TokBox Rolls Out Paid Features

TokBox, the web-based video chat application, appears to be testing new paid features on its platform. Although the startup creates a great product that allows for multi-user video chat from the browser, TokBox faced hardships last year and was forced to fire 30% of the company’s total staff and shuffled the executive lineup.

TokBox is obviously looking to create a revenue stream with the paid features, allowing users to pay $9.99 per month to add moderation functionality for chats. So with the paid features, you can choose who can join your call, remove people from your call, silence the audio of participants, control who shares media on the chat, and distribute moderator controls to other members of a chat. It also appears that the startup will charge users if they want to add more than 20 people to an individual chat.

The startup recently added document collaboration powered by EtherPad, which was acquired by Google late last year. It looks like TokBox is formulating a business plan; which should make its investors happy. And this monetization comes at a time when the online video chat application space is heating up, with TinyChat (which offers all of TokBox’s paid features for free) and others gaining popularity.

We’ve contacted TokBox for comment and will update with a response.

UPDATE: TokBox has confirmed that it rolled out its first set of paid features today.