The loom vs screenpal comparison is really a comparison of two business models. Loom sells speed: record, get a link, paste it, done, and pay per seat for the privilege. ScreenPal sells depth on a budget: a real video editor, quizzes, hosting, at prices that look like typos next to Loom's.
Most posts ranking for loom vs screenpal are either vendor pages grading their own homework or aggregator tables built from stale vendor copy. We checked every claim below against both companies' live sites on July 27, 2026, and we read the plans fine print line by line. One disclosure up front: we make a screen recorder too (vyds). It appears once, near the end, clearly labeled. The other 80% of this post is about the two tools you searched for.
TL;DR: Loom wins on recording-to-link speed, polish, and enterprise readiness; it is the better async messaging tool. ScreenPal wins on price (paid plans start at $4/month vs Loom's $18/user/month), editing depth, and education features; it is the better create-and-polish tool. The free tiers both have traps that their homepages soft-pedal: Loom caps you at 25 videos total, and ScreenPal caps free hosting at 10 videos, though it no longer watermarks anything.
Table of Contents
- What each tool actually is
- Loom vs ScreenPal pricing: verified numbers
- The free tiers: we read the fine print
- Where Loom wins
- Where ScreenPal wins
- Feature comparison
- Which one fits your use case?
- Considering a third option?
- FAQ
What each tool actually is
Loom is an async video messaging tool, now owned by Atlassian. Its entire design optimizes one loop: hit record, talk over your screen, stop, and a shareable link is already on your clipboard. Editing is deliberately minimal (trim, stitch on paid tiers). The product bet is that your video is a message, not an asset - watched once, in Slack or a PR thread, then forgotten.
ScreenPal (formerly Screencast-O-Matic) comes from the opposite direction: it grew up in education. Recording is step one of a production pipeline - a genuine video editor with overlays, music, and transitions, plus hosted channels, quizzes, and LMS integrations. The product bet is that your video is content: a lesson, a tutorial, a course module that gets rewatched.
That split settles most of the loom vs screenpal debate before pricing enters the room. A sales team firing off deal walkthroughs has no use for quiz embeds. A teacher building a flipped classroom has no use for a $18/seat message tool with no editor.
Loom vs ScreenPal pricing: verified numbers
Both columns verified 2026-07-27, from loom.com/pricing and screenpal.com/plans directly.
| Plan | Price | Highlights |
|---|---|---|
| Loom Starter (free) | $0 | 25 videos TOTAL, 5 min max each, Loom branding on the viewing page |
| Loom Business | $18/user/month | Unlimited videos and length, trim editing, engagement insights |
| Loom Business + AI | $24/user/month | Adds AI titles, summaries, chapters |
| Loom Enterprise | Custom | SSO, SCIM, advanced admin |
| ScreenPal Free | $0 | 15 min per recording, unlimited recordings, 10 hosted videos, 720p playback, no watermark |
| ScreenPal Deluxe | $4/month annual ($8 monthly) | Unlimited recording length and hosting, full editor, AI captions |
| ScreenPal Max | $10/month annual | AI suite (text-to-speech, video generator), 4K playback, unlimited quizzes |
| ScreenPal Team Business | $8/user/month annual (minimum 3 users) | Team management, collaboration, SAML SSO |
Two pricing notes that trip people up:
- Loom no longer publishes a per-user annual figure. The pricing page advertises "save up to 17%" on annual billing without stating the resulting number. Budget from $18/user/month and treat any annual figure you see in a third-party post (including older versions of ours) as derived, not official.
- ScreenPal's cheap headline number is annual-only. Deluxe is $4/month if you pay for a year; the monthly price is $8. Still a fraction of Loom either way, but the doubling surprises people at checkout.
The raw math: a 10-person team on Loom Business pays $2,160/year at monthly billing. The same team on ScreenPal Team Business pays $960/year. Loom costs 2.25x more, and what that premium buys is the subject of the next three sections. For how Loom's pricing behaves at bigger seat counts, our Loom pricing breakdown runs the full table.
The free tiers: we read the fine print
Here is the first-hand part. On July 27, 2026 we walked both free tiers' signup paths and plans pages, because this is where comparison posts (ours included, in an earlier version) go stale and wrong.
