The 5-minute recording cap is attached to the account, workspace and role your recorder is signed into — not to the plan you just paid for. That gap is the whole reason an upgrade can go through and the timer can still start counting down from 5:00.
Loom's own troubleshooting page opens with exactly that: "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."
So the question worth working through is not "did my payment land" but "which identity is my recorder using right now."
What the limit is actually attached to
Loom documents the cap as a plan feature first: "Loom Starter users have a 5-minute recording duration limit. Loom Business, Business + AI and Enterprise can enjoy unlimited recording time."
But the same help centre immediately adds a second condition, and this is the one that catches paying customers: "The 5-minute recording limit applies to the free Starter plan or workspaces with limited user roles (e.g., Creator Lite)."
Two separate things carry the limit, then — the plan on the workspace you are recording into, and the role you hold inside that workspace. Loom's roles page describes the second: "Users on Loom Starter and can only record and edit with the limitations of the Starter free plan (25 video storage limit and a 5-minute recording limit)."
That role, Creator Lite, is listed as available on Business and Business+AI plans as well as Starter Free. Your company can be fully paid up and you can still be a 5-minute user because of the seat you were assigned.
The fastest fix: sign out of the desktop app specifically
Here is the mechanism most write-ups skip, stated by Loom directly:
"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."
Read that carefully, because it changes how you should test. Opening loom.com in a browser, seeing your paid workspace and concluding "I am definitely on Business" proves nothing about the desktop recorder sitting in your menu bar. They are separate sessions, and Loom says the logout has to be done by hand.
So before touching anything in billing:
- Open the desktop app and check which account and workspace it shows.
- Log out of the desktop app manually — not out of the browser, not out of the extension.
- Log back in with the account that holds the paid seat.
- Start a test recording and watch whether a countdown appears.
If you record with the Chrome extension instead, do the same check there. Loom describes desktop as having session management separate from "the web or the Chrome extension," so each surface is worth verifying on its own rather than assumed to inherit the others.
Other causes, in order of likelihood
Your default workspace is the free one. Loom is explicit about what that setting governs: "Your default workspace controls where your videos are automatically stored and the features you have access to on your recordings." Features, not just storage location. The same page's advice for people in more than one workspace: "If you are part of multiple workspaces, ensure the correct workspace is set as your default." If you joined a paid team workspace but your personal free workspace is still the default, the recorder uses the free one's limits.
Your role is Creator Lite. Two cross-checks tell you this is the cause rather than a login problem. First, resolution: Loom says users on a Creator Lite role "will be limited to resolutions under Loom Starter free plan," so if your quality selector is also capped, the role is the common explanation for both symptoms. Second, editing: "If you have a Creator Lite role on a paid plan you will be able to use trimming features such as Stitch but you'll have a five-minute video duration." A role fix has to come from a workspace admin — logging out will not change it.
Worth knowing if your workspace is newer: Loom notes that accounts created after February 2026 "will only have Admin and Creator roles," and that Creator Lite is being deprecated "for existing users on a rolling basis."
A trial ended and the account reverted. Loom's wording: "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." An expired trial does not announce itself in the recorder — the countdown is the announcement.
You are an admin on a free workspace. Being the admin is not a plan. Loom's footnote on the roles page: "Admins on a Starter free plan have the same recording, editing, and sharing limitations as a Free user."
While the seat is being sorted out, record elsewhere and upload
If you are on a paid workspace and waiting on an admin to change your role, you can record with something else and bring the file into Loom — uploading is available on Loom's Business, Business + AI and Enterprise plans, and Loom notes the Upload feature is temporarily unavailable for Business Trial users.
Uploads have their own ceilings: "Loom limits uploads to 4 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less." And the rejection message has documented causes — a "Failed to process" result "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."
A long screen recording clears 4 GB more easily than people expect, so shrinking it first is usually the difference between a clean upload and a retry:
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 nothing is uploaded anywhere on the way to fixing an upload. Loom's own guidance for files it rejects is to re-export to widely supported specs, and it recommends "exporting your video using the media specifications in the above table (H.264/AAC to . MP4 file.)" — which is what the compressor above produces. If your source came off a Mac or iPhone as a QuickTime file, MOV to MP4 handles the container step on its own.
How to tell it worked
Watch the timer, not the billing page. Loom describes the free-plan behaviour precisely: "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."
A countdown starting at 5:00 means the recorder is still resolving you to a Starter-level identity. No countdown at 5:00 means the session, workspace or role change took effect.
FAQ
Why does Loom still stop at 5 minutes after I paid? Loom's troubleshooting page attributes it to being logged into the wrong account on the recorder, or to a default workspace that is a free workspace. It also notes the cap applies to workspaces with limited user roles such as Creator Lite, and that an ended trial can revert an account to the free plan.
Does upgrading on the web automatically apply to the desktop app? Not on its own. Loom states the desktop app "has separate session management from the web or the Chrome extension" and that you must manually log out of it to start a fresh session. Check the desktop app's own account and workspace.
I am on a Business plan, so how long can I actually record? Loom's pages give two figures. The recording-length page says Business, Business + AI and Enterprise "can enjoy unlimited recording time," and the Enterprise plan FAQ lists "Unlimited recording length." The Business plan FAQ lists "Up to 6 hours recording length," and the plan comparison page says "recording length up to 6 hours." Check the current limit in the official documentation before planning a long session.
My whole team is paid but I am still capped — what do I ask the admin? Ask which role your seat holds. Loom ties the 5-minute cap to limited roles such as Creator Lite, and that role is listed as available on Business and Business+AI plans, so a paid workspace does not by itself rule it out. Only an admin can change the role.
Is the 5-minute cap the same as the editing time limit? No, those are different numbers. Trimming has its own ceiling: "You also will only be able to trim videos that are five hours or less in length," alongside a cap of 500 trims per clip. Recording length and trimmable length are documented separately.
More Loom and recording fixes are collected in the fix guides, and every browser-side converter and compressor we run is listed on all Clapr tools — including video compression for files that have to clear an upload ceiling.
Quotes taken from Loom's help centre at support.atlassian.com/loom, checked 16 September 2026. Loom's pages have carried conflicting figures before — verify against the official documentation before relying on them.
