If you relate to the “This meeting could have easily been an email” quote, then Loom is for you. Of course, in this case, we’ll swap the email for a recording, but the expression still stands true.
Loom is a video recording solution that lets you record your screen and camera to communicate with team members without wasting time on unproductive meetings. Essentially, with Loom, you’ll never have to sit through another meeting that takes way longer than a quick, straightforward recording.
In this Loom review, we’ll go over the video recording tool’s extensive feature set, covering the pros & cons and whether it’s worth the buck it’s asking. Since there are quite a few Loom alternatives in the market, we will also explore some of its competitors. Finally, we’ll give our deciding vote and rating so you can see if it’s the right choice for you or your team. Let’s roll.
Quick Loom Overview
Right before we dive into the juicy details of this Loom review, let’s run a quick overview of the company for the ones who just found out about Loom.
According to the company website and additional digging, Loom was founded back in 2015 and quickly caught the eyes of investors. The company has now raised over $203M in funding and holds a dedicated user base of 14 million people across 200K companies. With millions of people switching to remote work, it’s not surprising that a whopping 10 million of Loom’s users came during the pandemic.
So What is Loom, in a Nutshell?
In as little as a few clicks, Loom allows you to record your entire desktop or a specific screen while your talking head is doing the presentation. If you’re camera-shy, you can turn off the webcam and let your avatar do the job. Or you can skip the whole thing entirely and do regular screencasting. While presenting, you or your avatar will appear in the corner in a small circle, which definitely adds a nice touch to the recording.
When you’re done recording, you can instantly share the video with anyone. The recipient of the link doesn’t even have to be a Loom user to access the video recording.
How Does Loom Work?
There are two ways you can start using Loom – by downloading the Loom Chrome extension or Loom app for your desktop. There is also a Loom app available on Android and iOS devices to instantly record and share videos straight from your phone.
Once you have the software set up, you can start recording with a click. After you’re done, a Loom tab will open in your browser where you’ll be able to see your Loom recording and add the final touches.
Loom lets you do basic editing such as trimming, changing the video thumbnail, and adding a call-to-action button with a link. You can also play around with the settings to turn on/off emojis, commenting, downloading, and similar actions.
Pro tip for this Loom review: Use the editor to cut off the empty parts from the video or parts where you made a mistake. There’s no need to start all over again. It’s that easy.
To access all your previous recordings simply log into your account and go to your Personal Library in the dashboard. If you need to categorize and organize your videos, you can also create folders. This dashboard is also where you can find your own recordings as well as Loom recordings shared with you.
No longer in need of a particular Loom video? Archive it. The interface and functionality are straightforward and efficient.
How to Use Loom Chrome Extension
We have tried and tested Loom many times before writing this comprehensive Loom review, and we definitely recommend going with the Loom Chrome extension because it’s extremely easy to access. Need to quickly record a mini tutorial for a colleague? Click on the extension and start recording in less than 2 seconds.
Now that the basics are covered, let’s get into the more technical parts of this Loom review – the pricing, pros and cons, some use cases, and alternatives.
Is Loom safe?
This wouldn’t be a proper Loom review if we didn’t cover one of the most frequently asked questions about any cloud-based product. Is Loom safe? The answer is, in the founders’ words, “Loom is committed to the security of our customers and their data… Loom undergoes periodic penetration testing, is designed to be GDPR-compliant and encrypts data at rest and in-transit.”
How much is Loom?
As opposed to many productivity and remote-work tools that break the bank and consist of many variations, Loom pricing is fairly simple. It only has 3 main plans – starter, business, enterprise, and a separate one for teachers in the scope of their dedicated Loom educational plan. Spoiler alert: the education plan is free. Now let’s explore all of the plans in our Loom review so get a better understanding on which one is the right choice for you.
Loom Pricing: Starter plan, free of charge
The starter plan is the Crown Jewel of Loom. It’s completely free and all you need to do is sign up and download the free Loom Chrome extension or the Loom app for desktop.
The Starter plan is for anyone who needs to record quick video messages and doesn’t require the advanced feature set. The plan includes up to 50 Creators Lite accounts in one workspace, who in turn get to record up to 25 videos each. As we already mentioned, this plan is for quick messages, so you have a 5-minute limit on each recording.
