conferencing software and discuss why some of the most recognizable companies may not be the most popular or best online meeting services available.
Adobe Connect Review
| #1 |  |
Our pick for the best online meeting service for large teams is Adobe Connect. It has all the features you are seeking for online meetings, and it comes at a competitive price. We love the endless customization options which include ways to record and measure engagement during and after the meeting. It is not the easiest service to set up, but this powerhouse software isn’t designed as a “one size fits all” solution. There are many tutorials and support services out there to help new users get started with Adobe Connect. However, first-time participants in meetings won’t need any training since the interface is very user-friendly. You can use this for smaller teams too, but for the most part, smaller teams have smaller budgets, so we suggest taking a look at our pick for small teams.
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Pricing
Adobe Connect has three different video conference offerings, and they are all available with a free trial: Meetings, Webinars and Learning.
Adobe Connect Meetings
Adobe Connect Meetings works well for online, digital meetings. Pricing starts at $500/year.
Adobe Connect Webinars
Adobe Connect Webinars are made for marketers.
- 100 Webinar Participants: $1,250/year/webinar manager
- 500 Webinar Participants: $4,500/year/webinar manager
- 1,000 Webinar Participants: $5,500/year/webinar manager
- +1,500 Webinar Participants: Contact Adobe
Adobe Connect Learning
Adobe Connect Learning is great for online classes. Also, Adobe Connect works well on mobile platforms.
- 200 Virtual Classroom Participants: $3,500/year/manager
- +200 Virtual Classroom Participants: Contact Adobe
Google Hangouts Review
| #2 |  |
Google Hangouts is our pick for best video conferencing software for small teams. It is a completely free service that is great for smaller organizations. The web video version is called Google Hangouts and is what our team uses at We Rock Your Web. The clean, organized look of Google Hangouts paired with its simple user interface are just a few of the pros. The biggest issue is that there is a maximum number of 10 devices or users allowed at a time for a meeting, but it works great if you have fewer than 10 devices connecting. Since it is owned by Google, your privacy is always a concern so proceed with caution when sharing sensitive conversations or data. Google Hangout is compatible across many devices and participants can collaborate in other Google features like Google Docs.
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Pricing
- Free
TeamViewer Review
| #3 |  |
TeamViewer takes the best web conferencing service award for one-time payment because it works on all platforms, has an easy setup and is simple to use. Also, it has a one-time payment, so it doesn’t have an ongoing monthly price. It requires a huge investment upfront but the software and services are yours for a lifetime, and there are few complaints about this service. Just make sure everyone has Internet access or has it installed on each device for each participant and your meetings are reported to be flawless. You can even test it out for your personal use before you make the large investment. Team Viewer has the capability to control your work computer from home or vice versa. This is a huge benefit when it comes to those times you leave for home and forgot to edit something in your work document.
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Pricing
- Free for private use
- $809 Business (one-time payment)
- $1,689 Premium (one-time payment)
- $3,599 Corporate (one-time payment)
Video: A Conference Call in Real Life
We’ve all been there when there’s a static connection, don’t know who is talking or background noise. Trip and Tyler show what a video conference call can look like in real life. Caution: this video is hilarious. Hopefully, the right video conference software will make your experience more pleasant than this one.
What’s the Best Video Conferencing Software?
Here’s the rest of the online meeting software pack. While they didn’t make our “best of” categories this year, some are viable competitors with unique features that may meet your needs:
AnyMeeting | BlueJeans | Calliflower | Click Meeting | FreeConferenceCall | Fuze | GoToMeeting | InterCall | Join.Me | MeetingBurner | MegaMeeting | RHUB | Skype | StartMeeting | UberConference | WebEx | Zoom
AnyMeeting Review
AnyMeeting is a great choice for all types of companies. With the free basic version, you get the same great perks as the paid version minus the ability to record your meetings. The free version also has ads. The maximum number of attendees is 1,000 for Webinar Pro and a maximum of 30 attendees for Meeting Pro.
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Pricing
- Free for basic version
- Meeting Pro – $18/month or $180/year
- Webinar Pro – starting at $78/month or $780/year
BlueJeans Review
BlueJeans is definitely a unique name for a video conferencing service. Their reasoning behind the name is that they want your video conferencing service to be as comfortable as your favorite pair of jeans. Blue Jeans runs in the cloud, so there is no hardware or software installation. They offer many features, but to get pricing information you’ll have to contact them.
