25 Best Webinar Software Platforms

Hosting webinars and video conferences has become more popular since 2020 as a way of growing businesses and elevating brands. From a business point of view, they boost marketing and sales as they allow you to interact with your audience, respond to frequently asked questions, showcase your business and demonstrate the quality of your product. By using a webinar, you get to engage with leads and move them down the sales funnel. Other uses for these tools could include lectures, seminars, live presentations, or events conducted online and attended by selected participants. Webinar software will let you create your own virtual online meeting room that you and your audience will use to view and follow the presentation.

In addition, they help get teams connected and collaborating across different time zones and as such are becoming valuable tools to provide training solutions online. The greatest benefit of webinar software is that it combines elements of conferencing with a powerful marketing tool. Simply put, webinar software helps you conduct interactive live online events that can also be recorded for review by participants after they are hosted. These are solutions that give businesses the opportunity to provide engaging, flexible, and interactive experiences beyond conference calls.

Webinar Platforms for Business

If you’re looking for webinar software, you’ll find a large range of products to choose from. Below we’ve collected 25 of the best webinar tools to let you decide which webinar platform is right for you.

1. Zoom Video Webinar

Considered among the best online meeting and webinar solutions on the market, Zoom Video Webinar helps you connect with both internal and external audiences by sharing live HD video. This webinar platform can accommodate an audience of up to 50,000 and then further your reach by live streaming your event on YouTube Live, Facebook Live, and other custom streaming services. When it comes to branding, you can customize your webinar registration page with reminder emails; promote your social share buttons; build a custom post-webinar landing page; use your brand as a watermark on your live streaming video, and more.

Interaction features with this video conferencing tool include the ability to moderate Q&A sessions, conduct polls, promote attendees to panelists who can share audio and video, and gather attendee feedback with an automatic post-webinar survey. The tool also comes with the ability to collect contact information from registrants, push webinar contacts as leads into your CRM system, use marketing automation integrations and even the ability to monetize webinars through paid registration.

The free plan offers the ability to host up to 100 people, conduct group meetings for up to 40 minutes, and hold unlimited one-on-one meetings. While the paid version starts with an annual subscription of $149.90 and comes with robust capabilities to host up to 1,000 people with large meetings add-on, hold group meetings of up to 30 hours in duration, do social media streaming, record up to 1 GB in the cloud, and more.

2. GoToWebinar

The GoToWebinar platform offers users features that include flexible scheduling for webinars by providing access to several in-built webinar templates. You also get automated email reminders for your webinars, customizable webinar invitations, and a converting registration page. To boost engagement, GoToWebinar comes with built-in polls and surveys, and automatic webinar recordings.

Paid plans for GoToWebinar start at $49 a month billed annually. You can create pre-recorded events; use analytics; benefit from HD video quality; use built-in polls and surveys to engage your audience; provide automatic recording of your event which can be shared online; and integrate with Zapier, Salesforce, Unbounce; and more.

3. Zoho Meeting

Zoho Meeting provides users flexible and easy-to-use solutions when it comes to hosting online meetings or web conferencing. Meetings is user-friendly and easily scalable. It comes with file and screen sharing and audio and video conferencing. It can cater to single users as well as to large-sized organizations. You can host product launches, feature demonstrations, sales presentations, conduct webinars, trainings, and online meetings right from the comfort of your browser.

Plans for Zoho Meeting start at $15 a month billed annually. For this, you can accommodate up to 25 attendees; record and store up to 25 recordings; embed registration widgets; provide registration moderation; automate email invitations; change presenters during the webinar; add co-organizers, and generate and export customized reports.

4. Demio

Demio is a webinar software platform that is compatible with almost any major browser. It offers live and automated webinars, registration pages, and webinar replays to name a few features. Considered among the best webinar platforms around, this cloud-based webinar platform can deliver HD content in real-time allowing you to join online meetings without any software downloads. In fact, Demio touts itself as 25 times faster for attendees to join from the browser then to download an application. This makes it unlike other webinar platforms. Users with Demio can also apply their branding and logos across all event materials to boost branding.

The platform comes with an intuitive user experience and lets you upload your presentation slides or share videos directly from Demio.  You can also save registration data and update contacts based on webinar behavior. Pricing for Demio starts at $34 per month which offers standard features that include a three-hour session limit, support, and the ability to hold live events. A free trial of Demio is also available for those looking to try it out.

5. BlueJeans Events

BlueJeans is a video conferencing solution that helps you conduct town halls, webcasts and even engage with up to 50,000 attendees. The browser-based video conferencing toolbox includes Q&A, polling, and substantial moderator controls. It offers event cloud recording capabilities to capture events for future playback and sharing. You can also reach and connect with a global audience by streaming to Facebook Live with a single click.

