Connecting and collaborating with employees in a more remote space is more important now than ever with the recent pandemic. Finding the right conference call service can make or break the success of your business during the increase of remote work.
Fortunately, after reviewing dozens of conference call services, we found that GoToMeeting is one of the more affordable and cohesive products on the market today. GoToMeeting stacks up well against other conference call services, coming in at number two on our top list.
With a focus on remote collaboration, GoToMeeting offers many robust features for conference calls, with added video and mobile conferencing features that are suitable for any type of business.
Let’s take an in-depth look into GoToMeeting, with a focus on its pros and cons and product offerings—while comparing it to other conference call services that are on the market today.
Compare GoToMeeting to The Best Conference Call Services
Compared to the best conference call services on the market, GoToMeeting comes in at number two on our top list as best for keeping your remote team cohesive. We found that this software is a great alternative for beginners, as you can get set up in just a few clicks. It has a super-intuitive interface that is easy to navigate, and users can schedule and manage one-click meetings on any device, too.
For our top list, we spent hours researching and comparing conference call services until we eventually narrowed it down to the top seven best conference call services. You can see all of our top picks and compare them for yourself to make it easier to find the most suitable call service for you.
GoToMeeting: The Good and The Bad
There are pros and cons to every software out there, and it’s crucial to weigh these up against your business needs before committing to a conference call service. Here’s an in-depth look into the good and the bad of GoToMeeting.
The Good
Easy To Use: The great thing about the GoToMeeting software is that it’s incredibly easy to use. You can set up most calls and video conferencing with one click, where you can invite up to 250 participants and host unlimited meetings. To make it even easier, it allows you to screen share and take notes during the meeting for added convenience.
For anyone using the Business or Enterprise plans, users get access to the slide to PDF feature, which captures multiple sets of presentations. You also get the smart assistant tool, which uses machine learning to detect action items and highlights in a meeting.
Users will also benefit from GoToMeeting’s extensive mobile features, which we will discuss a little later on in this review. But to keep it simple, you can experience the same level of ease with the mobile app that you do on your desktop.
Affordable Pricing: Compared to other top-tier conference call services on the market, GoToMeeting exceeds its pricing plans by a long shot with its affordability. Starting at $12 per month, per organizer, it’s incredibly affordable. Most software starts at the $20 mark, with a few exceptions like Vast Conference.
Another great aspect of the price is that GoToMeeting offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, so you don’t need to worry about being charged for anything. We will delve deeper into pricing later on in this review.
Unlimited Recording for Meetings: For the Business and Enterprise plans, all users get access to unlimited recordings for all call and video meetings. Some conference call services don’t even have the option to record meetings, so for GoToMeeting to offer it in an unlimited capacity is ideal.
Recording your meetings is important for various reasons, and it’s a feature to look out for before working with any conference call service. GoToMeeting lets you record the entire duration of your meeting with one click and stores it in the Cloud for later reference.
Not only that, but GoToMeeting allows you to share the recording with anyone on your team so they can review meeting specifics without wasting time.
Flexible Features: The last significant thing about GoToMeeting is that it has very flexible features. Whether you’re on a conference call or video meeting, this software has many helpful tools that you can utilize effectively.
Some of these features include:
- Built-in audio
- Toll-free conferencing
- Personal meeting room
- Drawing tools for screen sharing
- Hand over control
- Virtual whiteboard
You can choose whether or not you want to utilize these features at no extra cost to you or your business—making GoToMeeting a very flexible software that doesn’t force its users to add plugins or tools for a more advanced experience.
The Bad
Must Download Software to Join Meetings: Unfortunately, GoToMeeting doesn’t work well in browser windows. . Many users have found that to invite outside participants to a conference call or video meeting, they need to download the GoToMeeting software to join in the first place.
This function is not ideal for many, as downloading the software is very timely and can make people late to meetings or slow their system down. The worst-case scenario would be having to delay the meeting entirely, which is not what any remote business needs.
Although meetings are incredibly easy to join for participants within an organization that already uses GoToMeeting, it’s important for your chosen conference call service to offer a seamless invitation and joining ability for outside participants, which GoToMeeting lacks in this case.
Transcripts are English-Only: Not all businesses need transcripts after a conference call or meeting, but it’s a helpful feature to have access to for reference purposes. Even though GoToMeeting offers transcripts with its smart assistant AI, it only offers transcripts in English.
This feature isn’t helpful or inclusive for employees or companies who are multilingual or where English isn’t their first language. And although this feature isn’t a dealbreaker for most, it shows a lack of inclusivity on GoToMeeting’s behalf.
GoToMeeting Pricing and Options
Pricing is an important factor of any conference call service, and it varies depending on how extensive the product is. As stated earlier, GoToMeeting is one of the more affordable options on our top list, with FreeConferenceCall.com and Vast Conference coming out on top.
Let’s take an in-depth look into each GoToMeeting pricing tier and what each one offers:
GoToMeeting Pricing
GoToMeeting offers three different pricing plans for individual business needs. You can permanently save up to 16% if you buy an annual plan.
Professional Plan:
The Professional plan is $12 per month per organizer, billed at $144 per year.
The Professional plan is GoToMeeting’s tier-one plan that covers the more basic aspects of conference call services. This plan would be suitable for small startups or remote teams, as the plan caps users at 150 participants for each meeting.
Fortunately, it is still quite extensive for a tier-one plan, as you get access to a bulk of the video meeting and mobile features. You also get all of the security, enhanced audio, workflow integrations, and the GoToSuite add-on features with this plan, which is incredible value for money.
