- Readytalk offers per minute or subscription based price plans
- Per minute Plans
- On demand Audio: 12 cents per minute per participant
- Audio and Web Recording: 12 cents per minute
- Recording Hosting (for playback): 20 cents per minute
- Web Meeting: 20 cents per minute per participant
- Subscription Pricing
- 1 - 5 subscriptions: $49 each per month
- 6 - 10 subscriptions: $44 each per month
- 11 - 20 subscriptions: $39 each per month
- 20 + subscriptions: $34 each per month
- ReadyTalk also offer fully managed one off events for a flat fee
- Easy to use web conferencing application with enhanced scheduling features
- Share your desktop and any application on it
- Deliver sales presentations, training sessions and web seminars
- Grant control of your desktop to participants
- Schedule meetings and send email invitations
- Appoint co-presenters to help you out
- Allow customers to register for your events
- Create unique registration links for different marketing campaigns
- Custom branding for meeting web pages and email invitations
- View information on people registered for your events
- Record the whole meeting proceedings
- Text chat private or publicly
- Collect post meeting survey data
- Publish the audio of your meeting as a podcast
- Automatically send email reminders to participants
- Live training sessions available
- Technical support via email
- Free trial available
- Compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris
ReadyTalk is an easy to use web conferencing service that provides some useful recording and customization options. However, it is very expensive to use as it doesn't offer an unlimited subscription plan. There are also better engineered services out there which offer more features for the same, if not less, money.
We should start off by looking at the positive features of ReadyTalk first though. Its main function is to allow you to host web based meetings where participants can share your desktop and even take control of it. The host has full control over who is allowed to present and can nominate co-presenters to aid in the presentation. The presenter can upload a PowerPoint presentation that the application will convert to Jpeg images ready for the audience to view easily and quickly. It is also possible though, to share just one single application from your desktop and hide the rest of what is going on.
ReadyTalk also offers some useful administration features behind the scenes. Sending out customized invitation emails is easy and the application can be set to automatically send out reminders a day or two before the event. You can also customize the welcome screen of the meeting with your own company logo and colours. Meetings can be recorded simply by setting a checkbox and then recordings can be played back through the ReadyTalk website for a per minute fee or sent out as podcasts to anyone who is interested.
Now we go on to the downside with ReadyTalk. The pricing structure is, in our opinion, in desperate need of an overhaul. We had to have a half-hour long text chat with a sales representative before even understanding it fully. Basically you can either pay by the minute for the services or you can take out a monthly subscription. However, monthly subscriptions are only available for the web based part of the service and exclude teleconferencing facilities - you still have to pay 12 cents per minute per participant for the privilege of being able to talk to each other. As you can imagine this soon adds up and, when combined with another 12 cents per minute to record the proceedings and 20 cents per minute to watch them back, you are looking at a fairly substantial cost just for a small meeting! It is difficult to see why anyone would pay this when there are plenty of services out there which include everything for as little as $15 per month.
ReadyTalk is not a bad service but, as we have explained, is very expensive even for light use. On the plus side the reliability of the service was very good and it is well supported with live training sessions etc. By all means try out the free trial of ReadyTalk, but we recommend doing the sums before committing to a subscription.
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