Every Saturday at 7 pm, you post a Zoom link in the class WhatsApp group. Some weeks 80 students join. Some weeks it's 110, and you only have 85 paying students.
Then a parent calls asking whether their daughter attended last Tuesday, and you're scrolling through a participant list full of names like "iPhone" and "Hamada 2".
Sending meeting links is how most teachers start, and there's nothing wrong with that. The question is when it stops being enough, and whether a live room built into your own platform is worth it. This guide compares both fairly.
The real problem with a meeting link in a group chat
A link is a key that anyone can copy. Once it's in a WhatsApp group, it can be forwarded to a friend who didn't pay, and you won't know until the numbers stop adding up.
Passcodes help less than people think, because they're usually shared in the same message as the link. Waiting rooms help more, but with 100 students someone has to admit each one, and "Mohamed's phone" tells you nothing.
The second problem is invisible. Attendance, recordings and chat logs live in a separate account. Linking them back to each student in your records is manual work, every week.
Option 1: Zoom or Google Meet links
Let's be fair: these tools are mature, stable on weak connections and familiar to almost every student. For a new teacher, they're the fastest way to start.
What you should know:
- Free plans have limits. At the time of writing, Zoom's free plan caps meetings at 40 minutes, and free Google Meet accounts limit group calls to 60 minutes. Paid plans remove these caps. Check the current plan pages before you commit.
- Attendance reports depend on the plan. Zoom offers participant reports on paid plans. Google Meet attendance tracking is available only on certain paid Google Workspace editions. In both cases, you still match display names or emails to your student list.
- Recordings live in their system. Cloud recording goes to the provider's storage or your Drive, and you move it to students by hand.
- Branding is theirs. Students see the Zoom or Google interface, not your academy.
For a small class of loyal students who all pay, links can be perfectly adequate for years.
Option 2: a live room built into your platform
In a built-in setup, the student never sees a link. The flow looks like this:
- The student logs into your platform and opens their group's page.
- A "Join live class" button appears only if they're enrolled and paid, and only around the session time.
- The platform creates a one-time entry for that student and opens the room inside your page.
- Join and leave times are saved against the student's account automatically.
- If recording is on, the recording goes into the lesson page with the same protection as your other videos.
The video itself usually comes from an established provider. Zoom, for example, offers a Meeting SDK that lets developers embed meetings in their own site, and there are dedicated live-video services built for this. Your platform handles who gets in, when, and what's recorded.
One practical point: many students open links from inside WhatsApp or Facebook, and the in-app browsers there don't always handle the camera and microphone properly. A good platform asks students to open the page in their phone's main browser before class.
The honest downsides: development cost, usage fees from the video provider (often by minutes or participants), and more to test, especially on older phones and weak mobile data.
Side-by-side comparison
| Criterion | Zoom or Meet links | Built-in live room |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to start | Low: a subscription | Development plus provider usage fees |
| Access control | Link and passcode can be forwarded | Only logged-in, paid students get in |
| Attendance | Report on paid plans, matched to students by hand | Automatic, per student, with join and leave times |
| Recordings | Provider cloud or your Drive, moved manually | Published into the lesson, protected like other videos |
| Branding | Provider's interface | Your platform around the video |
| Student experience | Switch apps, sometimes install one | One click from the lesson page |
| Reliability | Very mature | As reliable as the provider you choose |
| Interaction tools | Chat, polls, breakout rooms (some paid) | Depends on the provider and what's built |
There is also a middle path. Your platform can manage enrolment, scheduling and access, while the session still runs through your Zoom account using unique registration links per student or an embedded meeting. You keep the reliability you know and gain control over who joins.
Attendance that means something
"Clicked join" is not attendance. If you want attendance a parent can trust, record:
- Join time, leave time and total minutes, including rejoins after a dropped connection.
- A threshold, such as present if they attended at least 75% of the session. You set the number.
- Absences flowing into a parent notification the same evening.
- Attendance next to exam results, so you can see who is slipping.
This is where a built-in room earns its cost for education centres, because live attendance joins in-person attendance in one student record. We cover that in running an education centre online and offline in one system.
Recordings and replays
Decide your policy before the first class:
- Who sees the replay? Only students enrolled in that group, or also absent students who paid?
- For how long? Until the exam, the end of term or forever?
- Is it protected? A replay is a video like any other, so it needs private streaming and a watermark. See protecting course videos from leaks.
- What does keeping it cost? Storing and streaming many hours of recordings has a monthly cost that grows over time, so archive or delete what's no longer needed.
- Whose faces are in it? Tell students if the session is recorded. Many teachers record only their own screen and voice.
Common mistakes with live classes
- Posting one permanent link for the whole term.
- Never testing on mobile data, where most students actually join.
- Trusting display names for attendance.
- Recording to a laptop and forgetting to upload until exam week.
- Launching a built-in room with no fallback plan.
Questions people ask
Is free Zoom enough for online classes?
For short sessions, maybe. At the time of writing, free meetings are capped at 40 minutes, so most teachers running full lessons need a paid plan or another solution.
Can I track attendance with Zoom alone?
Paid plans offer participant reports, but you still match names or emails to your student list by hand. A platform can do that matching automatically.
Can students join a built-in room from their phones?
Yes, through the phone's browser, usually after allowing microphone and camera access. Test on the phones your students actually use, including older Android models.
Can I keep using my Zoom account with my own platform?
Often yes. Zoom offers integration options, including its Meeting SDK, but what's available depends on your plan and Zoom's terms. Check with your developer before assuming.
What happens to the recordings?
In a built-in setup, recordings can be published straight into the lesson page with the same protection as your recorded videos, available only to enrolled students.
Choosing your next step
If you have one or two small groups and links rarely leak, stay with links and tighten them: registration, a waiting room and a new link each term. If you run several groups, sell live sessions as a paid product or need reliable attendance for parents, a built-in or hybrid room will save you time every week. It also fits naturally into how you price your online courses.
Live classes are one of the modules Unilira builds into its education platforms. To see which option suits your schedule and student numbers, book a meeting.
