Zoom vs Microsoft Teams (2026)

If your company already pays for Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard or Premium with Teams, use Teams, because you have it already and it holds 300 people in a meeting. If you don't, Zoom is the easier choice for meetings with clients and outside guests, and Pro at $14.16 a user a month (billed yearly) includes unlimited AI meeting summaries, which Teams keeps for its Teams Premium add-on. Teams costs less on paper: Teams Essentials is $4 a user a month on Microsoft's price list, and Teams Free runs group meetings for 60 minutes against 40 on Zoom Basic (prices checked November 4, 2026). Pick Zoom for client calls, Linux desktops and AI notes in the base price; pick Teams for chat, files and webinars inside Microsoft 365.

Pricing compared

Zoom sells meetings as its own subscription. Microsoft Teams usually arrives inside a Microsoft 365 plan, along with Outlook, Word and OneDrive, so the fair comparison depends on whether you would buy those anyway.

US prices per user a month, checked November 4, 2026:

Plan	Price	Meeting size	What else you get
Zoom Basic	$0	100 people, 40 minutes	Team Chat, local recording, 3 AI summaries a month
Zoom Pro	$14.16 yearly, $16.99 monthly	100 people, 30 hours	10 GB cloud recording, unlimited AI summaries
Zoom Business	$18.33 yearly, $21.99 monthly	300 people	Single sign-on, unlimited whiteboards and booking pages
Teams Free	$0	100 people, 60 minutes	Chat, 5 GB of storage
Teams Essentials	$4	300 people, 30 hours	Teams on its own, no Office apps
Microsoft 365 Business Basic	$7	300 people	Web and mobile Office apps, 1 TB OneDrive, business email
Microsoft 365 Business Standard	$14	300 people	Desktop Office apps, webinars and town halls
Microsoft 365 Business Premium	$22	300 people	Device management and security tools

Microsoft's Business plan prices are the list prices that took effect July 1, 2026 for the versions sold with Teams; Business Basic rose from $6 and Business Standard from $12.50. Existing customers keep their old price until renewal. Microsoft also sells each Business plan without Teams, so check which version you have. The Teams Essentials price comes from Microsoft's licensing price list, which says standalone Teams plans were left out of the 2026 increase.

For a team of 10, Zoom Pro billed yearly costs $141.60 a month and Zoom Business $183.30. Teams Essentials costs $40 and Business Basic, with email and Office on the web, $70. Teams wins on price unless you need the extras that Microsoft charges for separately: AI meeting recaps through Teams Premium, and calls to ordinary phone numbers through Teams Phone.

Zoom's AI assistant, ZoomMate, is a separate subscription at $20 a user a month, or $16.67 billed yearly. You only need it for AI agents, deep research, live audio translation and its 2,200 monthly AI credits, since Pro already covers meeting summaries.

Meetings and guests head to head

Both tools run meetings of up to 30 hours on paid plans, and both let outside guests join without an account. The difference shows up in who you meet and how many of them.

Zoom Pro holds 100 people. To host 300 you need Zoom Business, and Enterprise goes to 1,000. Zoom's FAQ also mentions a Large Meeting add-on for up to 1,000 people on other plans, but the pricing page doesn't give its price. Teams gives you 300 on every business plan, including the $4 Essentials plan, and 1,000 on enterprise plans such as Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, where up to 10,000 more people can watch in view-only mode.

For guests, Zoom is the safer bet. Clients can join from the desktop app, a phone or Zoom's web app in a browser. Teams guests can also join from a browser, but Microsoft says browser meetings show a single stream, either the person speaking or a shared screen, and that giving and taking control of a shared screen needs the desktop app on both sides. That makes Zoom the easier choice for a sales demo or a support call with someone outside your company.

Inside a company that already lives in Outlook, Teams has the edge. Meetings sit in everyone's Outlook calendar, a call starts from any group chat of up to 20 people, and Bookings, included with any Microsoft 365 license, lets customers pick a slot and join from a browser.