The ScreenPal watermark claim is dead. For years, every roundup disqualified ScreenPal free for stamping a watermark on recordings, and until this month our own posts said the same. That ended quietly: ScreenPal's site now states, in their own FAQ, that no plan places watermarks on any recording, free included. If you are reading a loom vs screenpal post that still lists the watermark as ScreenPal's dealbreaker, its research predates 2025.
But the homepage and the plans page tell different stories. ScreenPal's homepage promises "create & share unlimited videos" with "no sign up required." The plans grid, read closely, splits that claim in two: the number of recordings is genuinely unlimited (and recording genuinely needs no account), but free hosting caps at 10 videos, playback tops out at 720p, and each recording caps at 15 minutes. Record your eleventh video and you can still save it locally - you just cannot host it on their servers without deleting one or upgrading. System audio capture and automated captions also sit behind the paid line.
Loom's free wall is lower and harder. Starter allows 25 videos total - not per month, total, ever - at 5 minutes each. A daily-standup user hits 25 videos in their first month, and then the only move is Business at $18/user/month; there is no cheap middle tier. The viewing page carries Loom branding, and downloads are gated. We covered what happens to people who hit this wall in our is Loom worth it analysis.
Score the free tiers by what you do: for quick shareable messages, Loom free is nicer until the 25-video cliff; for longer recordings you keep or edit, ScreenPal free is more generous and no longer defaces your video. For genuinely unrestricted free options, our free screen recorders audit covers the field with the same dated verification.
Where Loom wins
Speed to link. Stop recording and the URL is on your clipboard; the video is already processing in the cloud. ScreenPal's flow (record, then save or upload, then share) has more steps by design because editing sits in the middle. If your videos are messages, this friction difference compounds daily.
Polish and viewer experience. Loom's player, comments, emoji reactions, and viewer insights are best-in-market. The recipient experience feels finished in a way ScreenPal's player does not.
Enterprise checklists. Atlassian ownership means SOC 2, SSO/SCIM at Enterprise tier, and procurement familiarity. If your videos travel inside Jira and Confluence workflows, the integration is native.
AI features that ship. Auto titles, summaries, and chapters on the Business + AI tier work well. ScreenPal's Max-tier AI suite is broader on paper (text-to-speech, video generation) but aimed at content production, not message triage.
One honest caveat on the Loom column: reliability complaints are a persistent theme in its reviews. Loom's Trustpilot rating sits at 1.4 stars, and the recurring grievances are crashes and billing. As one reviewer put it: "EVERYDAY it crashes or doesn't save my videos." Weigh review-site negativity bias, but the volume and consistency of these reports over 2024-2026 is hard to dismiss for a tool whose entire pitch is "it just works."
Where ScreenPal wins
Price, at every tier. $4/month annual for unlimited recording and hosting versus $18/user/month is not a close call. Even ScreenPal's top solo tier ($10) undercuts half of Loom's entry seat.
The editor. Overlays, music, transitions, cut/crop/speed, AI captions, storyboards. Loom simply does not have this layer; Loom users who need editing export to another tool. If you polish before you publish, ScreenPal replaces two products.
Education and interactivity. Quizzes, polls, ratings, channels, LMS integration, per-video analytics. This is ScreenPal's home turf and Loom does not compete for it.
No account needed to start. The free recorder runs without signup - a real advantage for one-off use and locked-down environments, though note it is a desktop download, not an in-browser recorder.
ScreenPal's honest weaknesses: the interface shows its Screencast-O-Matic age in places, the recording-to-share loop will always be slower than Loom's, and 720p free playback looks soft on modern displays.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Loom | ScreenPal |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier videos | 25 total | Unlimited recordings, 10 hosted |
| Free recording length | 5 min | 15 min |
| Free watermark | No (page branding instead) | No (verified 2026-07-27) |
| Paid entry price | $18/user/month | $4/month (annual) |
| Instant share link | Yes, automatic | Yes, extra step |
| Video editor | Trim/stitch only | Full editor with overlays, music |
| Quizzes / LMS | No | Yes |
| System audio | Yes (desktop app) | Paid plans |
| AI features | Business + AI ($24) | Max tier ($10) |
| SSO | Enterprise (custom) | Team Business ($8/user) |
| Team minimum | None | 3 users |
| Storage location | Loom's cloud | ScreenPal's cloud |
Note that last row: in both cases your videos live on the vendor's servers, and leaving means exporting one file at a time. Neither tool wins the data-ownership question - they tie at "you are renting."
