How to cut video meeting costs (Zoom, Teams and Google Meet)

Video meetings are one of the easiest places to find duplicate spend. Plenty of companies pay for Zoom seats on top of a Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace subscription that already includes Teams or Meet. Nobody decides to pay twice. It happens because Zoom was bought first, everyone got used to it, and the suite came later.

This post covers what Zoom costs per seat, what the suites already include, and how to cut the overlap without a revolt. All prices were checked on the vendors' own pricing pages on 15 October 2026.

What Zoom costs

From Zoom's pricing page:

Pro removes the 40-minute limit (meetings can run up to 30 hours), and adds unlimited AI meeting summaries and 10 GB of cloud storage per user. Business adds SSO, managed domains, device management and unlimited whiteboards. Enterprise adds Zoom Phone, Rooms and workspace reservation.

A 40-person company on Business with annual billing pays $18.33 × 40 × 12, about $8,800 a year.

What you may already be paying for

Microsoft Teams

From Microsoft's Teams comparison page, with an annual commitment:

If your company is on Microsoft 365 Business Basic or Standard with Teams, every employee already has a meeting tool that matches Zoom Business on participants and length. Microsoft also sells versions of those plans without Teams, so check which one you have. Teams Essentials on its own costs $4.00, against $14.16 for Zoom Pro on annual billing.

Google Meet

Every Google Workspace plan includes Meet. Google lists these limits:

If you're on Business Standard or above, Meet covers what most internal teams use Zoom for: long meetings, recordings and a few hundred participants. Starter can't record to Drive, which is often the one gap that keeps people on Zoom.

Find the overlap

Pull two lists: your Zoom licensed users, and your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace users. Then sort the Zoom users into three groups:

• Internal-only meeters. Most employees only meet with coworkers. The suite tool covers them, so these seats can go first.
• External-facing roles. Sales, support and recruiting meet customers and candidates, who may expect a Zoom link. Keep these seats for now.
• Heavy features. Webinars, Zoom Phone, Rooms hardware or big all-hands. These are real reasons to keep Zoom, but usually for a handful of people, not the whole company.

Zoom's admin dashboard shows meetings hosted per user. A user who hosted nothing in the last 90 days doesn't need a paid license. The free Basic plan still lets them join other people's meetings.

Cut without a revolt

1. Make the suite tool the default in calendar invites, so new meetings use it without anyone deciding to switch
2. Downgrade users who host no meetings to Zoom Basic at renewal
3. Keep paid Zoom seats for external-facing teams and anyone running webinars
4. Before your Zoom renewal, ask for a price that reflects the smaller seat count, and for removal of auto-renewal

If you stay on Zoom, the suite you already pay for is leverage. "We already have Teams for everyone" is a credible reason to ask for a discount, because it's true. For the full renewal playbook, see how to negotiate a SaaS renewal.

Get a competing bid

See what companies post for Zoom on the Zoom vendor page. If you pay for Zoom and want to see what sellers would charge for the features your team uses, post an RFP. It's free, and you can post anonymously.