Loom's 5-minute recording limit applies to the Starter (free) plan — and, per Loom's own permissions documentation, to the Creator Lite role even inside a workspace that pays. That second case is the one that produces the confused support ticket: the company bought Loom, and the recording still stops at 0:00.
There is a second surprise on the other side of the paywall. Loom's help centre gives two different answers for how long a paid recording can be, on two different pages, and both are still published.
The limits, at a glance
| Plan or role | Single recording length | Loom page it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Starter (free) | 5 minutes | "How long can I record?"; "Available Loom plans" |
| Business / Business + AI | Two official figures — see below | "How long can I record?" vs "Business plan FAQ" |
| Enterprise | "Unlimited recording length" | "Enterprise plan FAQ" |
| Creator Lite role (any plan) | 5 minutes | "Understand workspaces, roles and permissions" |
| Trimming a video in the editor | "five hours or less in length" | "Edit your Loom video" |
The free-plan wording is blunt. Loom's "Available Loom plans" page describes Starter as a "Free plan with 5 min recording limit and 25 video limit storage ." The dedicated length page says the same thing in a sentence: "If you're a Loom Starter user, your video length can be up to 5 minutes."
How the limit is enforced while you record
It is not a warning — it is a countdown that ends the recording for you. Loom describes the exact behaviour:
"If you're on a Starter plan, the timer will start at 5:00 and count down until you reach 0:00, at which point your recording will end. Once the video ends, your video share page will open."
Two practical consequences follow directly from that sentence. Whatever you had left to say at 0:00 is not in the video, because the recording has already ended. And you are dropped straight onto the share page, so there is no pause to decide what to do next.
The timer itself lives "under the Stop button on the left-hand side," and Loom notes the control menu containing it is "defaulted to on" but "can be turned off on your Desktop Settings so that it only shows when enabled." If you turned that off at some point, you lose your only on-screen warning that the clock is running out.
Separately, and only on the extension: "If you're recording with the Chrome Extension, we'll check in with you after two hours and make sure you're still intentionally recording." That is a check-in, not a cap.
The paid-plan number that nobody reconciles
This is where most articles about Loom's limit stop, and it is the part worth reading twice.
Three Loom pages say paid recording is unlimited:
- The length page: "Loom Business, Business + AI and Enterprise can enjoy unlimited recording time."
- The Enterprise plan FAQ feature list: "Unlimited recording length"
- The roles and permissions table: "Unlimited recording time and storage"
Two Loom pages give a ceiling instead:
- The Business plan FAQ feature list: "Up to 6 hours recording length"
- The "What are the differences between Loom plans?" page: "recording length up to 6 hours"
Both sets of wording are on Loom's current help centre. We are not in a position to say which one governs your workspace, so if a recording longer than six hours is something your work actually depends on, check the current limit in the official documentation before you plan around it — and do not assume a review article, this one included, settles it.
Five hours is a different number entirely
A third figure floats around Loom's docs and it is easy to misread as a recording cap. It is not. It belongs to the editor: "You will only be able to make up to 500 trims per clip. You also will only be able to trim videos that are five hours or less in length."
So recordable length and trimmable length are two separate limits. A recording that exceeds the editor's five-hour figure is still a recording; it is the trimming feature that stops being available to it.
Paying and still capped at 5 minutes
Loom has a page specifically for this, and it names the causes rather than guessing at them:
"If you encounter a 5-minute recording limit despite having a paid Loom subscription, it is usually because you are logged into the wrong account on your recorder, or your default workspace is a free workspace."
Work through these in order:
- Check which account the recorder is signed into. This is the one people get wrong, because the desktop app keeps its own login. Loom: "The desktop app can be signed into a different account and has separate session management from the web or the Chrome extension. You must manually log out of the desktop app to start a fresh session." Being paid on the web proves nothing about the app.
- Check your default workspace. If you belong to several, "ensure the correct workspace is set as your default" — Loom notes it "controls where your videos are automatically stored and the features you have access to on your recordings."
- Check whether a trial ended. "If you were on a trial subscription that ended, your account may have reverted to the free plan. You'll need to upgrade again to restore unlimited recording."
- Check your role. Loom states the limit "applies to the free Starter plan or workspaces with limited user roles (e.g., Creator Lite)," and describes Creator Lite users as able to "record and edit with the limitations of the Starter free plan (25 video storage limit and a 5-minute recording limit)." Loom also notes Creator Lite is being retired: accounts created after February 2026 "will only have Admin and Creator roles."
That role rule reaches into editing too. Loom: "if you stitch videos together and the total length exceeds five minutes, you'll need to trim the video down to five minutes or less."
Bringing a longer recording in from elsewhere
If you are on a paid plan, importing is Loom's own supported route — "Video uploading is only available to users on Loom's Loom's Business, Business + AI or Enterprise plans" — and it has its own ceiling: "Loom limits uploads to 4 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less."
Long screen recordings blow past 4 GB easily, and Loom names the exact failure: a "Failed to process" message "most often occurs because the file is over 4 GB, its frames per second are over 60, or its resolution is over 4096 x 2160." Loom's fix is to re-encode, and it specifies the target: "We recommend exporting your video using the media specifications in the above table (H.264/AAC to . MP4 file.)"
You can do that here without installing anything:
Try it right here
Runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded anywhere.
This runs inside your browser tab — the file is read from disk, re-encoded locally, and handed back, so a long internal recording never leaves your machine on the way to being shrunk. It outputs H.264 MP4, which is the combination Loom asks for. If you want to understand the trade-offs rather than take a preset on faith, how to compress a video without losing quality covers which knobs actually move file size.
FAQ
Is Loom's 5-minute limit per video or per month? Per recording. Loom describes it as "a 5-minute recording duration limit" on individual videos, enforced by a timer that counts down from 5:00 to 0:00. A separate Starter limit covers your library: "Loom Starter users have a limit of 25 videos," and archived videos still count.
Why am I limited to 5 minutes on a paid plan? Loom lists four causes: the recorder is signed into the wrong account, your default workspace is a free workspace, a trial subscription ended and reverted you to free, or your role is Creator Lite. Check the desktop app's login first — it has separate session management from the web.
How long can I record on Loom Business? Loom's documentation currently reads both ways. The length article says Business has "unlimited recording time," while the Business plan FAQ lists "Up to 6 hours recording length." Check the official documentation for the value that applies to your workspace.
Does the recording stop or just warn me at 5 minutes? It stops. At 0:00 "your recording will end" and the share page opens automatically.
Can I upload a longer video instead of recording it? Only on Business, Business + AI or Enterprise plans, and within "4 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less." Files over 4 GB, above 60 fps, or above 4096 x 2160 are the three reasons Loom gives for a "Failed to process" error — re-encoding to H.264 MP4 addresses the first of them.
More platform ceilings and what they really measure are collected in the limits section, and the browser-side video compressor sits with the rest of the Clapr tools.
Figures quoted from Loom's help centre, checked 16 September 2026. Where two Loom pages disagree, both are quoted above rather than resolved — verify against the official documentation before relying on either.
