Loom vs Cap.so 3 Year Total Cost Of Ownership Comparison

You said: Loom TCO calculator fro 3 years for a company of 50 people
ChatGPT said:

Here’s a simple, practical 3-year TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) calculator for Loom for a 50-person company, with clear assumptions so you can adjust it easily.


Assumptions (explicit)

  • Plan: Loom **Business
You said:

okay

ChatGPT said:

Great 👍 — here’s the complete 3-year Loom TCO calculator for a 50-person company, broken down clearly so you can reuse it in a doc or spreadsheet.


1️⃣ Assumptions

(You can tweak these easily)

ItemValue
Team size50 users
PlanLoom Business
Cost per user$15 / user / month
BillingAnnual (price equivalent used)
Period3 years (36 months)
CurrencyUSD
Overages / Add-onsNone

2️⃣ Direct License Cost

Monthly Cost

50 users × $15 = $750 / month

Annual Cost

$750 × 12 = $9,000 / year

3-Year License Cost

$9,000 × 3 = $27,000

3️⃣ Hidden / Indirect Costs (Often Missed)

A. Onboarding & Enablement

Assume:

  • 1 hour onboarding per employee
  • Avg fully-loaded cost = $30/hour
50 × 1 × $30 = $1,500 (one-time)

B. Admin & Management Overhead

Assume:

  • 2 hours/month of admin time
  • Admin cost = $40/hour
2 × $40 × 12 × 3 = $2,880

C. Attrition / Unused Licenses (Conservative)

Assume:

  • 10% average unused licenses over time
$27,000 × 10% = $2,700

4️⃣ 3-Year Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Cost Component3-Year Cost
Licenses$27,000
Onboarding$1,500
Admin overhead$2,880
Unused licenses$2,700
Total 3-Year TCO$34,080

5️⃣ Cost Per User (3 Years)

$34,080 ÷ 50 = $681.60 per user (3 years)
≈ $227 per user per year

6️⃣ Quick Scenario Comparison

Scenario3-Year TCO
Best case (100% usage, no waste)~$31,380
Realistic (above model)$34,080
High churn / poor adoption$36K–$38K

7️⃣ Want This As…

I can:

  • 📊 Convert this into a Google Sheet / Excel TCO calculator
  • 🔁 Compare Loom vs Slack Clips / MS Teams / Zoom Clips
  • 🧠 Add ROI metrics (time saved vs cost)
  • 🧮 Customize for 100+ users or Indian pricing assumptions

Just tell me what you want next.

You said:

if i move to cap cloud what will TCO

ChatGPT said:

Got it — you’re asking what the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) would look like if you switch from Loom to Cap (Cap.so) as your company’s screen-recording/video messaging tool for your 50-person team, over 3 years.

Here’s a clear TCO comparison based on known pricing and common cost factors.


📌 What Cap Is

Cap is an open-source alternative to Loom that lets you record, edit, and share videos. It offers both free capabilities and paid options for cloud collaboration and team features. Cap

Cap Pricing Options (as of late 2025)

  • Free tier – basic recording features, limited cloud sharing. Cap
  • Cap Pro – ~$8.16 per user per month (billed annually). Cap
  • One-time desktop license – $58 per machine (not enough for team cloud + sharing). Cap

For a real business team, most companies would choose Cap Pro for cloud features and sharing.


💰 3-Year TCO Scenarios for 50 Users

1) Cap Pro Cloud Plan

Cap Pro License Cost

  • Price: $8.16 per user per month (annual billing) Cap
  • Monthly for 50 users: 50 × $8.16 = $408.00
  • Annual: $408 × 12 = $4,896
  • 3-Year base cost: $4,896 × 3 = $14,688

⚠️ This is ~45% cheaper than Loom’s ~$27,000 3-year cost.
(No cloud hosting or storage fees beyond Cap Pro.)*

Indirect Costs (similar to Loom model)
We’ll keep the same indirect assumptions you used for Loom to compare apples-to-apples:

Cost Type3-Year Estimate
Onboarding (50 hrs × $30/hr)$1,500
Admin Time (2 hrs/mo × $40/hr × 36)$2,880
Unused Licenses (10% estimate)~$1,468

Total 3-Yr TCO — Cap Pro

$14,688 + $1,500 + $2,880 + $1,468 ≈ $20,536

Per User Over 3 Years

$20,536 ÷ 50 ≈ $411 per user (3 yrs)
≈ $137 / user / year

2) Cap Free + Optional Desktop Licenses

If your team mostly uses local recording + self-managed sharing and doesn’t need cloud storage:

ItemCost
Cap Desktop (one-time) @$58 × 50$2,900
Self-hosted storage & CDN (est)$2,000–$5,000 over 3 yrs (varies widely)
Onboarding/Training$1,500
Admin time$2,880
Unused licenses inefficienciesLow / minimal

Total 3-Yr TCO (self-hosted)

~$9,280 – $13,280

Per user ~ $186–$266 total for 3 yrs
(but add storage/devops/admin complexity)


📊 Quick Comparison Summary

MetricLoomCap ProCap Free + Desktop
3-Yr Base License$27,000$14,688$2,900
Onboarding$1,500$1,500$1,500
Admin$2,880$2,880$2,880
License Waste$2,700$1,468n/a
Total 3-Yr TCO$34,080~$20,536~$9,280–$13,280
Per User (3yrs)~$682~$411~$186–$266

⚖️ Key Tradeoffs

Cap Pro is much cheaper than Loom, with core features like cloud sharing and auto transcripts. Cap
🚫 Cap Free / Desktop is very low cost, but you’d need to manage storage, links, and collaboration (self-hosting or cloud bucket costs). Cap
⚙️ Indirect costs (training/admin) remain similar either way.


