Loom: communicating design asynchronously with video
Loom records your screen to explain designs and ask for feedback without meetings. How to use it, what each 2026 plan includes, and when to pick another tool.
What is Loom?
It is an asynchronous video tool. You record your screen while you walk through a prototype, a flow, or a proposal, and share the link. The recipient can watch whenever it suits them and leave comments at specific moments in the video.
Atlassian announced the purchase of Loom in October 2023 and said it would stay available as a standalone product while being integrated with Atlassian tools such as Jira. If your team already uses Jira or Confluence, that matters: Loom’s pricing page says purchases made through Atlassian.com are managed differently from those made through Loom.com, for example in billing and in the admin hub.
What does a designer use it for?
Loom covers three frequent situations:
- Presenting a design before asking for feedback. According to Loom, an async presentation is a recording that walks through the designer’s proposal without a live meeting, and reviewers can answer with timestamped comments. The designer explains the context, the problem, and the decisions out loud, and the reviewer arrives with specific questions instead of guessing.
- Giving feedback on someone else’s work. Loom recommends video when the feedback is nuanced and a recording gives better context than writing it out. You can draw on the screen, and tone of voice avoids the misunderstandings text often creates.
- Coordinating distributed teams. Loom’s own design brief page lists gathering feedback across several teams or time zones, without waiting for a meeting, as a use case.
What does each plan include in 2026?
Prices change. On the official page (loom.com/pricing) in November 2026, these plans were listed:
| Plan | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | Free | Up to 25 videos per person, 5-minute recordings, up to 720p, comments, transcripts and captions |
| Business | $18 per user per month | Unlimited videos and length, up to 4K, drawing tool, basic editing, custom branding |
| Business + AI | $24 per user per month | Everything above plus Loom AI: automatic titles, summaries and chapters, edit by transcript |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | Advanced security (SSO), user roles, admin controls |
The page advertises savings of up to 17% with annual billing but does not publish the annual price per user. Always check the page before buying.
For a designer, what weighs most is the free plan’s limit of 5 minutes per video and 25 videos. A long flow walkthrough does not fit in one recording, and once you reach 25 videos you have to delete or pay. Starter is enough for trials and small teams that record little. For a team that reviews design every week, Business is usually the realistic minimum.
How do you use it well?
A simple workflow that works for most teams:
- Record with a goal. Say in the first minute what you need: “I want feedback on the payment step, not on the colors.”
- Keep the video short. If it runs past a few minutes, split it by topic. That way people finish it and the comments stay organized.
- Set a deadline in the message that comes with the link, so feedback arrives in time.
- Ask for comments at the exact moment in the video, so each remark points to a specific screen.
- Add written context. Paste the link to the prototype or design file in the message, along with the criteria you want reviewers to use.
- Close the loop. Summarize in a document or in the team channel what was accepted and what was not. A video without a summary gets lost.
When should you NOT use Loom?
Not everything is solved with video. Use another tool when:
- You need to discuss in real time and decide on the spot. A short meeting or a shared board such as Miro works better.
- The work is collaborative visual design with simultaneous edits. Figma and FigJam already have comments anchored to the artwork.
- The review needs a formal record. A video is not a good place to store decisions; a design decision log is.
- The team does not have the habit of watching videos. If feedback goes unanswered, the problem is not the tool.
- The information is sensitive. Before recording customer data or designs under confidentiality, check the video’s privacy settings and your company’s policy.
Example
Illustrative example: a designer working with an engineering team in another time zone records a four-minute video about the new password-change flow. She explains the support problem that motivated the change, shows the three error states, and closes with two specific questions. The team comments at the exact moments, and she replies in a document with the decisions made. A one-hour meeting became a twenty-minute review without losing context.
Common mistakes
- Recording long videos without structure, which nobody finishes.
- Using video for decisions that should be written down, with no summary afterward.
- Sending the link without saying what feedback you expect.
- Assuming everyone has time to watch and not setting a deadline.
- Forgetting the free plan has limits and discovering it after the team already depends on the tool.
- Leaving the video as the only documentation. Transcripts help with search, but the final decision should live in text.
If your team needs to combine video with user research, Lookback is the kind of tool worth comparing. And if the goal is to communicate a process, the UX design process shows where a video makes sense.