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Pricing
You must contact BlueJeans directly for pricing.
Calliflower Review
Calliflower looks to have thought of everything. Callers can “raise their hand” so they don’t talk over others. You can also mute someone if there’s too much background noise. The dashboard shows who is speaking along with their photo to help you put a face to a name. Although you can share documents via Calliflower there is no video feature so you can’t actually see a person talking, only their photo appears.
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Pricing
Calliflower offers a 14-day free trial.
- Calli-Go: 4.5¢/minute for worldwide calling and 6.9¢/minute for toll-free
- Call500: $9.99/month for 500 worldwide minutes
- Call2000: $29.95/month for 2,000 worldwide minutes
- Call5000: $59.95/month for 5,000 worldwide minutes
If you go over your minutes, you are charged 2.9¢/minute for all plans except Calli-Go.
Click Meeting Review
Click Meeting’s selling point is its ability to hold international meetings. The software incorporated Google Translate, so you can communicate with others even if you aren’t a fluent speaker of the language. However, we all know how great Google Translate is so you may not receive the best translation.
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Pricing
All plans come with a 30-day free trial.
- My Webinars: starting at $25/month
- My Webinars Pro: starting at $35/month
- Enterprise: starting at $165/month
FreeConferenceCall.com Review
FreeConferenceCall.com is not a big name company but promises to do just that, provide free conference calling. There is very little information about them online, which is a concern of ours because that means few people use it. Their website has a minimum amount of information on it. The upside is that their service is free (hence their name). So, if you want to try them out all you have to do is enter your email address and name. If you don’t like it, you can cancel.
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Pricing
Fuze Review
Fuze (previously known as Fuzebox and Thinking Phones) is pretty quiet about what it offers. In previous versions of this article, we had tons of information on Fuze. However, Fuze has changed and with it, the company has stopped being transparent about its offerings. If you know anything about Fuze, let us know!
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Pricing
Pricing is not listed online. You must contact Fuze directly for pricing.
GoToMeeting Review
GoToMeeting from Citrix is great for smaller scale offices that are looking for an easy to use online meeting platform. Starting a meeting takes only one click. Citrix’s GoToMeeting has many great features including screen sharing, keyboard/mouse control, VoIP and drawing tools. The downside is there is no way for attendees to “raise their hands” to ask questions and the meetings require access codes and pins, which opens it up for user error to access a meeting.
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Pricing
All plans come with a 30-day free trial.
- Free for up to 3 attendees
- Starter: $19/month (10 participants)
- Pro: $29/month (50 participants)
- Plus: $49/month (100 participants)
InterCall Review
InterCall’s video conferencing service is called Unified Meeting 5. They also sell Adobe Connect, which is a little confusing. They offer many features, and offer a free trial, although we don’t know how long it is for since it is not listed on InterCall’s website.
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Pricing
All plans come with a 30-day free trial.
- 10 participants: $25/month
- 25 participants: $39/month
- Pay As You Go: $0.17/minute per attendee
join.me Review
Join.me has many great features in its free version. These include the ability to share files, chat and give another participant control of your machine. The ability to screen share from a Mac to a PC or vice versa is a great tool for Join Me as well. This would be a great free choice for smaller offices.
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Pricing
- Free (up to 10 participants)
- Pro: $20/month per user (up to 50 participants)
- Business: $25/month per user (up to 250 participants)
MeetingBurner Review
As of December 27, 2017, MeetingBurner is no longer in business. MeetingBurner users can receive 10% off Zoom by using the coupon code “MB2Zoom.”
MegaMeeting Review
MegaMeeting is a cloud-based video conferencing solution. So there is no installation needed. You can access a meeting on your browser or Apple and Android smartphone and tablet. They offer many features, but you may have to pay extra for them. If you’re a Mac user, you may not have access to all of the Mega Meeting features.
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Pricing
You must contact MegaMeeting for pricing. Their site does say, “Web & video conferencing plans as low as $39/month.”
R-HUB Review
R-HUB has an actual server that you purchase to use for your web meeting needs. You don’t have to pay the entire lump sum at once, but once you pay the necessary payments, the server is yours. These are extremely expensive, so it’s important that you are set on continuing online meetings, so it’s worth the money you spend. There isn’t tons of information out about R-HUB, so it’s hard for us to justify spending thousands of dollars on something we do not fully understand.