BlueJeans’s payment plan starts at $83 a month billed annually at $996. With this tier, you can host an unlimited number of non-concurrent webinars. There are 100, 200, and 500 attendee plans. Other features include maximum webinar duration of two hours; attendee registration workflow and reporting; moderator dashboard with production controls in a single pane; automated closed captioning; intermission, pause broadcast feature, and more.

 

6. RingCentral Meetings

Ring Central Meetings helps provide a range of features for holding online meetings, events and training sessions with HD video capabilities. It allows you to host online meetings with an audience of up to 500 people; share screens, whiteboards, and files; integrate with Microsoft Outlook; use in meeting host controls to invite people; initiate chats; annotate content; record meetings, and more.

The paid plan starts at $24.99 per month with no limit on the number of users; unlimited audio conferencing; video meetings with up to 100 people; up to 24-hour meeting duration; integration with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack, and more.

7. WebEx

WebEx is a webinar platform that offers features to hold online meetings, events, training sessions, interactive presentations, and team collaborations. It offers webinar tools and video conferencing capabilities to host live events and meetings. This includes chat, interactive whiteboards, screen sharing, file sharing, and automated call back for team collaborations.

WebEx has its own AI-powered meeting assistant that helps you stay on track of meetings by taking notes, capturing meeting highlights, and providing real-time transcription and closed captioning. Furthermore, it creates post-meeting recap emails with highlights and action items to keep your workflow moving after the meeting. WebEx’s starter plan comes at $13.50 per host a month where you can accommodate up to 50 audience members; five GBs of cloud storage; 1-9 host licenses and more. A free 30-day trial is also available.

8. Livestorm

Livestorm is a webinar tool that helps users to run live, on-demand, or automated webinars while getting access to highly adaptable webinar themes that are easy to setup. With it, you have the option to provide interactive chats that include polls, Q&A, live chat, and more for a better interactive experience. It also helps you to integrate and analyze webinars and video meetings.

Besides providing automation with webinar sequences, Livestorm gives you instant insights backed by enriched data, allowing you to keep in touch with your audience members. You can analyze your performance as your team is able to get access to attendee information. This makes it easy to analyze your events as a team.

The free plan with Livestorm offers unlimited events, unlimited moderators, and instant meetings with up to four people for conversations of up to 20 minutes per event. The paid plan starts at $99 a month and is among a few webinar platforms out there that integrates with common marketing tools like Hubspot and Salesforce.

9. EverWebinar

EverWebinar is a webinar tool that comes in handy for small businesses looking to generate leads and boost sales through webinars. With this webinar platform, you get HD content for broadcasting and a flexible scheduling system that lets you select either a specific date and time in the calendar, or recurring scheduled days and times along with the week and time zones based on your specifications.  Participants can find your webinar sessions when they are about to start, watch replays or join while they are in progress.

EverWebinar also allows you to schedule a series of reminder notifications both through email and phone text, so participants are informed about the meetings. This platform’s plans come in installments ($1 for 14 days), annual ($499), and bi-annual ($799) payments.

10. WebinarJam

WebinarJam can be considered a traditional webinar platform designed to offer live events solutions. The cloud-based technology allows users to reach up to 5,000 people in one presentation. With WebinarJam, you can accommodate up to six presenters or host a roundtable of teams to collaborate and share knowledge on screen and even stream to Facebook Live and YouTube Live.

Additional features that come with WebinarJam include live chats to engage with people, question and answer, private comments, moderation capabilities, highlighted comments, sticky announcements, real-time analytics, automated recordings, and more. WebinarJam plans start with the Basic tier billed at $499 a year where you can accommodate up to 500 attendees, host unlimited webinars, and include two hosts with a two hour max duration.

11. Livestream

Livestream is a webinar platform designed to create studio-like live streaming by incorporating lower-thirds, transitions, and logos during your streaming sessions. With this platform, you can also incorporate live polls and Q&A into your broadcast as well as reach audiences across Facebook Live, YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter.

Livestream comes with a $75 per month subscription billed annually to help you produce live video sessions to engage with audiences. With the subscription, you get full HD 1080p live streaming; brand control for your player and apps; ad-free streaming and can stream to Facebook Live and other social media platforms. Livestream also offers unlimited live events, auto-archiving and video management, analytics on viewership and other key metrics, and more.

