Zoom lists Pro at USD 16.99 per host monthly and Basic’s limit at 40 minutes as of 21 October 2026. Self-hosting costs infrastructure and upkeep; LiveKit Cloud lists Ship at USD 50 monthly including 150,000 participant-minutes as of 20 October 2026, with bandwidth counted separately.
How do per-host licenses and per-minute costs differ?
Per-host pricing follows the teachers who need licensed accounts. Usage pricing follows connection time and data transfer. Self-hosting adds responsibility for running the service. These models answer different budget questions: how many teachers need paid accounts, how much video your academy uses, and who will maintain the classroom when a connection or server fails.
Start with the teaching schedule. Count the hosts who need paid accounts, the lesson duration and the time participants spend connected. Student enrollment alone cannot tell you the video bill: students with different lesson schedules use different amounts of connection time.
Keep engineering and support in the comparison. A hosted meeting service takes media-server operation off your team. A custom classroom gives your team more choices about the lesson screen, but someone must maintain those choices. Open-source software does not remove that work.
What do Zoom and Google Meet cost an academy?
Zoom Basic and free Google Meet can cover lessons without a subscription when their limits fit your teaching. According to Zoom’s pricing page as of 21 October 2026, Pro costs USD 16.99 per user per month billed monthly, or USD 14.16 billed annually, with meetings up to 30 hours. Check the regional price before committing.
Google’s meeting limits, dated 21 October 2026, distinguish call types: free one-to-one meetings allow up to 24 hours; meetings with 3 or more participants allow up to 60 minutes. The maximum is 100 participants. Adding another person can therefore change which duration limit applies.
Zoom’s education offering depends on the chosen Zoom Workplace for Education bundle. We could not find published education pricing on that public page as of 21 October 2026. Request a quote rather than applying Pro arithmetic to an education contract.
For a closer look at those meeting limits, use the Zoom vs Google Meet for tutoring comparison.
What does LiveKit cost with self-hosting or Cloud?
LiveKit offers open-source server software and a managed Cloud service. The LiveKit server repository describes an open-source WebRTC media server under Apache License 2.0, as of 21 October 2026. Self-hosting means arranging the infrastructure and maintaining the service yourself, or buying software from a provider that takes on that job. LiveKit Cloud is a different operating model.
According to LiveKit’s pricing page as of 20 October 2026, Ship costs USD 50 per month, including 150,000 participant-minutes and 250 GB downstream. Additional usage costs USD 0.0005 per participant-minute and USD 0.12 per GB. Connection time within the included minutes does not establish that bandwidth will also stay within its allowance.
The WebRTC project describes WebRTC as an open standard available in modern browsers, as of 21 October 2026. WebRTC supplies communication technology; your classroom still needs a usable teaching interface and someone responsible for support.
No server or bandwidth quote for self-hosting is supplied in these sources. The honest cost entry is “depends on hosting,” with engineering considered separately. Do not treat a free software license as a free classroom.
What does the example cost for 10 teachers and 100 students?
Example: the illustrative arithmetic below assumes 10 teachers and 100 students, with each student taking 8 one-to-one lessons of 30 minutes per month. Each lesson connects a teacher and a student. Participant-minutes therefore equal 100 x 8 x 30 x 2 = 48,000 per month. The example compares different scopes of service, so the lowest row price is not a complete purchasing decision.
| Option | How it is priced | Monthly cost in this example (USD) | Limits and notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoom Basic | Free | USD 0 | 40-minute cap fits the example’s 30-minute lessons; assess academy administration separately | Zoom pricing |
| Zoom Pro | Per licensed host | 10 x USD 16.99 = USD 169.90; or 10 x USD 14.16 = USD 141.60 with annual billing | Meetings up to 30 hours | Zoom pricing |
| Google Meet free | Free | USD 0 | One-to-one calls up to 24 hours; calls with 3 or more participants up to 60 minutes | Google Meet limits |
| LiveKit Cloud Ship | Base plan plus usage beyond included amounts | USD 50 base; bandwidth overage, if any, additional | 48,000 participant-minutes fits within 150,000 included; 250 GB downstream included | LiveKit pricing |
| Self-hosted LiveKit | Servers, bandwidth and operation | Depends on hosting | Open-source server; infrastructure prices not supplied | LiveKit repository |
| Halqora Academy | USD 2.50 per active student monthly; USD 99 minimum | 100 x USD 2.50 = USD 250 | Includes classroom, scheduling, billing and payroll calculations for one-to-one classes | Halqora pricing |
Zoom and Google figures are dated 21 October 2026; LiveKit Cloud figures are dated 20 October 2026. LiveKit Cloud’s base price does not include building a teaching interface. Halqora’s price covers management software as well as the classroom. Compare those scopes before treating the difference as potential savings.
