Pros & Cons
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- Robust free tier
- Attendees can join calls without downloading any software
- Can easily switch devices between calls
- Impressive live transcriptions
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- Difficult to turn off default meeting recording behavior
RingCentral Video Specs
| 24/7 Phone Support | |
| Audio Recordings | |
| Blur Backgrounds | |
| Calendar Integration | |
| Cloud Storage | |
| Free Version Offered | |
| In-App Messaging | |
| In-App Private Chat | |
| Multi-Language Support | |
| Share Desktop | |
| Share Mouse / Keyboard | |
| Transcription | |
| Video Recordings | |
| Virtual Backgrounds | |
| Whiteboard Tools |
Much like the company's other communications products, RingCentral Video provides a feature-rich experience at a reasonable price. Top capabilities of the video conferencing service include highly accurate live transcription, useful in-meeting collaboration tools (such as a presentation mode and whiteboards), and seamless switching between devices during a meeting. Its user experience is also highly welcoming, and we appreciate the robust functionality of the free version. RingCentral Video falls just shy of our Editors' Choice winners for the category: Webex by Cisco goes even further with engagement features, and Zoom Workplace packs tons of productivity tools that extend well beyond video meetings.
Pricing and Subscription Plans
RingCentral's free Video Pro tier supports an unlimited number of video meetings (for up to 50 minutes and 100 participants). You also get in-meeting annotating, content sharing, and whiteboard features. This plan supports AI-generated meeting insights and transcriptions, too. For comparison, both Webex and Zoom restrict similar AI features to paid tiers.
(Credit: RingCentral/PCMag)The Video Pro+ tier ($10 per user per month, billed annually) adds end-to-end encryption for video meetings and messaging, as well as support for single sign-on (SSO). This plan also unlocks administrative capabilities such as advanced analytics, delegate scheduling, and user management. Meeting length and participant limits increase to 24 hours and 200 participants, respectively. It saves 100 hours or one year's worth of meeting recordings (up from five hours or 7 days with the free tier).
RingCentral offers a Webinar tier ($30 per organizer per month, billed annually) if you need to conduct large-scale video meetings, like town halls. It supports a maximum of 500 attendees per meeting to start, but you can pay up to $2,700 per organizer per month (billed annually) for 10,000 attendees. These meetings can last up to 12 hours. The Webinar plan includes several AI-powered features for writing meeting descriptions, translating Q&As, and preparing answers to likely attendee questions. You can also livestream your webinar directly on YouTube. ClickMeeting's webinar-focused plans are pricier.
RingCentral also offers a hybrid conference room solution called Rooms ($39 per room per month, billed annually). It accommodates other video conferencing services and works best with RingCentral's certified hardware.
RingCentral's plans compare favorably with Webex's and Zoom's. All three services have free tiers with similar features, though RingCentral Video supports slightly longer meetings. Its Video Pro+ tier costs a bit less than the equivalent Webex Meet ($12 per user per month, billed annually) and Zoom Workspace Pro ($13.33 per user per month, billed annually) plans. RingCentral supports twice as many attendees as Zoom at this level, but the latter allows for longer meetings and includes productivity features like calendar and email clients, document editing, and task management. Webex matches RingCentral's limits. GoTo Meeting's Professional tier ($12 per user per month, billed annually) doesn't place any limits on meeting length and supports up to 150 participants.
Keep in mind that you get RingCentral Video features as part of RingCentral's RingEx product, which includes a full-on VoIP component.
Interface and Ease of Use
RingCentral’s desktop and web apps are identical, which I like to see. You can even browse and install plug-ins (of which there are many) directly from the former. The service's mobile apps (available for Android and iOS) have all the same features as the desktop and web versions, including the ability to access previous meeting recordings. You can move meetings between any of these platforms without ending the call. Just press the prompt that appears in a green bar at the top of the dashboard when this option is available. It works instantly.
RingCentral’s dashboard is intuitive and spacious. A navigation bar on the left side houses all of the available communication tools (RingEx uses the same interface). Clicking on the Video section lets you access your meeting recordings, see a list of past meetings, and view upcoming meetings. Front and center are options to start, schedule, and join a video meeting.
(Credit: RingCentral/PCMag)If you've used similar software, the video meeting interface should be familiar. All the features and tools you need are in a horizontal menu at the bottom of the screen. Here, you can access a host of settings (such as changing your video background), add reactions, invite more participants, mute or stop your video stream, pause recording, share your screen, and use the chat.
I like that you can invite people to your meeting even if they don't have a RingCentral account. Once you share a meeting link with them, they can join via a browser.
In-Meeting Features and Tools
RingCentral makes it easy to share your screen with participants. All you need to do is click the share button in the meeting’s toolbar. Once you select which screen (or screens) you want to share, you can give remote control (mouse and keyboard access) to a member of the meeting. Additionally, all attendees can annotate on the shared screen with their mouse. This feature is not especially sophisticated, but it works fine.