12. LiveChat

LiveChat’s webinar solution helps businesses showcase their goods and services and make more sales while chatting with clients and prospects. It helps you qualify leads with custom forms and AI chatbot automation support. You also get alerts, call center management, canned responses, customer service analytics, email management, geotargeting and more.

Paid plans start at $16 per month billed annually. This includes a 60-day chat history, basic widget customization, ticketing system, email notifications, customer details, daily summary of activities and a guarantee of data security.

13. Google Hangouts Meets

Google Hangouts is a free webinar solution that easily integrates with Chrome browser and Gmail. With it, you can either host a webinar for up to 30 people or stream it on YouTube to gain access to a larger audience. However, in order to use Hangouts you will need to install the application on your PC or smartphone device.

Google Hangouts allows you to make video calls and message contacts. But it lacks some of the more robust features such as automation and marketing capabilities other platforms provide.

14. WebinarNinja

WebinarNinja helps you run free webinars or paid virtual summits with relative ease. You can host live broadcasts, produce automated recorded webinars that run at certain times or on-demand, or produce a combination of live and recorded videos.

Webinarninja allows you to send automatic notifications, reminders, thank you notes, and follow-ups via emails. Unlike many webinar platforms, with WebinarNinja you can easily create your branded landing page and even integrate it with all CRM and email software.

In terms of analytics, with Webinarninja you can see who registered, who attended, who clicked, who purchased, and more. Paid plans for Webinarninja start at $39 per month billed annually. This lets you host up to 100 live webinar attendees, record webinars, add two additional presenters, host up to two-hour-long sessions and more.

15. Facebook Live

Facebook Live is a live video streaming feature on Facebook that helps you broadcast to large audiences to connect with customers, teams, and even friends. It lets you broadcast a conversation, offer a presentation, hold Q & A sessions or create virtual events. While you broadcast live, members of your community have options to ask questions, comment, react, or just follow along in real-time.

Facebook Live offers analytics to measure engagement so you can tweak your presentations from your mobile device or your computer. Facebook supports small businesses by offering the option to host an online event and charge people to attend your event and promote it to your audience and customers. And Facebook Live also offers opportunities to earn money by helping you to expand access to fan support products, such as fan subscriptions and stars.

16. ClickMeeting

ClickMeeting is a video conferencing platform that helps users to organize online meetings with customers, trainees, and team members. It offers you the opportunity to customize your webinar room and other elements with a few clicks. With it, you can record your webinar once perfectly and let the automation do the rest. You can also record webinars and allow people to download them for sharing.

ClickMeeting features include polls and surveys for feedback, live chat options and interactive sessions, connection to Facebook and YouTube, cloud-based storage for recorded sessions, analytics and more. Paid plans for ClickMeetings start at $25 a month. However, a 30-day free trial is also available.

17. Webinars OnAir

WebinarsOnAir offers some necessary features to host webinars such as scheduling webinars for up to 50,000 attendees in under a minute. You can do this with a one-click registration option and the ability to use tracking pixels to highlight audiences for retargeting. Additional features include live Q&A sessions with live chats with up to ten moderators or speakers, easy webinar registration, opt-in forms, and cloud-based hosting. This solution also extends the Google Hangouts features making it possible to host a pre-paid event that is integrated into the registration form. Through this software platform, users can easily join sessions without the need for any additional software or plugins.

In terms of monetization options, it helps you, prompt viewers, to convert with popup-style product offers. Then you can use the automated webinars feature to replay your webinar footage as evergreen content. A 30-day free trial is available with paid plans starting at $19.97 a month for 25 viewers. The service comes with a lead capturing feature and automatically records the event and publishes it on YouTube. There are also recurring webinar options, polls, and surveys built into Webinars OnAir too.

18. LiveWebinar

LiveWebinar is a cloud-based webinar tool that lets you host webinars, share screens and stream live videos. It also offers recording features integrate with marketing an automation tool and social media broadcasting. You can organize webinars, meetings, training, and sales presentations in HD. The service also offers a virtual whiteboard where you can draw, write and explain your thoughts better.

The free version allows you to host up to five attendees, gives you two hours of recording time, and offers screen sharing. It also lets you conduct tests, polls and surveys, and offers marketing automation. The Pro plan comes with more robust features and has an $11.99 monthly subscription fee.

19. My Own Conference

MyOwnConference is a webinar software tool that helps you connect with your audience before, during, and after the webinar. It lets you record webinars in HD and share with attendees. You also get instant messaging capabilities. And for the attendees, no download is required. To boost your reach, you can also share your videos on YouTube during your broadcast.

The free version of My Own Conference allows you to host up to 20 attendees; use three cameras in webinars; use 500Mb of storage for recordings of up to 20 minutes of sessions. Paid plans start at $30 a month billed annually and come with online quizzes, more automation, and marketing features.