Which teaching tools can a custom classroom bring together?
A custom classroom can put teaching materials beside the call and coordinate what teacher and student see. That control matters when the lesson depends on following the same page. Compare page synchronization, student permissions and observation behavior directly. A meeting duration limit tells you little about whether teachers can guide the lesson in the way your academy expects.
Halqora brings video, teacher screen sharing, an Excalidraw whiteboard and a PDF library with synchronized pages and annotation into the classroom. Students need the teacher’s permission to share their screens. Chat stays closed until an admin opens it. The Excalidraw repository describes its open-source whiteboard under the MIT license, as of 21 October 2026.
Halqora also has a synchronized Madinah Mushaf viewer with tajweed coloring and English translations. Quran text and fonts are credited to Quran Foundation (Quran.com); the Rowwad translation credit is Rowwad Translation Center · QuranEnc.com. These are teaching tools, not a structured progress tracker.
Use a virtual classroom features checklist to compare lesson behavior. Ask teachers to demonstrate how a student returns to the teacher’s page after browsing away, rather than judging from a feature name.
What does self-hosting change about privacy and observation?
Self-hosting gives the operator responsibility for media-server deployment and access controls. Self-hosting does not, by itself, establish stronger privacy than Zoom or Meet. Evaluate the actual service: who operates the servers, who can receive camera and microphone streams, and what happens when permissions change. A deployment label cannot answer those questions for the person buying the classroom.
Halqora does not record classes. Halqora’s observation permissions distinguish shared teaching materials from camera and microphone access. Admin observers can see classroom materials; access to a person’s camera and microphone requires that person’s consent. Media-server track subscription permissions enforce that restriction and fail closed.
Consent changes apply from the next join. That timing matters when explaining observation to teachers and families. Avoid promising that changing a consent setting immediately changes an existing connection.
Ask any provider to explain the same behavior in plain language. Treat hosting location, retention and encryption claims as separate questions that need documented answers. The facts supplied for this comparison do not support a general privacy ranking of these services.
When are Zoom or Meet still the right choice?
Zoom or Meet can be the better choice when their existing meeting format fits your lessons and you want the provider to operate the video service. Free Meet is particularly practical for long one-to-one calls within Google’s stated limit. Zoom Basic can fit the example’s short lessons, while Pro offers longer meetings without asking your team to maintain media infrastructure.
Group teaching is another reason to choose a meeting service. Zoom Basic and free Meet publish participant limits that accommodate groups. Halqora schedules, bills and calculates teacher pay for one teacher and one student per class. Halqora’s subject list is a fixed set of Quran and Islamic subjects today.
Choose the classroom and administration workflow together. A capable video service may already meet your teaching needs while you address scheduling and invoices elsewhere. Your decision should reflect the work teachers and admins actually need to do, alongside the subscription price.
How Halqora handles this
Halqora is management software for online academies. Halqora’s built-in classroom runs on LiveKit operated by Halqora; your academy does not host servers. Each schedule can instead use a Google Meet link.
The Academy plan costs USD 2.50 per active student per month, with a USD 99 minimum. Classroom use sits alongside scheduling, billing and payroll calculations for one-to-one classes. Billing runs create draft invoices for admin review and sending. Teachers record completed lessons with internal reports, student no-shows or student cancellations; admins resolve other outcomes. Choose Halqora when that connected workflow matches your academy’s work.
Sources
- Zoom pricing and meeting limits, checked 21 October 2026
- Zoom Workplace for Education, checked 21 October 2026
- Google Meet meeting limits, checked 21 October 2026
- LiveKit open-source server repository, checked 21 October 2026
- LiveKit Cloud pricing, checked 21 October 2026
- LiveKit Cloud pricing guide, checked 21 October 2026
- WebRTC project overview, checked 21 October 2026
- Excalidraw open-source repository, checked 21 October 2026