📌 Notes Before You Switch

Feature coverage: Cap includes many essentials (record, edit, share, transcripts), but some advanced enterprise analytics & security features may differ vs Loom’s Business plan. Cap
Support & SLAs: Enterprise support may require custom quotes for Cap Enterprise. Cap


If you want, I can also break this down into a spreadsheet you can share with finance, or show ROI vs Loom based on usage and productivity gains.

You said:

if i move cap self hosted what i ll lose?

ChatGPT said:

Here’s what you **gain — and what you might lose — if you choose to run Cap as a self-hosted platform (instead of using Cap’s cloud or a SaaS like Loom):


What You Keep with Cap Self-Hosted

✔️ Full screen recording, editing, and sharing capabilities using Cap tools on macOS/Windows. Cap
✔️ Full control of your data and storage — nothing is stored on Cap’s cloud unless you choose. Cap
✔️ Ability to configure your own storage (S3/MinIO/etc.) and retention policies. Cap
✔️ No per-user cloud storage fees — you just pay for your own infrastructure resources. Cap
✔️ You can host on your choice of environment (Docker, Railway, cloud VM, etc.). Cap


🚫 What You Might Lose (Compared to Cap Cloud / SaaS)

📌 1. Built-In Cloud Services

With self-hosting, you don’t get Cap’s hosted cloud experience:

  • No automatic cloud CDN/caching or managed storage.
  • No platform-managed uptime/availability SLA.

These are provided for cloud customers, but with self-hosting you must set them up yourself.


📌 2. Managed User Authentication (SSO/Email Links)

Self-host requires own auth configuration:

  • You have to configure email login links yourself (e.g., through Resend or other SMTP). Cap
  • Out-of-the-box Google/Social SSO might not be supported without custom setup.

Cloud Cap handles this automatically.


📌 3. Managed Infrastructure & Support

  • Cloud Cap includes platform support, updates, and managed infra.
  • Self-hosted means:
    • You are responsible for deploying, maintaining, updating, and securing everything yourself.
    • There’s no formal enterprise support from Cap for your self-hosted stack. Cap

📌 4. AI & “Instant” Cloud Features

Some advanced features like:

  • Automatic AI processing for transcripts, chapters, summaries might depend on cloud-accessible services unless you host and integrate them yourself.
  • Instant sharing via Cap’s infrastructure is not available — you’ll need to configure your server + public URLs.

(The documentation implies you can enable sharing via your own domain if set up correctly, but this isn’t as seamless as the hosted experience.) Cap


📌 5. Team Collaboration UI & Analytics

Cloud provides team dashboards, shared workspaces, analytics, watcher stats, etc.
In a self-hosted setup:

  • Some collaboration tooling may require additional setup/config or might not be as polished as the hosted version.

⚠️ 6. Ops and Dev Expertise Needed

Self-hosting isn’t just install and run — you need DevOps skills to:

  • Setup containers, DNS, HTTPS certificates.
  • Manage database (MySQL is required per current docs).
  • Configure email services for login/auth. Cap

That’s a non-trivial ongoing responsibility compared to cloud.


🧠 Summary: What You Trade Off

FeatureSelf-HostedCloud
Data Ownership✅ FullPartial
Managed Infrastructure❌ You✅ Them
Automatic Auth (email/SSO)❌ Manual✅ Included
AI & Collaboration Tools⚠️ Exists, but Cloud easier✅ Smooth
Support & SLA❌ You✅ Included
CostLower*Recurring fees*

*Lower cost only if you have capacity to host/maintain without heavy ops overhead.


🧩 Ideal Use Cases for Self-Hosting

✅ You have internal security/compliance requirements (data must stay inside your network). Cap
✅ You have DevOps resources to manage infrastructure and deployments.
✅ You want no per-seat cloud subscription and want to scale cost predictably.
✅ You want full control over data retention and custom integrations.


📌 Not Ideal If…

❌ You want simple plug-and-play with minimal maintenance.
❌ You want enterprise SSO + analytics out-of-the-box.
❌ You don’t want DevOps overhead for uptime, backups, updates, security.


If you want, I can also list the exact infrastructure components you’d need to run Cap self-hosted (like DB, storage, email, HTTPS, backup strategy) plus rough monthly cost estimates for common cloud providers. Just tell me!

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Which hosting option you want to choose?