20. YouTube Live

YouTube Live offers a free webinar software alternative to reach your audience in real-time by allowing users to upload, view, and share digital video online. The leading video sharing platform allows users to stream videos, conduct live music concerts, host live Q&A sessions, showcase product or service features, or conduct training. Before you can live stream however your YouTube channel needs to be verified.

Once you’ve set up your channel and equipment, all it takes to broadcast is the click of one button and there are no limits on the number of people attending like many other webinar services. The platform helps you to connect with audiences live in real-time and facilitates interactions with audiences and communities.

YouTube Live is fairly simple to set up. If you already have a website, you can simply copy and paste the embed link and create a landing page for your webinar. Once your broadcast on YouTube Live is finished, the recording is automatically available on your channel. YouTube’s competitive edge is in terms of searchability and the video SEO benefits from being a Google-owned business. Videos on YouTube tend to rank relatively high. Additional perks that come with YouTube Live include unlimited storage, the ability to schedule events, post detailed descriptions, preview your stream before going live, and create playlists to help organize videos on your channel.

21. GetResponse

Even though GetResponse is more known as an email marketing platform, it also comes with webinar features. These features include quick scheduling, YouTube integration, recording options, analytics and more to align your marketing automation with some good webinar features from a single platform. In terms of promoting your event, you can send traffic to an SEO-optimized landing page where people can register for your event. A gallery of free invitation templates is also available for your choosing and are automatically prefilled with your webinar details.

Paid plans start at $49. Additional features include sharing files; adding YouTube videos to your presentation; collecting feedback and gathering data on your audience with surveys, polls and tests. Other features include screen sharing, live conversations with chats, one-click Facebook Pixel integration to retarget page visitors and more.

22. Adobe Connect

Adobe Connect is a webinar solution offering immersive virtual experiences to showcase their products, services, and brands. You get the full gamut of video conferencing tools and features including high-quality video, polls, surveys and open live chat capabilities. You can create unique registration pages and easily automate invitations, reminders, and follow-ups.

The features include slide-sharing capabilities, presenter controls, recording, and integration of external conference lines, in addition to VOIP. Ideal for training, webinars, and meetings, the plans for Adobe Connect start at $130 per month however a 30 day trial period is also available.

23. AnyMeeting

AnyMeeting is a webinar solution with a user-friendly and intuitive interface for businesses and educational institutions. Its artificial intelligence capabilities allow for hosting a smarter, engaging, and actionable online meeting experience. With it, you can host meetings easily straight from your browser while having access to features that include screen sharing, green room or attendee waiting room, integrated conference calling and VoIP, and even mobile attendee access.

Paid plans come in the form of custom quotes but a 30-day trial is also available. Solutions on offer include unlimited online meetings of up to 30 attendees; HD video content; custom meeting URL; screen sharing and file sharing including videos, PowerPoint and PDF; group meetings lasting 40 minutes; meeting transcripts and insights; custom branding options; and integration with HubSpot Marketing Hub, Constant Contact, Microsoft Outlook, Zapier, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Microsoft 365, LinkedIn and others.

24. On24

ON24’s solution offers interactive webinars, virtual events, and multimedia content experiences. You can create, scale, and personalize webinars and virtual events thanks to its customization and design features. This is further boosted by ON24’s AI that provides personalized content recommendations to give you valuable insights for follow-up. This platform seamlessly integrates with your CRM, marketing automation platform, and other business systems to boost sales and optimize campaigns.

ON24 does not list its pricing and requires a request for a quote first. Besides offering webinar hosting capabilities it also offers alerts and notifications, polling, Q&A management, recording, online registration, analytics, and more.

25. BigMarker

BigMarker is a browser-based webinar solution that can help you accommodate up to 10,000 people at once without imposing any limits on the number of presenters. With this solution, webinar hosts get access to a suite of marketing tools to boost sales and conversions. You can access features that include custom invites, registration landing pages, email reminders, digital handouts, polls, live Q&A and more.

This platform does not require any software to be installed and gives you the capability to create live, automated and evergreen webinars. When opting to use the on-demand video feature, you can embed an interactive video player into your presentation. Live events can be broadcast to participants via your website, Facebook and YouTube pages. Plans for BigMaker start with monthly subscriptions of $79 and offer integrations with Salesforce, Hubspot, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign and others.

Why should your business use webinar software?

Webinar platforms offer businesses a wide range of benefits that help the modern entrepreneur organize virtual meetings or video conferences. They come with valuable tools for marketing, branding, sales, and outreach. If you are considering a webinar platform for your business, here are some of the reasons you can and should be taking advantage of it.