Creating a whiteboard in RingCentral Video is also trivial; it's one of the many features in the More tab of a meeting's toolbar. Whiteboards are essentially giant grids that you can upload images to and on which everyone can annotate and draw. Webex includes similar annotation and whiteboard tools, but also provides live polling and Q&A features with its base paid plan (something RingCentral restricts to the Webinar level). Breakout rooms are available for further collaboration with either service.
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(Credit: RingCentral/PCMag)The Presentation mode (currently in beta) makes your shared screen behave like a virtual background that keeps you, the presenter, in frame. I like the option to control how large and where I appear on the screen, and you can even tweak transparency levels. RingCentral Video's virtual backgrounds aren’t perfect, however, so you still might see a fuzzy outline around yourself as you move around. One related feature claims to improve the quality of the virtual backgrounds if you're using a green or blue screen background, but I didn't get a chance to test it. Virtual backgrounds worked much better via the mobile apps, showing much less tearing even when I moved around a lot.
RingCentral doesn't have anything like Webex’s unique Reactions feature; simply give your camera a thumbs-up, and it generates the corresponding emoji on your video tile. Webex also has a sign language interpretation capability.
Video and audio quality depend on the camera and microphone you use, though RingCentral Video was never the limiting factor. The webcam on my older MacBook Pro didn't produce crystal clear video, but the front camera on a more recent iPhone did. The audio quality was fine with both, but earphones with built-in microphones improved the experience.
Recording and Transcribing
By default, RingCentral Video records and transcribes your meeting from the moment it starts. This is a little jarring since other services let you choose when to start recording, or at the very least, opt in or out of the feature. You can turn this feature off in RingCentral Video at the administrative level, but finding it is tough—it's in the Phone Extension settings area rather than the one for meetings. It should be more prominent. You can always pause the recording during a meeting, but the app still sends even a 30-second recording with no audio or video to your dashboard.
The live transcriptions are impressive, especially since other services, like Webex and Zoom, can provide transcriptions only after a meeting concludes. The transcripts weren't perfect in testing (I noticed misspelled words here and there), but they were as close to accurate as I could hope and nailed the punctuation. I conducted this test with light music in the background, so this feature should work even in environments that aren't completely silent.
RingCentral Video can also transcribe in multiple languages. All you need to do is select your language via a drop-down menu in the live transcription window. Currently, the service can transcribe Deutsch, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Google Meet provides real-time captioning for around 70 languages, for comparison, though Webex and Zoom charge extra for this capability.
(Credit: RingCentral/PCMag)You can access recordings of your meetings without any noticeable delay after a meeting ends. Other services take a bit of time to process recordings. In testing, a recording of a five-minute meeting appeared almost instantly in the dashboard after the fact. The playback interface for recordings includes a lot of useful features. For instance, you get a visual representation of your meeting in the form of a timebar. This shows you when someone spoke during the meeting, which you can use for sorting. It's also possible to access your transcriptions, add insights, highlight important moments, and take notes here. RingCentral makes it simple to share your meeting via a link, too. Both Webex and Zoom can create summaries of meetings and pull out key action items, but the former also has a Vidcast tool that lets you record and share video tutorials.
Webinar Tools
When you set up a webinar in RingCentral Video, you choose between General and Marketing templates. In addition to specifying a title and description (generative AI features are available to help with this), you can add prep sessions and indicate whether you will allow Q&As. Here, you can toggle the automatic recording feature, something that should be more easily accessible with regular meetings.
(Credit: RingCentral/PCMag)The meeting interface for webinars is the same as for regular calls, just with the addition of polls and Q&A functions in the toolbar. Both of these features work well. On the attendee side, you just type in a question into the related field, and it becomes part of a feed that the moderator can answer. Ring Central Video can translate questions and replies into a variety of languages using AI. You can create polls before or during a call.
One final option is to set up AI-powered Smart Answers before your webinar goes live. These are a set of answers you provide in anticipation of general questions that the meeting's AI client can then use to answer questions during a meeting. You can see a question enter the Q&A window and vet the AI’s generated answer. It's a nifty feature that might save you a bit of typing and some mental bandwidth.
Security and Privacy
During video meetings, you can toggle end-to-end encryption. This secures your meeting data but turns off features like closed captions, recording, and transcriptions. It also prevents participants from joining by phone. RingCentral Video lets you create a meeting password that participants must enter before joining.
Finally, you can set up a Personal Meeting ID (PMI) for your account. You can change this PMI between meetings to keep your information secure.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: RingCentral)
RingCentral Video
RingCentral Video is a compelling video conferencing service for small and large businesses, thanks to its affordable pricing, capable meeting features, and intuitive user experience.