If you want to experiment with something other than Skype for video conferencing free, this free option will be your best choice.As a direct competitor to Skype, Google Hangouts is a free online video chat tool launched by Google, which offers free video conferencing services in the U.S. Getting Started on PC and Mac Follow About Zoom Zoom unifies cloud video conferencing, simple online meetings, group messaging, and a software-defined conference room solution into one easy-to-use platform.

What Is Video Conferencing?

Video conferencing has entirely permeated the fabric of business. Where video conferencing apps were once just used by gamers, telecommuters now regularly use video conferencing to keep in touch with colleagues at the office or participate in collaborative meetings with colleagues in remote branch offices. Other use cases include the ability to film webinars and other events in order to build marketing or training collateral. Different video conferencing projects might require different hardware, but the back-end service providers will remain similar.

Additionally, video conferencing services usually offer more than just face-to-face interactions. Best-in-class video conferencing services let users share their screens, remotely access one another's desktops, chat via text, exchange files, communicate via digital whiteboards, and even broadcast conferences to large groups of passive viewers. Some are part of business-geared Voice-over-IP (VoIP) packages, which allows for dynamically changing voice calls to video calls and shared meetings at the touch of a button without establishing new connections.

Aside from shared meetings, video conferencing is also an efficient way of getting other business tasks done, whether that means addressing customers' support questions live, interacting with customers in real time webinars or other marketing events, and even reaching out to partners. Transparency Market Research forecasts the global video conferencing market to be worth $8,958.7 million by 2025 and grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.3 percent between 2017 and 2025.

For IT workers, in particular, telecommuting is booming. According to a report by FlexJobs, 3.9 million employees from the United States work from home at least half of the time. This is an increase of 115 percent from 2005. In some cases, this is the only visible interaction that employees will get with their employers. Especially for those in influential positions, being able to be seen can often mean the difference between being understood or not.

Cut Costs By Using Video Conferencing

Businesses are moving further apart. That is, many small to midsize businesses (SMBs) are becoming spread out across many geographic locations, which brings complex challenges for communication, even for employees that work in-house. Add customers and partners to the mix, and it's difficult to think about talking to all of these folks without extensive travel, which brings restrictive costs. This is where video conferencing can deliver a serious boost to your company's bottom line.

Instead of spending half your life in airport lines, bring life to your meetings by using a video conferencing service. This way, the presenter is not just a voice on the phone but an on-screen presence who is able to see and interact with other attendees, share presentations, and more. For collaborative meetings, the host can sketch out ideas on an online whiteboard and invite participants to join in. Some video conferencing services let presenters pass control to another participant who can continue the meeting without interruption. Others let hosts deny access to latecomers to further avoid disruption.

Our Editors' Choice video conferencing service for general video conferencing is Cisco WebEx Meetings, and our Editors' Choice video conferencing service for webinars and presentations is ClickMeeting—both robust products that make video meetings (almost) fun for your staff.

Video Conferencing Package Pricing

As with all software services, pricing and packages are an important consideration when it comes to video conferencing. The prices quoted and the product descriptions in this review roundup are typically for the lowest level of service per user per month. (For more pricing information, click through to the individual reviews.) All but one of the video conferencing services tested offers free trials (most are for 30 days) and many don't require a credit card on file. This means you don't have to worry about being charged automatically when the trial ends.

Video Conferencing App For Mac

For example, join.me offers a free plan with limited features, which is good for small or even single-employee companies. Many services are scalable depending on the number of hosts and attendees you need. I recommend trying a few of our top-rated video conferencing services before committing to a particular one; try out some of the features to figure out what you really need and what's overkill.

Another major consideration is whether or not the service is priced to scale based on host or attendee. Those that are priced per host tend to do better for webinar-type environments while those priced per attendee tend to be more attractively priced for collaborative-style engagements where anyone could be a host. Microsoft Teams, for instance, is a sunk cost if you are already using Microsoft Office 365, so it is a very attractive option. However, if you routinely conduct webinars, then ClickMeeting, which is priced per host, is an excellent route to take.

Ease of Use and Meeting Features

Once you have found packages in your price range, the most important consideration is ease of use. Obviously, if the user interface (UI) is difficult for you and your colleagues to navigate and use, then it's going to cause delays in meeting start times, which will frustrate everyone. For each review, I discuss the ease of signing up, creating a meeting, inviting participants, and setting up audio and video controls. I also look at the user experience (UX) from the meeting invitees' point of view, which can make or break a meeting.

I test each service's prominent features, but it's up to you to decide whether or not you need dial-in numbers, VoIP, or both options for your audio, and whether or not you need video calls in addition to screen sharing. Some services offer both teleconferencing with dial-in numbers (local or toll-free) and VoIP calling, while some offer just one or the other. A few offer international dial-in numbers. All of the products reviewed offer video calls via webcam.

In all of these reviews, I hosted and joined meetings to test the experience of both registered and non-registered users. I outline how easy is to join a meeting, including whether or not a participant needs to download software before joining an online meeting (which could cause a delay). In this case, it's important to communicate with employees about hardware compatibility and preferred browser. Other services simply require that attendees enter a code to access the meeting.

Our reviews also cover the host's admin features. The best services let you set up different types of meetings, such as a lecture-style meeting in which all participants are muted, or a discussion or Q&A mode in which presenters can mute and unmute participants as needed or let all participants speak. If you have ever been distracted by the sound of someone typing or a barking dog in the background, then you'll appreciate these controls. Other options include enabling and disabling webcams, locking latecomers out of a meeting, creating a waiting room while preparing for the meeting, and allowing break-out sessions.

For presentations, screen sharing is important as are granular options such as the ability to share just one application [Microsoft PowerPoint, for example], document, or image or share your entire desktop. Most of the video conferencing services in this roundup also offer a whiteboard tool, which you can use to sketch out ideas or take notes during the meeting for everyone to see. You also need to consider what the participants are able to do, such as share their screen, enable their webcam, sketch on a shared whiteboard, and even take over the presentation. Think about

Video Conferencing Tool For Mac