Miro Review (2024)

Miro is an unusual tool in that it blends aspects of several different categories of software into one. It's part diagramming and flowchart software and part presentation app—you could throw mind mapping and video conferencing in there, too.

And everything about it is collaborative. You can use it to draw an idea or create a slideshow, either by yourself or with others editing simultaneously. Miro has video and audio calling built in, plus screen sharing, so you can actually discuss how you're working while you're working or give a talk while showing your creation. You can pull in media from other apps to display, whether it's Vimeo videos or Asana cards.

What makes Miro truly extraordinary is how easy it is to pick up and use, even though it sounds like a hodgepodge of ideas. It's infinitely useful and easily deserves to be an Editors' Choice product.

How Much Does Miro Cost?

Miro lets you try out the service for free. With a Free account you can edit three boards and collaborate with any number of people. You also get access to Miro's templates, core integrations, and other basic features.

Paid accounts have no limit on the number of boards, and they get a few extra integration options. Paid accounts also come with more tools for hosting virtual meetings and presenting.

• Team $10 per person per month or $96 per person if paid annually, min. 2 people

• Consultant $15 per person per month or $144 per person per year

• Business $192 per person per year (equivalent to $16 per person per month), min. 20 people

• Enterprise (custom pricing)

The Consultant tier is for people who work with clients. It includes extra privacy and security features for working with individual clients and the ability to buy day passes to Miro ($3 each) so that you can collaborate ad-hoc with different people.

The big upgrade for moving to a Business account is getting Single Sign-On. Finally, the Enterprise account comes with enterprise-grade administration tools, premium support and personalized onboarding, and other upgrades in regards to managing users and licenses.

How Do Miro's Prices Compare?

Miro costs a little more than straightforward diagramming apps or mind mapping software, and about the same as other apps that include tools for collaborating and presenting.

Mural, which PCMag has not yet reviewed, is perhaps one of Miro's closest competitors. It charges $144 or $240 per person per year (equivalent to $12 or $20 per month), depending on what type of plan you get.

Prezi, an unconventional presentation app, has a lot in common with Miro. To get the best features, it costs $15-$19 per person per month (billed annually, however). That's in the same ballpark and even a little more than what Miro costs.

The collaborative diagramming app Lucidchart starts lower at $5.95 per month for a single person. Pro and Team accounts cost $9.95-$24 per person per month, with discounts for paying annually.

Mindomo, which is mind mapping software, has a free tier of service and paid plans that cost around $5.50-$13.50 per person per month. Mindomo uses a sliding scale, so large teams will find their per-person rate is even lower.

Many of the best video conferencing services, including Zoom Meeting (paid accounts from $14,99 per month), have collaborative whiteboards built into them for real-time brainstorming. That's different, however, from being able to save, reuse, and build out your boards, the way you can with Miro.

Apps and Getting Started

Miro runs in a web browser or in the Miro apps. There are apps for macOS and Windows (32- and 64-bit); Android, iOS, and Microsoft mobile devices; and the Microsoft Surface Hub.

For all accounts, Miro handles storage. There are no options to bring your own cloud storage at this time.

When you first create an account, Miro offers you tips for getting started and learning about how the app works. There are videos as well as text-based help files, and they do a good job of introducing you to the tools that will be most valuable to a new user.

The desktop app has a simple interface with a dashboard as your main view and tabs across the top. Those tabs are boards that you open, making it easy to jump among your projects.

To use Miro, you more or less need an internet connection. There's little support for working offline. The most you can do is view a board that's already open and loaded in the app. You can't open or edit an existing board much less make a new one while offline.

Miro's templates cover a broad range of use cases. Some examples are Mind Map, Flowchart, Product Roadmap, User Story Map Framework, and UX Research. Paid account holders can make custom templates, too.

Whether you use a template or start from scratch, Miro gives you a generous board space. A small zoom-pan window appears at the bottom right corner of the screen.

There are two toolbars, one at left and one on the bottom. The left toolbar lets you add shapes, text, stickies, arrows, tables, and other elements. The bottom toolbar allows you to move into presentation mode, start a video call, run a timer, access the board history, and more.

A Note feature, collapsed on the right side of the screen, lets you add freeform text or formatted text as a note attached to (but not on) a board, such as a to-do list, meeting agenda, or project summary.

A commenting tool and framing tool show up redundantly but handily on both toolbars. Frames are borders that you place around some portion of your board to make it a set piece. It's a handy way to segment your boards, like if you want to turn them into slides for a presentation, as well as when you want to export their contents. For example, if you have data on your board that would work in a different report or presentation, you can frame it and export it as a JPG, PDF, or CSV file, depending on what it contains and what you need to do with it.

Miro makes it easy for people to create good-looking visual materials even if they aren't especially skilled at design. For example, a Smart Drawing feature, which you have to enable, identifies common shapes that you draw by hand, such as arrows and circles, and turns them into neater and more uniform objects. A Wireframe library gives you objects for mockups, such as buttons commonly found in mobile apps, standard icons, and whatnot. Miro has other libraries with more specific iconography, including a Cisco icon set, an Azure set, and a generic set of icons.

You can also pull onto your board data from other apps that you connect to Miro. For example, if your team uses JIRA, Asana, or Trello, you pull in cards and display them on your board. Miro also supports connectivity with storage services, including Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and OneDrive, so that you can easily bring in assets from those places, too. Miro even has a web clipper, which is a browser extension you install that allows you to copy content from web pages and automatically display it on a board. Many other integrations exist, too, including one for Slack and Microsoft Teams to get alerts to activity.

Collaboration and Presenting

Miro's collaboration works in real time. When you invite colleagues to view or edit your boards and they are active on the board, icons representing them appear at the top. It's somewhat similar to how collaboration works in any Google app.

You can choose to see their cursors moving in real time or hide them if you prefer. Because boards can be quite large, there's a button that takes you to any person's cursor so you can quickly see what they're doing and work together. Another option is "bring to me" whichever collaborators you select; if you're discussing an edit and the other person isn't sure where you are on the board, this option swiftly resolves that issue.

Frames, mentioned earlier, can help turn your canvas into a presentation. On the lower toolbar is a button to put your board into presentation mode. Once you begin to present, Miro will move through your frames as if they were slides. You can use standard Next and Back buttons at the bottom to help you along.

Miro also has audio and video connectivity that allows you to have a call with collaborators either while working together or presenting your board. There's a screen-sharing option, a timer, and a few other tools. Many of these features are not included in the free plan, although as of this writing, you can try them out for two weeks without putting down a credit card—a great trial to include, as many new members will be interested in it. If Miro isn't your video conferencing tool of choice, you can always connect it to Zoom or Microsoft Teams instead.

Mural, one of the competitors mentioned previously, doesn't compete with Miro in this regard. It offers integration with Microsoft Teams for hosting video calls while presenting or collaborating, but it doesn't have its own video service included. Support for integration between Zoom and Mural is in the works but is not available as of this writing.

Miro blends aspects of diagramming software, mind mapping apps, and video conferencing tools into one grand collaboration app. It's highly capable with a wonderful feature set and is easy to use. There's plenty to explore, too, making it well worth the price. For all those reasons, it's a PCMag Editors' Choice winner for collaboration tools.