Google Meet is a video-conferencing app that allows you to create and join high-quality videos or audio conferences for groups with up to 250 participants at a time. It provides an easy and quick way for virtual meetings and is used by major corporations, small businesses, educational institutes, and common citizens.
After 60 minutes, Google Meet will disconnect the call automatically. One-on-one video calls can go up to 24 hours. However, the host can upgrade their Google account or subscribe to the paid version of Google Meet to continue the call.
The unlimited group video calls facility for free accounts was officially ended by Google Meet on June 30, 2021. It was also stated that at 55 minutes, the participants will receive a notification that the call is about to end. However, besides this, Google has added some cool features, such as a new light adjustment that helps offer brighter videos, new animated background options, background noise cancelling, etc.
How to Extend the Google Meet Time Limit?
Google Meet’s time limit is 60-minutes for a group video conference. But, sometimes the time is not enough for businesses or other purposes. So, to overcome this annoying situation, there are a few tricks which could be a secret sauce if you use Google Meet for free.
- Organize your meeting
Most organisations and individuals are over-indexing on Google meet to stay connected with workers. But current restrictions of Google have held them back and forced them to go on the paid edition. However, organising your meeting can save you from such expense. Here are some tips:
- You can set the agenda of the meeting beforehand so that you do not have to waste time explaining the purpose of the meeting.
- You can send important documents and files via email before the meeting starts. So that the participants can read it prior to the meeting and not waste time during it.
- Confirm attendance beforehand through the RSVP option to track the list of responses from your guests. It will help you know who’s attending the meeting and who’s not rather than wasting time waiting for participants.
- You can also connect one by one if you have a small team.
- Avoid explaining everything in one go. Try to split the meeting in half and connect later.
- Trial Pack
Another way to extend your Google Meet time limit is using the free trial method. You can optionally sign up for a Google Workspace trial to unlock the full potential and features available with Google Workspace.
Google introduced the Trial Pack to captivate the audience into buying a paid edition of G-suite. So, when you sign up for Google Workspace, you start with a 14-day free trial subscription. And up to 10 users can explore all the features of Google Workspace at a time.
One point to remember about this method is that you have to complete the payment setup before the trial starts. However, your chosen payment method will not be charged until the free trial ends. Later, you can expand or collapse the trial whenever you want.
How to sign up for Free Trial?
If you're a Google user:
- Visit the official Google website.
- Sign in using your account.
- Select the ‘Start Free Trial’ option.
- Choose the plan needed.
- go to Menu >Billing > Get more services.
- Click Cloud Identity.
- Start ‘Free Trial’
- Follow the guided instructions.
“You can get Google Meet Workspace free for 14 days for trial purposes,
Or
If your domain name is verified and signed up by Google. Then, you'll receive a 30-day free Google Workspace trial instead of the standard 14 days.”
- Subscribe
If you are satisfied with the trial pack and want to extend Google Meet time, then upgrading your Google account is the only way. Google has a newly unveiled Workspace Individual account, which offers up to 24 hours of calling at a small price.
Google Workspace offers a wide set of tools to help businesses and teams. There are many subscription editions of Google Meet available for you to upgrade. Here is an overview of each one of them:
| Items/Plans | Google Meet(Free) | Google Workspace Enterprise | Google Workspace Business Starter | Google Workspace Business Standard | Google Workspace Business Plus |
| Price | £0 | Custom Pricing | £4.14 per user per month | £8.28 per user per month | £13.80 per user per month |
| Meeting Duration(1-1) | 24hrs | 24hrs | 24hrs | 24hrs | 24hrs |
| Group Meeting Duration | 1hr | 24hrs | 24hrs | 24hrs | 24hrs |
| Maximum Participants | 100 | 500 | 100 | 150 | 500 |
| Meeting Recording | No | Yes | Yes | ||
| Google Drive Storage | 15 GB per user | Unlimited | 30 GB per user | 2 TB per user | 5 TB per user |
| Custom Business Email | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Attendance Tracker | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| International dial-in phone numbers | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
By subscribing any of these G Suite Essentials and G Suite Enterprise Essentials, you can conduct meetings for as long as 300 hours at a stretch.
How to start a paid subscription?
After the trial ends, click on the ‘get started’ option and continue with the payment. The payment options are:
- You can pay by credit card, depending on the location of your business. But, you can pay directly by debit card as well.
- Also, you can pre-pay manually through your account. In this case, the amount will be automatically debited at the start of every month instead of your primary form of payment.
Google Meet for Non- profit organisations
Nonprofit organisations and Education are the only eligibles for Google’s special editions. This special edition provides Google Workspace for Education features at a discounted rate or for free.
Regarding time limits, Google has not implemented any time limit on meetings for nonprofit organisations. In fact, if your organisation qualifies for Google for Nonprofits, you can get Google Workspace for Nonprofits at no charge. The Google workspace will allow you to have a Google Meet meeting for 24 hours with up to 100 participants. Also, let you store and back up files securely in the cloud with 2 GB of storage per user.
Moreover, this workspace includes productivity tools and apps for email, online document editing, shared calendars, video conferences, barcode scanning and more. However, the Google for Nonprofits products that will be available to you are:
- Google Workspace for Nonprofits
- Google Earth Outreach/Google Maps platform
- YouTube Nonprofit program
- Google Ad Grants
How to activate Google Workspace for Nonprofits at no charge?
If you’re a Google user:
- Go to the Google for Nonprofits homepage and click Get started to request an account.
- Then follow the steps to Activate Google Workspace for Nonprofits.
But if you still want to upgrade your Google Workspace for Nonprofits to a more advanced level, then you can upgrade it at a discounted, nonprofit price.
