Zoom RTMS with Recall.ai
VS Zoom RTMS Direct

RTMS through Recall.ai compared with buying RTMS directly from Zoom
Zoom RTMS with Recall.ai	Zoom RTMS Direct
1Cost
Zoom RTMS with Recall.ai	Zoom RTMS Direct
RTMS license Preferred rates as Zoom’s only RTMS Preferred Partner. Bulk-buying savings passed on to you. No volume negotiation needed on your own. ✓ Included with Recall.ai + Streaming infrastructure Optimized infrastructure receives and processes your streams. Efficiency savings passed on to you. ✓ Also included with Recall.ai = Total to receive your data$0.35–$0.50 / hour RTMS license$0.25–$0.60 / hour Only gives you access to use the API. Infrastructure costs extra. Lowest rate: requires around 4 million minutes committed per year. Buying direct from Zoom covers the license only + Streaming infrastructure$0.10–$0.30 / hour You build and run it. Hosting costs extra on top of the license. Not included in Zoom’s license = Total to receive your data$0.35–$0.90 / hourYour team’s engineering and maintenance time is additional.
2Engineering effort
Zoom RTMS with Recall.ai	Zoom RTMS Direct
“We got RTMS working, including audio, but maintaining it added technical debt. Dropped connections and recovery edge cases had already burned us several times. We wanted to move that work to Recall.ai so we could stop maintaining the streaming infrastructure ourselves.” - Fortune 100 customer that uses Recall.ai for RTMS 1 Call the Recall.ai API Send the signed stream details when Zoom notifies your app. 2 Receive your data in your product Get recordings or configured real-time outputs. TL;DR for non-technical product leaders A major infrastructure overhaul. Engineering and DevOps must rebuild parts of your existing infrastructure to handle live meeting streams - a much bigger project than an API integration. 6–12 months of recurring outages. We've seen this happen as teams learn to handle an unfamiliar load pattern: meetings starting all at once. Ongoing upkeep. Your team must learn specialized RTMS skills and keep fixing issues. Offload this work to Recall.ai. Build your product, not RTMS infrastructure. 1 Route each meeting Validate the start event, avoid duplicates and assign a receiving server. 2 Scale receiving servers Handle meeting spikes without overloading servers or cutting off active streams. Example: 10 → 100 live meetingsAdd capacity before streams stall. Traffic falls again?Drain live meetings before shutting servers down. 3 Recover before streams end Keep connections authenticated and answer idle heartbeats every 10 seconds. Connection drops? Recover in seconds.About 30 seconds for media or 60 seconds for signaling - miss the window and the stream ends. Server fails? Every meeting on it is at risk.Detect, reroute and reconnect before those same deadlines. 4 Process and deliver data into your product Raw streams aren’t usable files. Build buffering, file assembly, storage and reliable delivery - then handle failures at each stage. Your engineers own reliability at every step.A missed recovery window can end a stream. Your team owns monitoring, scaling and incident response.
3Recording flexibility
Zoom RTMS with Recall.ai	Zoom RTMS Direct
Meeting platforms Recall.ai gives you Zoom RTMS plus other meeting platforms - all through one API. Zoom Google Meet Microsoft Teams Webex Slack	Meeting platforms Zoom only. Other platforms need separate integrations. Zoom
Recording form factors Use that same Recall.ai API for RTMS, bots, desktop recording, phone calls and in-person meetings. RTMS Bots Desktop Phone calls In-person meetings	Recording form factors RTMS only. Other recording methods need separate solutions. RTMS
When RTMS can’t capture Use a bot as a fallback - for example, when the host isn’t present.	When RTMS can’t capture RTMS alone doesn’t cover these cases. Your team must build and maintain its own fallback to cover them.
4Transcription
Zoom RTMS with Recall.ai	Zoom RTMS Direct
$0.15 / hour (additional to RTMS costs) Built-in Recall.ai transcription at a lower price. Recall.ai supports ElevenLabs, AssemblyAI, Deepgram and more out of the box.	From $0.60 / hour (additional to RTMS costs) Higher starting price for transcription. Fixed Zoom transcription model - no choice of provider.
5Volume commitments
Zoom RTMS with Recall.ai	Zoom RTMS Direct
One flexible pool of hours across recording methods. Lower minimum commitments mean less spend locked in upfront. Switch between RTMS, bots, desktop, phone calls and in-person recording without wasting committed hours.	Volume discounts require a commitment to Zoom RTMS hours only. Accurately forecasting RTMS usage can be difficult. A large commitment risks paying for hours you don’t use.
6Vendor management
Zoom RTMS with Recall.ai	Zoom RTMS Direct
One vendor. One point of accountability. One contract for meeting platforms, desktop recording, phone calls and in-person meetings.	Your Zoom contract covers Zoom RTMS only. Other platforms need separate provider contracts.

Zoom RTMS with Recall.aiVS Zoom RTMS Direct

Zoom RTMS with Recall.ai

Zoom RTMS Direct

1Cost

2Engineering effort

Call the Recall.ai API

Receive your data in your product

Route each meeting

Scale receiving servers

Recover before streams end

Process and deliver data into your product

3Recording flexibility

Meeting platforms

Meeting platforms

Recording form factors

Recording form factors

When RTMS can’t capture

When RTMS can’t capture

4Transcription

5Volume commitments

6Vendor management

The API to get transcripts, recordings, and metadata from meetings.

Zoom RTMS with Recall.ai
VS Zoom RTMS Direct