Use Zoom when people need to talk. Use Pencil Spaces when students need to learn.
Pencil Spaces gives tutoring teams, schools, and educators the classroom tools Zoom was never designed to provide: persistent rooms, saved whiteboards, built-in teaching apps, student focus alerts, lesson recordings, and live support.
10M+ sessions taught
200M+ minutes of learning
One-click join, no installs
Last updated June 2026
For teaching
A virtual classroom built for lessons, persistent student work, and teaching workflows.
For meetings
A great general-purpose meeting platform for calls, webinars, and team communication.
The short answer
Pencil Spaces is a virtual classroom built for teaching and tutoring. Zoom is a general-purpose meeting platform. For lessons, Pencil Spaces gives teachers persistent rooms, saved whiteboards, built-in teaching tools, student focus alerts, lesson recordings, and live support. Use Zoom when people need to talk. Use Pencil Spaces when students need to learn.
Built for teaching. A virtual classroom, not a repurposed meeting tool.
Unlimited hosts and Space links. Add tutors and rooms without another per-seat fee.
Work that persists. Whiteboards and student work are saved between lessons.
Student focus alerts. See privately when a learner switches tabs or goes idle.
Built for full lessons. No free-plan meeting cap to interrupt class.
Built for education. Support for COPPA, FERPA, HIPAA, SOC 2, and GDPR, plus 24/7 live help.
Buyer education
Zoom is a great meeting product. It is simple, familiar, and widely used for business calls, webinars, and general video communication.
But teaching is not just a meeting.
A lesson needs shared work, saved context, classroom tools, student focus, privacy controls, recordings, and support when something goes wrong mid-session. That is why Pencil Spaces exists.
Zoom helps people meet. Pencil Spaces helps teachers teach.
See the difference
Pencil Spaces is not a video call with a whiteboard bolted on. It is a teaching room built around persistent work, tools, and student focus.
Pick up exactly where you left off. The whiteboard, documents, and a student's past work stay in the room, so no lesson starts from zero.
Keep a lesson in flow. Move between boards, documents, apps, and exercises in one place, so momentum stays with the teacher.
Keep easily distracted learners engaged. See privately when a student drifts to another tab and bring them back with context.
Students work, not just watch. Learners can work together on the board, with individual cursors that make participation visible.
Spend the hour teaching, not troubleshooting. Quizlet, IXL, a code editor, PDF annotation, and a web viewer open right on the board.
Side by side
Both run in the browser. The difference is what each one was built to do. Zoom is a general-purpose meeting platform; Pencil Spaces is a virtual classroom for tutoring and online teaching.
Your question
For teaching
For meetings
The basics
Can I run a live video session?
Yes.
Yes.
Is it built specifically for teaching?
A purpose-built virtual classroom.
A general-purpose meeting platform.
Is it reliable enough to teach on every day?
Yes. 99.99% uptime, engineered for the heavier load of live teaching.
Yes, Zoom is reliable for meetings at scale.
The teaching experience
Does student work persist across lessons?
Yes. The whole room persists: boards, documents, and student work.
Zoom Whiteboards can be saved and reused.
Can I teach on a shared board?
Yes, with classroom-native whiteboards saved to the room.
Yes, with Zoom Whiteboard, a general-purpose canvas.
Are there built-in teaching tools?
Yes. Teaching apps built into the room, including Quizlet and IXL.
You screen-share separate apps.
Can I see whether students are distracted?
Yes, with private focus and tab-switch alerts.
Not designed around this workflow.
Is there a mode for young learners?
Yes. Focus Mode for young learners.
Not designed around this.
Does it support group classes and learners with different needs?
Yes. Group classes, breakouts, and accessibility tools for learners of every age and ability, including special needs.
A general-purpose meeting tool.
Sessions, recording and joining
Can I record a lesson?
Yes, device and cloud, including recording without the student on camera.
Yes, local or cloud recording.
Can students join without a download?
Yes. One click, any device, no download.
Browser or app; the app is often prompted.
Does it fit free-plan teaching?
Built for full lessons, with no free-plan meeting cap.
Most hosted meetings on Zoom Basic are limited to 40 minutes.
Operations, pricing and support
Can I manage many tutors without per-host seat creep?
Yes. Unlimited hosts and Space links.
Host-based pricing model.
Can I schedule and track attendance?
Yes. Built-in calendar, invites, attendance, and rostering.
Calendar integrations; attendance via add-ons.
Is it built for education compliance?
Built to support COPPA, FERPA, HIPAA, SOC 2, and GDPR.
Enterprise security built for business use.
Can support help during a live class?
Yes. 24/7 live support, and we can join your Space.
A general support model.
Is it designed for tutoring operations?
Yes. Designed for teaching, tutoring, and learning operations.
No, it is a meeting platform.
Can I build video and collaboration into my own product?
Yes. A full real-time collaboration API and SDK.
Yes, with the Zoom Meeting and Video SDKs.
Who is it best for?
Tutors, schools, districts, and tutoring programs.
Meetings, webinars, and team communication.
Pencil Spaces does everything Zoom does, built for teaching, from video, whiteboards, recording, and breakouts to a full API and SDK, an education-focused workflow, and unlimited hosts.
Comparison reflects publicly available information about Zoom as of 2026 and is intended as buyer education. Zoom is a general-purpose meeting platform; Pencil Spaces is a teaching platform.
Use the right tool for the job
We are not saying never use Zoom. We are saying use the tool built for the job.
