Google Meet has been free to all users since April. But the search giant has said all along that unlimited-length meetings would last only until Sept. 30, and that cut-off date is fast approaching.
Beginning this week, free versions of Meet will be limited to 60-minute meetings only. Previously, any user could create free meetings with up to 100 participants and chat indefinitely. The Verge reports that, according to a Google spokesperson, the company has no plans to extend the promotion. Therefore, Meet will revert back to its pre-pandemic limits.
Google will discontinue a variety of other G Suite and G Suite for Education features when Sept. 30 rolls around. Going forward, meetings of up to 250 participants, live-streams including up to 100,000 on a single domain, and the ability to save meeting recordings to Google Drive will no longer be available for free users. Typically, they cost $25 a month, but these features were free to all users, while Google Meet included unlimited use.
Google Meet is just one of the free videoconferencing services to have gone through a veritable boom since the coronavirus pandemic hit the US earlier this year. Zoom continues to decimate the competition, with 300 million daily participants in April 2020 alone, but Google Meet has been no slouch at 100 million daily users around the same time.
Previously, PCMag put popular conferencing software Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet to the test to see which one prevailed. Thanks to its productivity and security features with G Suite, Google Meet took the honor of being our overall winner. That's not to say Zoom and Microsoft Teams aren't worth using, but for some features, you're definitely going to want to stick with Google Meet – even if lengthier meetings do necessitate a paid plan.
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