Most businesses would benefit from the sheer amount of features you receive under this plan for the price.
Business Plan:
Pricing for the Business plan is $16 per month per organizer, billed at $192 per year.
Similar to the Professional plan, with the GoToMeeting Business plan, you get access to the bulk of the video meeting features, account management features, and up to 250 participants.
However, you do get that little bit extra at this price point, including unlimited cloud recording, transcription, smart assistant, keyboard and mouse sharing, and mobile cloud recording.
There’s not too much of a difference between the first two plans. But, we think the Business plan caters towards a larger team looking for more advanced and collaborative tools in video meetings.
Enterprise Plan:
The Enterprise Plan is GoToMeeting’s most expensive and advanced pricing tier, but it offers up to 3,000 participants.
This jump in participant size between the Professional plan and the Enterprise plan is quite large. We imagine this tier would be excellent for larger companies or enterprises, as the name suggests.
If you’re interested in this plan, contact GoToMeeting for a quote.
GoToMeeting Offerings
GoToMeeting offers a few products that relate to conference call services, which gives a variety of options for different user needs. Here is an in-depth look at some of the different products GoToMeeting offers as a conference call service:
GoToTraining
If you run a remote business, then you know how important training solutions are. Luckily for you, GoToMeeting offers an easy-to-use product known as GoToTraining—that has over 700,000 annual training sessions and over 3 million annual attendees to date.
GoToTraining is a seamless solution that will help you train employees in a remote setting. As the number one online training software on the market, GoToTraining will increase productivity and engage your learners virtually.
In fact, 60% of organizations found more than a 26% increase in productivity with GoToTraining, making it one of the best software extensions.
With GoToTraining, users can expect to involve their employees with in-session collaborations and breakout sessions for smaller groups. You also get access to detailed analytics that will help you keep track of session attendance, test results, and evaluations.
You get access to many robust training features when you use GoToTraining, including:
- Record your training
- Streamline registration
- Collaborate and share effortlessly
- Distribute course materials
- Mobile training
GoToTraining offers three pricing plans, including:
- Starter: $109 per month per organizer, billed at $1,308 per year with 25 attendees
- Pro: $159 per month per organizer, billed at $1,908 per year with 50 attendees
- Plus: $314 per month per organizer, billed at $3,768 per year with 200 attendees
These plans are expensive, so we recommend you weigh up your options with different training solutions.
Mobile Conferencing
We briefly touched base on GoToMeeting’s extensive mobile experience earlier on in this review, so now let’s dive deep into its mobile conferencing and what it can mean for you and your team.
GoToMeeting’s mobile conferencing is the perfect alternative feature for remote work. It’s an excellent way to remain productive even when you are on the move, making it easy to stay on top of your day-to-day business tasks.
GoToMeeting’s mobile conferencing application gives you and your team the freedom to connect from anywhere, at any time.
With the mobile app, there is no need to use a desktop or laptop in any circumstance, as you have access to the most uncomplicated and accessible features the app offers. You can join meetings with the click of a button and host or schedule meetings on your mobile, too.
To make it easier, GoToMeeting offers easy-to-follow tutorials and multi-channel user support to make sure things run smoothly.
You will benefit from extensive mobile features, including:
- Optional toll-free numbers in over 50 countries
- Intuitive controls
- Meeting reminder alerts
- Advanced video options
- Individual and group chat
- Reservation calls
- Free call recording
- Automatic bandwidth adjustment
The GoToMeeting mobile app doesn’t cost any extra, although you will need a subscription to start meetings.
The mobile app is available for iOS, Windows, and Android devices and is available to download during the 14-day free trial.
GoToWebinar
Similar to the training solution, the GoToWebinar software is a separate product that GoToMeeting offers its users for advanced virtual events.
Not all businesses and organizations need fancy webinar software to host virtual events, as some don’t need to host events at all. However, for those that do need this capability, the GoToWebinar software is an excellent option.
With over 2.7 million events hosted each year, the GoToWebinar software has become a world-leading product. Whether you’re a beginner or veteran at setting up and hosting professional webinars, GoToWebinar will put your mind at ease.
GoToWebinar offers everything you need to host a professional event like quick and easy virtual event management, data on attendees and performance, videos and polls to boost engagement, plus automatic email invitations, confirmations, and reminders.
GoToWebinar has three pricing plans for different user needs, including:
- Lite: $49 per month per organizer, billed at $588 per year with 250 participants
- Standard: $99 per month per organizer, billed at $1,188 per year with 500 participants
- Pro: $199 per month per organizer, billed at $2,388 per year with 1,000 participants
- Enterprise: $399 per month per organizer, billed at $4,788 per year with 3,000 participants
Larger companies would benefit the most from the Pro or Enterprise plan, as their events would most likely have more participants.
Comparing the Best Conference Call Services
You can find more of an in-depth analysis of our top seven best conference call services by reading our top list.
- Nextiva – Best conference call service for most
- RingCentral – Best standalone conferencing solution
- GoToMeeting – Best for keeping your remote team cohesive
- Grasshopper – Best mobile virtual phone system
- ClickMeeting – Best for webinars and conference calls
- Zoom – Best for hosting video conference calls
- Vast Conference – Best for instant conference calls
- FreeConferenceCall.com – Best free conference call service
Overall, GoToMeeting is a great conference call service for most remote business owners. It’s affordable, starting at $12 per month, and it offers extensive products like mobile conferencing and training solutions. With flexible features and an intuitive interface, anyone using GoToMeeting is sure to improve their business communication and conferencing.
