Hello @thoughtspeed7
Connecting teachers and students has surfaced as a dominant use-case recently.
The below lists are just a summarization of your questions and comments, to make sure I understand perfectly what it is that you desire to achieve (let me know if I’ve misunderstood anything please)…
Your Requirements
- Most cost-effective solution
- Seamless access from within your web/mobile app(s)
- Users should not have to download/install Zoom’s client
- Track when meetings start and end
- Track when participants of meetings join and leave
- Support pay-per-use billing
That’s a lot of information. Allow me to begin by addressing, what seems to be, the most top-of-mind issue surfaced in your inquiry…cost.
This cannot be done (and especially not operate in production) for free.
Zoom does not offer any free Partner Programs/Plans (or other solutions) that grant developers/partners permission to resell and profit from Zoom’s products and services at zero-cost. That would be a very fast way for Zoom to go out of business. Anyone wanting to resell Zoom’s services, must be a registered Zoom Partner.
Technically speaking, all your requirements can be satisfied…
Yes, Zoom SDKs are the right tool(s) to successfully satisfy the requirements you’ve described. Our SDKs empower developers, like yourself, to embed the ZX (Zoom eXperience) directly into your web and mobile applications, and to quickly develop “best-in-breed” customer meeting experiences that only Zoom can provide! Zoom SDKs are “bound” to the developer’s account, so any meeting hosts must be active Zoom users created as members of the account, respectively.
You also indicated the need for users (teachers), of your web/mobile apps, be able to create and host meetings. These operations (meeting/webinar build-up and tear-down) are controlled by the Zoom REST APIs (specifically, the Zoom Meeting APIs).
Your next requirement was tracking meeting start/end times and participant/host join and leave times. Using Zoom Webhook Event Subscriptions as part of a JWT app you can define an Event Subscription on your app that will act like a server-side proxy for your web/mobile apps. Within Zoom Marketplace, on your JWT app, select the events you want Zoom to delivered to your secure endpoint URL for your webhook consumer…and VOILA! The data will flow, as it happens, and you only need to filter the events and process the data for business tracking purposes (rather than long-polling our API to see if something has changed).
As you’ve already identified, the Zoom Partner Program(s) empowers developers to create/manage users and optionally, the Sub-Accounts for those Users! Zoom’s Partner Program(s) facilitates a variety of business models needed for companies to resell Zoom’s products and services. The “pay-per-use” model you’ve described is an available option for Zoom Partners. However, opposite to your requirements of being low-cost, Zoom Partners have financial obligations and formalized partnership agreements. I am not at liberty to publicly share Zoom Partner program pricing (this may change at some point in the future, but not currently).
Now, allow me to answer the questions you’ve asked…
Your Questions
- What is the ETA for a Flutter SDK?
Since Flutter SDK can be installed for a variety of platforms, I don’t see us building a specific FlutterSDK in the near future, but you might be able to try building a Flutter front-end app, and importing the respective Zoom SDK (Android-Android, iOS-iOS, etc…).
- Are Zoom’s Free Plan time restrictions in effect for 1:1 meetings with only the host + single-participant?
No sir, 1:1 meetings do not have 40 minute time limit, and there are no other restrictions of which I am aware. However, I would highly advise against depending upon this as a sound production solution long-term.
- Can you leverage the teacher’s Zoom Basic/Free Plan account to implement the above requirements without being required to pay for Zoom’s products/services?
You “can” do this, but I would highly recommend asking “should we” first. I don’t think this is a long-term solution that will scale, and it means Zoom “could” break your entire solution in the future if the free plans are modified in any way.
- Do you need to create Zoom users for each of your students, or can your students simply join the teacher’s (host’s) meeting(s) anonymously?
You don’t have to add student’s as users on the account. But, I highly recommend you Add [students] as Registrants for a specific meeting or webinar, and they will be given a unique meeting join_url just for them!
- Do Zoom’s WebSDK or Mobile SDKs operate without in a standalone manner, without the need for your users to download/install the official Zoom Client app on their desktop/mobile devices?
Yes, that’s the goal of our SDKs (streamline the development process for embedding Zoom’s best-in-breed solution into your products and services directly (no downloads necessary, apart from your app).
- Can I provide you Zoom’s ISV pricing, and does Zoom offer a free Partner Plan?
No, we do not share our pricing for the Zoom Partner program(s) publicly at this time.