• Boost Your Online Content: A webinar software will help increase the amount of content available to your targeted audience. Besides videos, you have the ability to share materials such as the webinar presentation, images, drawing board, illustrations, infographics, case studies, photos, documents, and other marketing collateral to your participants. This boosts the collection of information you have on offer for both prospects and customers. An added bonus is that your online webinars can be additional content for blog posts, Q & A articles, and outreach materials. While sharing your unique content is important for the success of your webinar, it is just as important that you choose the best webinar software to deliver features and webinar service that suits your particular needs.
• Establish Your Business as an Authority:  Besides showcasing your products and services, webinars can be one way you can establish yourself as an expert. By sharing your expertise on topics that your audience might be interested in, you can provide your audiences with insights and valuable information to make informed decisions. Good webinar software will come with recording and storing features that allow your target audience to review them at their leisure increasing interactions with your brand.
• Expand Your Reach: As your webinars are conducted online, your reach exponentially increases, as long as there is an internet connection. This helps you conduct virtual conversations with an unlimited number of video participants across several time zones from the comfort of your desk. You also have the option to opt for one-on-one in-person conversations with a prospect.
• Generate New Leads: An important aspect of running a business is to generate leads. Webinars can help support your lead generation efforts and convert new customers as interactions speed up the decision-making process. As part of the event management process, some kind of registration is required for audiences to attend webinars. You can get access to prospects as they submit their name, email, and other information in order to register for an upcoming webinar event. An important note here is that you will need to adhere to webinar best practices. Include opt-in options for people to get their consent for use of their data for future marketing engagements.
• Keep Audiences Engaged: Because these events are live in real-time, you can have live interactions to gauge audiences, address queries, listen to your clients, and conduct interactive conversations with your audience during a webinar. Equally important, you are giving your audience a voice where they can opine, chat, ask questions, share their experiences, and more.

Which webinar software is best for small business?

With an estimated 300 million meeting events taking place on this webinar platform daily, Zoom is considered the best webinar solution. This powerful video conferencing software brings together cloud video conferencing, online meetings, and group messaging into one easy-to-use platform to help small businesses manage both their online meeting and webinar needs. This cloud-based video conference platform is easy to use, intuitive and effective and has the capability to support up to 1,000 attendees at a time.

It is packed with features a small business might need including a video conferencing platform that offers file sharing, personal rooms or meeting IDs, scheduled meetings, calendar integrations, local recording, private and group live chat, host controls, raise-hand options, breakout rooms, and whiteboards. An additional nifty webinar tool is its Virtual Backgrounds tool where you can change your background to any other image of your choice or select a background for downloading via Zoom’s library.

Besides the webinar tools, Zoom gives you the option to record meetings locally on all plans and even get cloud recording with the paid plans. Meanwhile, the Enterprise tiered plan offers unlimited cloud storage. Zoom attendees can access webinars either on their desktops or through their mobile apps. It also integrates with Gmail, Microsoft Office 365, and Microsoft Outlook allowing you to schedule meetings directly from those programs. Once invitations are sent out, video meetings are automatically placed on attendees’ calendars.

Zoho also provides resources on its site with a knowledge base that includes tips for hosting a webinar.

What free webinar software works best?

Zoho meeting provides the best webinar offering under its free plan. It provides great webinar software especially for those with a shoestring budget. Because of its generous free plan, it is a go-to webinar platform with tools and features that boost collaboration and interaction. This includes the ability to have up to three meeting participants including presenter; have up to 10 webinar attendees; VoIP/webcam sharing; the ability to remove people; mute/unmute features for participants?; webinar registration; the ability to produce customized registration forms; conduct polls and Q&A; webinar analytics and more. Zoho Meeting users can conduct meetings for as long as they want. This includes even in the free edition, unlike others that have a cut-off limit.

These free webinar features come in handy when you are thinking of providing demonstrations of your products or service. You can also use it for sales pitches, lead generation, and conducting online meetings all right from your browser with no downloads required to cram up your drive space. You can simply embed the links for meetings you create with Zoho Meeting on your web page. And by just providing their email address, attendees can join meetings using the embedded links. Besides these free webinar features, Zoom can be integrated with Zoho CRM. This means you can schedule, invite, and host meetings and also view reports and recordings from your Zoho CRM account for better impact. You also have the option to send email invitations and follow-up reminders as well as track who will attend your meeting with the RSVP feature.

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This article, "25 Best Webinar Software Platforms" was first published on Small Business Trends