Key features of the starter plan according to the company website include:
Screen recording & cam bubble
Instant editing
Unlimited transcriptions
Privacy controls
Viewer insights
If you’re using Loom for personal purposes or quick instructions, the Starter plan should mostly cover your needs. However, if you’re looking into creating longer recordings, for example, webinars or professional video instructions, you might want to upgrade to a paid plan.
Loom Pricing: Business plan, $8/mo (if paid annually) or $10/mo (if paid monthly)
Loom Business is ideal for work purposes as it costs as little as $8 per month. Unlike many tools that give you a limited number of users per workspace, Loom lets you have unlimited creators in one account by charging per user. Moreover, this Loom subscription comes with unlimited video recordings and without time restrictions.
Key features of the Business plan include:
Everything in Starter, plus
Custom branding
Engagement insights
Embed links in videos
Password-protected videos
Video uploads
That’s right, password-protected videos. While one of the best features of Loom is the ease of sharing recording links that are accessible to anyone, there might be video recordings that require more privacy in viewership. So on top of custom branding and embedded links within the video, you can also protect the recording with a password so only the intended audience can access it.
If the Business plan sounds good to you so far but you aren’t ready to commit right away, Loom gives users a free 14-day trial to explore the Business features of the platform.
Loom Pricing: Enterprise (must contact sales)
As with most SaaS products, in order to get more pricing information about Loom’s Enterprise plan you need to directly contact their sales team.
The Enterprise plan expectedly includes all the features available in the Business plan and the following features:
Unlimited Creator accounts in your Workspace
Unlimited Viewer accounts
Unlimited videos and screenshots
Unlimited recording length
Single sign-on (SSO)
SCIM (Okta only – other Directory providers coming soon!)
Advanced privacy features
Personal Library visibility in the Engagement Insights CSV export
Ability to transfer Personal Library content to Admins
Salesforce integration
According to their website, the main difference is that Enterprise tier workspaces get more advanced security and administration features. However, unlike the free trial for Business, the Enterprise plan only provides a free trial period on a case-to-case basis.
If security is crucial for you, you might want to get in touch with the sales team and compare the pricing plans right away. If not, the Business plan looks like the best of both worlds here.
Loom Pricing: Education (free for teachers)
All of Loom’s premium features are available to teachers free of charge! Want to educate your students with amazing video recordings? Easy. Apply and get verified on the company’s website by using your school email. This is a great option for teachers looking to make their instructional videos, presentations, and other school materials better accessible to students.
This Loom review would be doomed without a proper comparison. In a world of a fast-paced shift towards remotely working teams that use video conferencing and online meetings on a daily basis, you gotta know what options are out there before committing. So we’ll briefly go over some Loom alternatives to ensure you make an informed decision.
Loom vs Vimeo
Let’s start with Vimeo, as it’s been around forever. Back in 2020, the company introduced the free screen recorder – Vimeo Record. Despite Zoom’s enormous growth during the pandemic, Vimeo’s CEO was positive that some teams needed asynchronous video messages more than scheduled meetings or long emails. She was right.
To get started with free Vimeo Record you’ll need to download the Chrome extension, as was the case with Loom. From then on you access the screen recorder from your extensions toolbar. Vimeo Record is also available on mobile devices.
The biggest advantage of Vimeo Record’s free version is by far its unlimited nature. That’s right. On the free plan, you get to record as many videos as you want, each up to 2 hours. That’s a huge step up from Loom’s 5-minute and 25 videos limitation.
This sounds good and all, if it weren’t for Vimeo’s persistent bugs and lacking customer support. We, like many users online, find that the support end of Vimeo is not as good as with Loom. So depending on your needs, you might want to stick with Loom if you’re an individual user. But if you plan to use Vimeo’s advanced features across your team, Vimeo Pro might be a great alternative for you.
Loom vs Soapbox
Next on our list of Loom alternatives is Soapbox, another great but very similar screen recording software. Soapbox was developed by Wistia, a leading video host, especially for B2B marketers.
