Video calling tools compared: Zoom, Teams and Google Meet

A few years ago most people had never heard of Zoom. Now it feels strange to think of a working week without at least one video call. The tools have matured, the market has settled, and most people have landed on one of three options: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet. The question is which one actually suits you, and whether you are paying for something you do not need.

They all do the same basic thing. You can join a call, see the people on it, share your screen, and record the conversation. The differences come in the details, and those details matter more depending on whether you are a freelancer, a small business, or someone trying to stay in touch with family. Choosing the wrong one is not a disaster, but it can mean unnecessary cost or a slightly awkward experience every time you invite someone who is not already in your world.

The free tiers are where the comparison usefully begins, because most people want to know what they can get without paying anything. Google Meet has probably the most generous free offering at the moment. Calls can include up to 100 participants and run for up to 60 minutes, and crucially there is no account required for guests. It runs entirely in a browser, which means no download is needed for anyone joining your call. If you have a Google account, which most people do through Gmail alone, you are effectively already set up. The Meet link appears automatically in any Google Calendar invite you send.

Zoom’s free tier allows meetings with up to 100 participants but caps them at 40 minutes. That limit does not apply to one-to-one calls, which remain unlimited. For many users this works fine, but if your team calls regularly stretch past half an hour you either get cut off or you start thinking about a paid plan. Zoom used to waive the 40-minute limit on certain occasions, but that is not something to rely on when you have clients on the line.

Microsoft Teams has a free version too, but it is best understood as a companion to the Microsoft 365 ecosystem rather than a standalone video tool. If your business already runs on Outlook, SharePoint and OneDrive, Teams integrates into all of that seamlessly. If it does not, the free version has a way of quietly suggesting you would have a better time if you bought a subscription. That is not necessarily wrong, but it is worth being aware of.

When it comes to who each tool actually suits, the patterns are fairly clear. Zoom works best when your priority is simplicity and reliability for external calls. Clients and contacts who have never met you do not need a Microsoft account or a Google login to join. They receive a link, they click it, and they are in. The join experience is one of Zoom’s genuine strengths, and it has only improved as the browser-based option has become widely available without requiring a full app download. For anyone doing regular calls with people outside their organisation, this frictionless entry point is worth a lot.

Teams makes most sense for internal team communication when your organisation is already using Microsoft 365. It is not purely a video calling tool: it is channels, file sharing, chat threads, and collaborative document editing all in one place. The video calling is almost incidental to the broader functionality. If you find yourself constantly switching between Outlook, Word, and a separate video platform, Teams almost certainly makes more sense. The cost is typically bundled into the Microsoft 365 Business plans that many UK businesses already pay for, which makes it effectively free if you are in that position.

Google Meet makes most sense for individuals and small teams that already live in Google Workspace. If you are coordinating via Gmail, using Google Calendar, and storing files in Drive, Meet slots in without any friction at all. For sole traders and small agencies working entirely in the Google ecosystem, it genuinely is the path of least resistance. There is nothing to configure. The call link is already there when you need it.

On paid plans, the decision is clearer than the free tier comparison suggests. For Zoom, the Pro plan removes the 40-minute cap and adds cloud recording, longer meeting durations, and better admin controls. At around £11.99 per user per month at current UK pricing, it is worth it if your work depends on video calls and you regularly need calls that run long. If you mostly do quick one-to-one check-ins or short internal stand-ups, the free tier may be enough indefinitely.

Teams paid plans are almost always purchased as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription rather than standalone. The Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan runs at £4.60 per user per month and includes Teams alongside Exchange, SharePoint and OneDrive. For most small UK businesses this represents good value, particularly if you are currently paying for any of those tools separately. The maths usually favours the bundle.

Google Workspace starts at £5.20 per user per month and similarly bundles Meet with the full suite of Google tools. The free Meet experience is good enough for many users that the paid plan is really about the wider Workspace benefits rather than Meet specifically. If you need more storage or more control over your organisation’s accounts, that is what you are buying.

If you had to pick one based purely on fit, the honest answer is this. A sole trader or freelancer doing occasional client calls does not need to pay for anything: Google Meet handles this well for free. A small business running on Microsoft 365 should simply use Teams, because it is already in the subscription and the integration with other tools is genuinely useful. Someone running a lot of external calls with contacts from different organisations, particularly if professionalism and reliability matter, will find Zoom’s paid plan worth the money.

The tools have converged significantly on core call quality. None of them is dramatically better than the others in terms of how a call actually sounds and looks on a decent connection. The real decision is about your broader ecosystem and how you work, not about which platform has better virtual backgrounds or the most creative reactions. Pick the one that fits where your other tools already live, and you will spend far less time fiddling with settings and far more time actually talking to people.

One practical note that often gets missed: if you work with a mix of people across different organisations and different devices, Zoom still has the strongest cross-platform reputation and the least guest friction. That advantage has narrowed over the years as Teams and Meet have improved their browser experiences, but it remains real enough to matter when you have a client on an unfamiliar device and need the call to start without a ten-minute troubleshooting session first.