Which one fits your use case?
Pick Loom if: your videos are messages - standups, code reviews, sales follow-ups, support replies - and the seat cost clears your budget. The speed and polish are worth $18/user for teams that send video daily. Just budget for Business from day one; the free tier is a trial with a 25-video fuse.
Pick ScreenPal if: your videos are content - tutorials, lessons, onboarding libraries, course modules - or your budget is the deciding constraint. The editor, quizzes, and hosting at $4-10/month deliver most of a course platform for the price of two coffees. Teachers and trainers should not really be in the loom vs screenpal debate at all; ScreenPal wins their use case outright.
Pick neither if: what you mainly need is reliable record-and-share with ownership of your files - which brings us to the disclosure section.
Considering a third option?
Full disclosure: vyds is our product. Weigh this section with that in mind.
The loom vs screenpal comparison leaves a gap in the middle: people who want Loom's record-to-link speed without per-seat pricing, and without their video library living on a vendor's servers. That gap is what we built for:
- Free tier: unlimited recordings (5 min each, 720p), no watermark, no total-video cap - the recordings save to your own Google Drive, so there is no hosting quota to hit and nothing to export if you leave. How the Google Drive model works.
- Paid: vyds Plus is $7/month, Pro is $12/seat/month ($5 and $9 annual) - between ScreenPal's and Loom's price points, with instant links like Loom.
- What vyds does not have: ScreenPal's editor, quizzes, or LMS features, and Loom's enterprise certifications. If those are your requirements, choose between the two above on the criteria in this post. We keep a direct vyds vs ScreenPal matchup if you want that head-to-head, and our Loom alternatives roundup covers the wider field.
FAQ
Is Loom or ScreenPal better? For async video messages at work, Loom - faster loop, better viewer experience, if you can justify $18/user/month. For creating edited, hosted video content on a budget, ScreenPal - real editor and interactivity from $4/month. The loom vs screenpal answer is your use case, not a single winner.
Is ScreenPal really free? Yes, with specific limits (verified 2026-07-27 from screenpal.com/plans): 15 minutes per recording, unlimited recordings, 10 hosted videos, 720p playback, and no watermark - ScreenPal has dropped its free-tier watermark (third-party roundups date the change to 2025), contrary to what most older comparisons still claim. No account is required to record.
Does Loom's free plan have a limit? Yes: 25 videos total at up to 5 minutes each, with Loom branding on the viewing page (verified 2026-07-27 from loom.com/pricing). The cap is lifetime, not monthly. The only paid step up is Business at $18/user/month.
How much cheaper is ScreenPal than Loom? At paid entry: $4/month (ScreenPal Deluxe, annual) versus $18/user/month (Loom Business) - 4.5x. For a 10-person team: $960/year (ScreenPal Team Business) versus $2,160/year (Loom Business, monthly billing) - 2.25x. Loom advertises up to 17% off for annual billing but publishes no per-user annual figure.
Can ScreenPal replace Loom? For message-style quick sharing, partially - it can generate share links, but the loop is slower and the player is plainer. For editing, hosting, and interactive video, ScreenPal does things Loom cannot do at all. Teams switching from Loom for cost reasons should also compare tools built specifically for the messaging use case; our screen recording tools for teams guide maps that field.
What is the cheapest way to record without a watermark? Free, with different catches everywhere: ScreenPal free (15-min cap, 10 hosted videos), Loom Starter (25 videos total), OBS (no limits, no sharing), or the vyds free tier - our product - which has no video cap and stores recordings in your own Google Drive. The full dated comparison is in our free screen recorders audit.
Whichever way you land on loom vs screenpal, check the vendor's live pricing page before you commit - both companies changed their fine print in the last year, and most comparison posts have not caught up. If you want the option where the recordings are yours no matter what: try vyds free - trim, share, no paywall.
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