AI notes, recording and webinars

AI meeting notes are the clearest split. Zoom Pro and Business include unlimited meeting summaries, AI note-taking and in-meeting questions, and Basic gets three of each a month. Teams keeps intelligent meeting recap, with AI notes, tasks, speaker markers and chapters in recordings, for the Teams Premium add-on, which also brings live translated captions in 40 languages, watermarks and encryption from end to end for meetings of up to 200 people. You can try Teams Premium free: admins get a 30-day trial with 25 licenses, and users can start a 60-day self-service trial without payment details.

Recording works on both paid lines. Zoom Pro and Business save recordings to Zoom's cloud with 10 GB per user, Enterprise removes the cap, and Basic records only to your computer. Teams Business plans save recordings to Microsoft's storage, but each recording stops at 4 hours or 1.5 GB and restarts, so a long workshop comes out as several files. Teams Free doesn't include recording; Microsoft lists it as an extra in Microsoft 365 Personal and Family.

For webinars and town halls, Teams is the better buy for small businesses. Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Premium include Teams events, and Microsoft's small-business plan guide lists town halls and webinars for up to 3,000 attendees. Zoom's pricing page puts webinars for 500 attendees in its Enterprise plan, and you have to contact sales for the price.

Chat, files and phone calls

Both include team chat on every plan. Zoom Team Chat covers direct messages, group channels and file sharing, and sits beside Zoom's whiteboard (three boards on Basic and Pro, unlimited on Business), booking page and Clips for short recorded video messages.

Teams goes further on chat because it is built around it. A team can hold 25,000 members and 1,000 channels, group chats take up to 250 people, and every team gets its own SharePoint site, so files posted in a channel keep that site's permissions. If your staff already save work to OneDrive, Teams puts those files next to the conversation. Shared channels with other companies only accept people with Microsoft work or school accounts, which matters if you collaborate with outside partners every day; Slack handles that case better.

For phone calls, Zoom lists VoIP calling on Basic, Pro and Business and a full phone system on Enterprise. Teams needs a Teams Phone license plus a calling plan, Operator Connect or Direct Routing before staff can call ordinary phone numbers. We couldn't confirm Teams Phone's price on Microsoft's site.

Ease of use and setup

Zoom is quicker to start. You sign up, install the app or use the browser, and send a link; the free plan needs no company setup. The interface centers on one job, meetings, with chat and the other tools a click away.

Teams asks more of an admin. A company account means setting up Microsoft 365 users and a domain, and the app puts chat, channels, calendar, files and apps in one window. Once it is running, people rarely need to leave it, because their email, calendar and documents are already connected.

Zoom also covers more desktops. It has apps for Windows, macOS 10.15 and newer, and a long list of Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Debian, Red Hat and Arch. Teams supports Windows 10 and later, the three newest macOS versions, iPhone, iPad and Android, and gives Linux users the browser version or a web app you can pin like a program.

Support

Zoom publishes who gets what. Every plan has the knowledge base, the community and a virtual agent; live chat opens up for accounts paying over $10 a month, which covers a single Pro license, and live phone support starts at accounts paying over $200 a month. Enterprise adds round-the-clock chat and phone support for Zoom Phone.

Microsoft supports Teams through Microsoft Support's help articles and, for admins, detailed guides on Microsoft Learn that spell out every limit. Business customers manage their plan in the Microsoft 365 admin center. We couldn't load Microsoft's plan pages to confirm which support channels each Business plan includes, so ask before you buy if phone help matters to you.

Who each one suits

Choose Zoom if meetings are the main thing you need and many of them are with people outside your company: sales calls, client check-ins, coaching sessions or interviews. Pro gives you 30-hour meetings, cloud recording and unlimited AI summaries for $14.16 a user a month billed yearly, without asking you to change your email or file storage. It is also the pick for Linux users and for anyone who wants a booking page and whiteboard on the same account.

Choose Teams if your company runs on Outlook, Word and OneDrive, or is about to. Business Basic at $7 a user a month gives you business email, Office on the web, 1 TB of storage per user and 300-person meetings, which is hard to beat if you'd buy email anyway. Teams Essentials at $4 covers small teams that only want meetings and chat. Budget for Teams Premium if you want AI recaps, and for Teams Phone if you want phone numbers.

If your team uses Gmail and Google Calendar, look at Google Meet first, since it comes with Google Workspace.