Top 7 Video Conferencing Software for Small Business

We mentioned the screen sharing and HD video and voice quality, but there’s also a voice enhancement function that reduces background noise (both for those who join through the app or dial in using a phone).

Dialpad’s also designed a thoughtful post-meeting experience, with a post-call summary that automatically gets emailed to participants. (It’s also where you’ll find the meeting recording, transcript, and follow-up action items.)

Not that you had to take all those notes yourself! Dialpad Ai not only acts as your personal AI meeting assistant for note-taking and to-dos, but can also do other things like detect customer sentiment on phone calls by using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to pick up on keywords and phrases (if you’re using the cloud contact center product).

Dialpad’s pricing is simple and very affordable for businesses. The free version gives small businesses plenty of features, including unlimited 45-minute meetings (up to 10 participants), HD quality, screen sharing, an integration with Salesforce (which is the CRM of choice for most businesses), and unlimited call recordings.

The Standard tier costs $15 per host per month, has up to 100 participants, and gives you call transcriptions and automated post-call notes.

2. FreeConferenceCall

If you’re looking for a completely free video conferencing service, FreeConferenceCall gives you most basic features—including call recording, screen sharing, and calendar integrations. It’s easy enough to use, with sign-up only taking a few seconds.

The free video conferencing plan lets you host audio or video meetings with up to 1,000 participants, and you can choose to add a virtual phone plan for toll-free and international calling, plus add-ons like customization and extra cloud storage space.

Although the main features are offered for free, FreeConferenceCall operates on a “pay what you can” scheme where the company asks for donations for the service—but the choice of whether to be a freeloader or a philanthropist is entirely up to you.

If you use the free plan, you and your participants do have to put up with ads on calls and invitations.

FreeConferenceCall does have a paid plan called StartMeeting (which seems like a totally different company, but isn’t). This costs $9.95 per month (up to 10 users), or you can contact them for customized enterprise-level packages.

3. Lifesize

Lifesize is a video conferencing platform whose flagship feature is 4K video conferencing, making it an option for businesses who hold a lot of virtual meetings with high-value clients.

Standard features like call recording, screen sharing, and one-click meetings are included in the free plan. The Lifesize app can be used on mobile and desktop devices with a simple download, and the layout is easy to navigate. You also get useful integrations with third-party programs such as Microsoft Teams and Slack.

The downsides are that it doesn’t have end-to-end encryption, and doesn’t manage its own data centers, which could be a concern for some businesses. And the 99.9% uptime SLA is only provided to customers who buy the Extreme Support package.

The free plan offers meetings of 40 minutes for up to 10 team members, plus online support and access to the desktop and mobile apps.

If you need to upgrade, the Standard plan costs $12.50 per host per month, which increases capacity to 100 participants and meeting length to unlimited duration. Single sign-on (SSO) support and a centralized management console are included.

The Plus plan costs $14.95 per host per month (minimum 10 hosts), and covers meetings of up to 300 participants, as well as Microsoft 365 integration, real-time insights, and cloud storage for meeting recordings. A customized Enterprise package is also available.

4. Google Meet

Previously known as Google Hangouts Meet, this is an easy-to-use service that’s free for up to 100 participants and unlimited meetings (with a Google account). It’s designed to work in the Google Chrome browser, and has mobile apps available for iOS and Android.

Google Meet comes with unlimited Google Drive storage if you have five or more users, and can be coupled with Google Voice to give you a basic cloud phone option. As well as integrations with other apps, tech-savvy types can also build their own custom app using Apps Script.

However, the service doesn’t provide cloud recording or storage unless you pay, and it doesn’t feature business SMS or secure online fax options. The features you’ll get depend on which version of Workspace or G Suite you have. If you want up to 150 meeting participants, you can pay $8 per month for Workspace Essentials, or contact Google to customize an Enterprise plan.

5. AnyMeeting

AnyMeeting offers an easy-to-use interface and a handful of features, including screen annotations in the whiteboard function, an AI-powered smart assistant for meeting transcriptions, and unlimited recording, storage, and sharing capabilities.

The free tier limits you to only four meeting participants, though it does support a phone conference bridge, desktop and mobile apps, and custom meeting URLs. You also get a choice of video layouts and virtual backgrounds, plus guaranteed 99.999% uptime SLA.

Unlike Dialpad, AnyMeeting doesn’t have end-to-end encryption of ongoing calls, which could raise privacy and security concerns, but they have other security settings like automatic or manual locking of meetings, the option to set a password for the meeting, and the removal of participants if necessary.

The paid tiers will get you integrations with popular office tools including Outlook, Workspace, and Slack. These start at $9.99 per user per month for the Lite version, which enables up to 10 participants but not many more features than the free version.

It’s $12.99 per user per month for the Pro version, which gives you up to 100 participants, the full suite of meeting and collaboration tools, and 24/7 support. You can also add custom branding to meetings with a company logo and personalized background.

Finally, the Enterprise tier offers you all the bells and whistles for $17.99 per user per month, including up to 200 web participants, meeting transcripts, and international dial-in.

6. Whereby

The first thing to note about Whereby is that it’s a Norwegian company, so it operates under the notoriously strict Norwegian privacy laws. This is good for businesses with particular concerns about security, and means you can reassure your customers that their data is safe.

There’s a free version with screen sharing, chat, emojis, and moderator controls. You can host meetings with up to 100 participants for up to 45 minutes, and unlimited one-on-one meetings. The Pro tier costs $6.99 per license per month, or it’s $9.99 for the Business version which includes priority support. Both paid tiers accommodate up to 100 participants.

Whereby allows you to lock your rooms, but new guests can “knock” and have their entry approved by the meeting administrator. In the paid tiers, you can choose your own personalized URL and use the same one for every meeting, while meetings can be recorded and saved.

Since the entire platform is web-based, you only need a URL to access a meeting—no need to download anything or even create an account. It’s suitable for small team meetings and for inviting people who are not especially tech-savvy.

7. Zoom

You’ve probably heard of Zoom. It became popular as a free video chat service that gives small companies the basic conferencing tools they need and for the most part that hasn’t changed.

Free Zoom meetings can accommodate up to 100 participants for 40 minutes, and include functions like background noise suppression, screen sharing, and recording—and like with Dialpad, you can schedule meetings from Outlook, Gmail, or iCal.

You’ll also get access to reactions, polls, hand raising, and filters (though it might be best to leave the filters alone during formal meetings—we’ve all seen the guy who turned himself into a cat and got stuck that way).

Zoom doesn’t let you send team messages, share files, or track tasks, so you’ll need to use other apps alongside it—and you can’t add a meeting agenda to the invite from the app itself. (Learn more about the best Zoom alternatives.)

Larger organizations will probably want to upgrade to a paid tier, but it’s quite a big leap to $149.90 per year for the Pro version, $199.90 for Business, or $240 for Enterprise.

What’s the best video conferencing for your small business?

For small businesses that have to communicate with anyone beyond their immediate vicinity, video conferencing is a must.

Not only can video conferencing save you money by reducing the need for travel and enabling the transition to remote working (which improves everyone’s work-life balance), it also helps you reduce back-and-forths over email and broaden your client base much more easily.

In order to take full advantage of video conferencing, you need to pick the right solution. Beyond just allowing you to meet face-to-face on video calls, you’ll want a platform that’s robust and versatile—so that you can streamline your tools and not buy so many separate apps.

If you have an IT person or team, ask for their input, especially around security—and if you don’t, then it’s time to take as many free trials for a test drive as you can.