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Pricing
Pricing for RHUB is different from any other company in this article. We suggest looking at their site directly if you are interested in purchasing from them. They do offer a 30-day free trial.
Skype Review
Skype works well for smaller teams needing online video conferencing solutions, but once you get to larger numbers, you may experience some issues. Customers said they had issues with sound since more people means more background noise it became a problem. Skype automatically lowers the volume of other attendees and increases the volume of the speaker. However, if the attendees have a lot of background noise, this can mess up the entire call and make it impossible to hear the speaker.
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Pricing
Skype is free for meetings up to 10 people (up to 3 people after 60 days). Below are the rates for US calls.
- Skype Credit: $0.023/minute
- United States Unlimited mins: $2.99/month
- North America Unlimited mins mobiles and landlines: $6.99/month
- World Unlimited mins: $13.99/month
StartMeeting Review
StartMeeting is a division of FreeConferenceCall and is also vague on its offerings. In the past, Start Meeting has been pretty pricey and had no features that stood out from what we could see. However, we are unable to find pricing on their website currently, so we are unsure if they are still expensive.
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Pricing
Pricing is not listed on StartMeeting’s website.
UberConference Review
UberConference is used by many big name companies like Dropbox, Walgreens and The Weather Channel. They offer help through FAQs, email, phone and live chat. You receive your own dedicated number, so pins aren’t necessary. The screen shows you who is talking, so there’s no confusion on whose voice you’re hearing. Uber Conference may eventually make an appearance in our”best of” categories, but since they are still fairly new (2012) we want to do more research before bumping them up.
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Pricing
- Free for up to 10 participants
- Business: $10/month per participant
WebEx Review
WebEx from Cisco is an affordable choice for smaller-scale companies. The Premium 25 version is their most popular and has a good balance of key features. Web Ex is handy for companies that use multiple different operating systems because it works with Windows, Mac and Linux.
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Pricing
StartMeeting has unlimited free meetings for up to 3 people and offers the premium features free for 14 days.
- Premium 8: $24/month/host or $19/month for the annual plan with a maximum of 8 people
- Premium 25: $49/month/host or $39/month for the annual plan with a maximum of 25 people
- Premium 100: $69/month/host or $49/month for the annual plan with a maximum of 100 people
Zoom Review
Zoom was created by Cisco and WebEx engineers. This cloud service was created to “…improve the quality and effectiveness of communications forever.” This service was created in 2011 and has little user feedback, so it’s hard to decide whether it’s amazing or not.
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Pricing
- Basic: Free
- Pro: $14.99/month/host
- Business: $19.99/month/host
- Enterprise: Contact Sales
What’s the Right Video Conferencing Service for You?
Now that you’ve read about the different features each of the best online video conferencing services has to offer, think about what the purpose is for your online meeting. Is it just to touch base with others on a current project? Do you need to share a presentation? Or is it a monthly meeting to update employees about new policies? The best online video conferencing services vary depending on your needs. For instance, if you need just web presentation capabilities without video, check out our best webinar software review. Either way make sure you have a clear agenda that doesn’t suck.
What’s your best web conferencing solution and what pros or cons can you share from your experience?
Can you also consider Dead Simple Screen Sharing for review, Our solution does not require the presenter or the user to download any software and works out of the browser (supported browsers include Chrome Firefox Safari Opera). It is also free to use.
Thanks
The screen share/application share is graphically poor and lags regularly. Regularly disconnects during calls, get poor call quality at times, and again, a complete lack of support which is unacceptable when you pay money.
The pro’s – you do see who is on the call, who is talking, you can record the call, and if you pay you can have a large number of people join. Also, if you disconnect, the entire meeting does not shut down, and user can rejoin fairly quickly.
We are moving on. I would tell them that directly, but they don’t answer any support contact mechanism. I think they have given up on this application within their suite of products after they were bought out.
I’m wondering if anyone here knows of a platform that can support video-based break-out groups. Ideally it would also have the feature of allowing each class member to take a turn speaking to the group, with a video feed or at least a photo of them, showing. I am looking to create an almost-in-person, live experience for participants in a class I’m offering. A “meeting” platform could be put to the purpose, it doesn’t have to be a class platform, although that would be ideal.
For example, with Join.me the client can join a presentation without installing any software, only Adobe Flash Player is needed.
On the bright side, I tried Zoom today and it worked out of the box! Didn’t try sharing my desktop, but voice, video and watching other’s desktop worked perfect.
Thanks for this article, super helpful!