Zoom

Zoom became a mainstream business tool during 2020 and has since expanded into a broader workplace platform covering video meetings, team chat, VoIP phone, webinars, and AI-assisted meeting summaries. The company is listed on Nasdaq and serves customers ranging from individual freelancers to large enterprise deployments. The product’s core advantage is reliability and ecosystem breadth. Zoom meetings consistently perform well on unstable connections, and the platform integrates with most major business tools including Salesforce, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack. AI Companion, which generates meeting summaries and action items, is included at no extra cost on all paid plans — a meaningful differentiator given that Microsoft charges separately for Teams Copilot. The Pro plan at $13.33 per user per month covers unlimited meeting length for up to 100 participants, which is sufficient for most small teams. Business adds SSO, managed domains, and capacity for up to 300 participants. Where Zoom creates friction is pricing transparency. The base per-seat cost looks low until you add phone, webinars, rooms, and large meeting capacity — at which point the bill can quietly double. Roughly half of enterprise Zoom licenses go unused according to third-party license management data, which means many organizations overspend relative to actual usage. Price volatility is also worth noting: Zoom raised prices 45% in July 2025 and then reduced them in February 2026. Renewal pricing has surprised some customers with increases of 14 to 51 percent. Zoom is well suited to teams that primarily need video meetings at scale. Organizations that also need VoIP and webinar capability should calculate the bundled cost before committing, as add-on fees accumulate quickly.