You are teaching students
You are running an interactive class or webinar
You need whiteboards and student work to persist
You want built-in teaching tools
You need distraction and focus signals
You manage many tutors or instructors
You need education-specific workflows, privacy, and support
You want the lesson to feel like a classroom, not a meeting
You want the experience to feel professional, interactive, and built for learning
You are hosting a business meeting
You are running a large company webinar
You are talking with colleagues
You need a general-purpose video call
The work does not need to persist after the call
A standard, familiar call is all your session needs
Built for your team
Tutoring companies
Zoom works for individual calls. Pencil Spaces works for tutoring businesses that need consistency, visibility, recordings, support, scheduling, analytics, and scalable teaching workflows.
Schools and districts
Zoom can host a class call. Pencil Spaces is designed for student privacy, persistent instructional spaces, safer learning workflows, and education-specific compliance needs.
Independent tutors
Zoom gets you online. Pencil Spaces helps you teach better, retain students, reuse materials, and create a more professional learning experience.
Online learning programs
Zoom gives you the meeting. Pencil Spaces gives you the learning environment, support layer, classroom tools, and operational infrastructure around the session.
Proof by segment
Tutoring companies
Add a quote from a tutoring-company operator on running many tutors with consistency, oversight, and recordings.
Schools and districts
Add a quote from a school or district administrator on student privacy, compliance, and safe instructional spaces.
Independent tutors
Add a quote from an independent tutor on student retention, reusing materials, and a more professional experience.
Online learning programs
"Pencil Spaces has been instrumental in our transformation, enabling us to serve more students and bring literacy to the children of Charlotte-Mecklenburg."
Proven at scale
sessions taught on Pencil Spaces
minutes of live learning
uptime, so class is not interrupted
live support inside the Space
See how a teaching room compares to your current Zoom setup, and what unlimited hosts looks like for a team your size.
Built for teaching, not meetings, and trusted by tutoring teams, schools, and districts.
Pricing model
In education, your roster is rarely fixed. The number of tutors rises and falls with cohorts, seasons, and demand. On a traditional meeting platform you buy a host seat for each tutor, so every hire adds cost and a quiet month is still paid in full. Pencil Spaces is built for that. Hosts and Space links are unlimited, so whether your team is 10 people or 10,000, you never buy 10,000 seats.
Pencil Spaces earns when you earn. Your bill follows your teaching, not your headcount.
Team size
Pencil Spaces
Traditional model
10 tutors
Unlimited hosts
10 host seats
50 tutors
Unlimited hosts
50 host seats
100 tutors
Unlimited hosts
100 host seats
10,000 tutors
Unlimited hosts
10,000 host seats
Hosts, rooms, and Space links are unlimited. Paid team plans are usage-based, billed by user hours and only when two or more people are in a Space, so a tutor working alone is never billed. You scale your roster up or down without buying or cancelling seats.
Illustrative model comparison, not a price quote. See the Pencil Spaces pricing page for current rates.
Run your numbers
A per-host license is only part of the bill. You pay for every seat, every month, locked in for a year, whether or not anyone is teaching. Put in your numbers to see the real total.
Estimates use your inputs and a per-host annual model. Pencil Spaces pricing is usage-based, so request a quote for an exact comparison.
リソース
The full side by side, and a calculator you can run on your own numbers. Share them with whoever signs off on the decision.
PDF, comparison report
The side by side in a shareable PDF: where each tool fits, the honest differences, and the proof. Built for forwarding to your team.
Spreadsheet, cost calculator
Put in your own team size and your Zoom quote. It works out annual and three-year cost, total savings, and cost per tutor and per student.
Price guarantee
Zoom's per-seat pricing climbs as you add staff, and its list prices have risen over the years. Send us your current Zoom quote for a comparable setup and we will beat it.
Applies to a comparable plan, verified against your current Zoom quote. Terms confirmed before you switch.
Lower price, comparable plan. Show us the Zoom quote and we will beat it.
No per-seat creep. Unlimited hosts and Space links, so growing your team does not grow your bill.
Better, not just cheaper. You also get classrooms, saved work, teaching apps, and live support a meeting tool cannot replace.
Simple to check. Send your current Zoom quote and we will show you the number.
Switched from Zoom
Educators and tutoring teams who moved their teaching off Zoom and onto Pencil Spaces, in their own words
Switched for the classroom
Add a quote from a team that left Zoom on gaining a real classroom: the board, the materials, and a student's work all in one room, plus teaching apps a meeting tool does not have.
Switched for saved rooms
Add a quote from a team that left Zoom on keeping one room per student, with notes and materials ready every session.
Switched on price
Add a quote from a team that left Zoom on dropping per-seat pricing, so growing the team stopped growing the bill.
Placeholder prompts. Replace with real quotes from customers who switched from Zoom before publishing.
Want to hear it from them, not from us? We can connect you with a tutoring team that moved from Zoom to Pencil Spaces.
Talk to a team that switched from ZoomSwitching is easy
You do not have to figure it out alone. Our migration team helps you set up your Spaces, bring your classes across, and get your tutors teaching, and there is a full library of guides and walkthroughs to take you step by step.
A dedicated migration team to plan and run your move
A full library of setup guides and video walkthroughs
Nothing to reinstall, your students join in one click
Partnerships
If you sell, implement, or support video for schools and tutoring teams, partner with us. We will help you bring a purpose-built teaching platform to the customers a general meeting tool was never designed to serve.
Email partnerships@pencilspaces.comFAQ
Built to support COPPA, FERPA, HIPAA, SOC 2, and GDPR requirements. And no lock-in: Pencil Spaces is month to month, you can export your whiteboards and recordings whenever you want, and there is no long-term contract to try it.
Start free in your browser. No download, no credit card. Your first lesson can be live in minutes.