Again, the setup process is the same – you download a free Chrome extension and get started on recording your screen. Soapbox is more tailored to the needs of marketing experts, helping users easily create high-quality video assets for product marketing, content marketing, and outreach.
As expected, Soapbox too has a freemium version available to individuals and businesses that are just starting out. You get unlimited video recordings on the free plan, just like with Vimeo Record, however, most of the fun features like downloading the videos, tracking engagement and conversions, come at a minimum of $300 per year for individuals or $420 per year for teams.
The main features missing in the free version include:
Downloading recorded videos for sharing, sending, or posting
Tracking engagement, conversions, and getting notifications
Customizing video pages with the company logo
Booking meetings straight from your videos
Soapbox has an incredibly easy-to-use interface and useful feature set, however for such a huge price difference compared to Loom, you might want to reconsider your decision. Do you need extensive analytics, built-in meeting scheduling, and customization? If yes, go for Soapbox. If those aren’t necessary to cover your basic needs and you’re looking to save a buck or two, you can’t go wrong with Loom.
Loom vs CloudApp
Our Loom review wouldn’t be complete without a final, third leading competitor – CloudApp.
CloudApp is a communications app that lets you create instant, shareable video recordings and GIFs.
The main features of CloudApp include:
Screen capture
Annotations
Screen recording
GIF maker
CTA button
Customization
Uploading and sharing files
Similar to Loom, it works with both a desktop app and a Chrome extension and has a freemium model as well. Here’s the catch though, the free version of CloudApp only lets you record 25 videos each lasting no longer than 1.5 minutes. That’s not nearly enough time to get a complicated message across if you’re aiming to use the free version to cut down on online meetings.
However, the tool comes with fun annotations to enhance the presentations and provides basic analytics in the free plan.
If you want to really get the best of CloudApp on your own, that is, without a team, you’re going to have to pay $9.95 per month. Whereas if you team up with 2 more people, the Team plan will cost each user only $8/mo, which is the same as Loom Business.
Loom Pros and Cons
If you skipped the entire Loom review and need a shortcut to the main upsides and downsides of Loom, you’re in the right section. We’ll briefly state all the reasons why Loom is a great tool and warn you of the things that could be improved. So, here’s your pros and cons chart for Loom:
Loom Pros
Loom Cons
Ease of use
Limited editing options
Instant shareable links
5 minute limit on the free version
Functional free version
A good internet connection required
Affordable pricing for paid plans
Mandatory updating when software updates roll
Available integrations
Loom: Final Thoughts and Rating
Our Loom review has reached its end. If you’ve made it all the way here – nice job. It’s time for our final two cents in helping you decide whether Loom is worth your time and investment.
Before we give our deciding votes let’s do a quick recap of what Loom is and what it does. Loom is a screen recording cloud-based application that allows you to record your screen while your bubble head appears in the corner. To keep it short, Loom is specifically useful for workplace communication, product marketing demos for clients, and educational purposes. We’re sure you can find tons of other creative use cases for Loom, but we chose to cover the basics.
The app is extremely easy to download and use, with an intuitive interface and valuable features packed in both the free version and the paid plans. Loom is available as a Chrome extension, desktop app, and mobile apps both for iOS and Android.
When it comes to competitors, there is no major feature Loom lacks. If anything, based on our Loom alternatives section of this article, it really is the better choice if you’re looking into the value-for-money side of the comparison. If you’re still unsure about the other players in the market, we suggest you check out the Loom pricing part of our Loom review as well as the alternatives to make sure you’ve made the right decision. We covered Loom vs Vimeo Record, Soapbox by Wistia, and CloudApp.
And lastly, you don’t have to take our word for it – test out Loom for yourself. Sign up for free and record a video – skip a meeting or two and see how you like it. If you are not satisfied, there are no loopholes in having a free Loom account at your disposal.
We hope this comprehensive Loom review was just that – comprehensive and, of course, useful. If you end up using Loom, we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.
Reviewed By Rem Darbinyan
Revolutionizing industries with AI, Rem Darbinyan is the CEO of ViralMango and an entrepreneur, AI expert, and influencer marketing strategist.
