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When face-to-face communication is impossible, online communication comes to the rescue.
This has proven to be especially true as we saw COVID-19 forcing things to change, encouraging businesses to consider alternative ways of exchanging information.
And going all-digital is the way forward.
Web conferencing, online chats and webinar tools are at your disposal and you can use them to boost business communications – be it internal or external, facilitate learning – employee training and reinforce marketing purposes – lead generation.
Such tools help to decrease the distance between your people – employees, partners, and your target audience and make business processes easier and more effective.
In this article I review the 15 best webinar platforms that are available in the market.
So if you haven’t decided which one is the best for you, this guide is here to help you out.
Zoom is amongst the most popular web conferencing software in the market and one of the easiest tools to use. Apart from offering remote conferencing services, it also comes with the ability to host live online meetings. It supports chat, it has mobile collaboration capabilities and its phone features allow for more communication options.
Pricing
Zoom has four pricing subscription options:
Information retrieved from Zoom on 24th March 2020.
Pros
Cons
Add-ons
Zoom comes with some nice additional features that you need to pay extra than the prices you see on their pricing page. That might increase your costs if you plan to use one, for example:
*Zoom webinars are different from meetings as they offer a different interface and more control to the host. The function of a webinar is a one-to-many instead of a collaboration like a meeting.
Using Zoom with LearnWorlds:
LearnWorlds offers a direct integration with Zoom for meetings & live webinars inside your online courses, or to sell single webinars embedded in a secure platform.
Read more at our article about the Zoom integration release (coming in a few days).
LiveWebinar is a powerful cloud based, real time communication platform for businesses and individuals looking for an innovative webinar software. There are no downloads or plugins required, and the platform works on all browsers and smart devices, giving users the freedom to lead webinars where and how they want.
Pricing:
Pros:
Cons:
A versatile tool:
LiveWebinar is a great option for people who need a tool that’s capable of multiple functions. The platform is useful for not only creating live or evergreen (automated) webinars, but also for team or business meetings, online lessons, even remote employee recruitment and onboarding.
GoToWebinar offers a respectable webinar solution that many businesses seem to prefer. Despite the fact that it is one of the oldest webinar platforms around, it comes with a pack of useful features that are suitable for every business including custom-made landing pages, email notifications, and reporting capabilities.
Pricing
Information retrieved from GoToWebinar on 24th March 2020.
Pros
Cons
On-Demand Video
GoToWebinar has recently added new features for on-demand video, recording, selling and delivering along with certificates for each video watched.
It also allows you to pre-record and schedule those webinars to run at any time you want, thus covering hours you wouldn’t otherwise.
Another webinar software to consider is ClickMeeting. Amongst its winning features is its usability because of its user-friendly interface and the step-by-step instructions it offers on how to set up the event. On top of that, it offers a feature called ‘Waiting room with an agenda’ aimed at attendees who arrive at the webinar room early and sends them additional information about the webinar.
Pricing
ClickMeeting has three pricing plans:
Information retrieved from ClickMeeting on 30th March 2020.
Pros
Cons
Cheap but with low limits
While ClickMeeting is the cheaper choice with many features and an easy interface, it comes with a very low limit on storage and co-presenters. More presenters and users can be found on it’s enterprise plan which require you to speak with their sales representatives.
It’s ideal for a small company with few employees and one trainer per session.
When it comes to webinar hosting, WebinarJam is amongst the best options you can get. This tool can be used to host webinars to large audiences especially for selling purposes, as its biggest strength is its unique product positioning features that promise to make your marketing effort a lot easier.
Pricing
Information retrieved from WebinarJam on 30th March 2020.
Pros
Cons
For larger crowds
WebinarJam skips small webinars and goes directly to bigger audiences. It’s ideal for larger companies and professional presenters.
Demio is regarded as one of the best video conferencing tools in the market. This tool comes with a modern and slick platform that allows you to conduct automated and live webinars. Packed up with simplicity in its use, Demio puts emphasis on the live events which you can schedule within a few minutes.
Pricing
Information retrieved from Demio on 31st March 2020.
Pros
Cons
The branded option
Demio is the right option if you want to re-brand the webinar under your own branding, replacing the logo on the page and the email notifications.
GetResponse is an email marketing platform that offers webinar marketing as well. With its service, you can build webinars in just a few minutes, and take advantage of the marketing tools that are available. This software is designed to help you increase conversions and engagement from your audience.
Pricing
GetResponse comes with four pricing plans, the webinar function begins on the Plus plan and above:
Information retrieved from GetResponse on 6th April 2020.
Pros
Cons
Email marketing, sales funnels & webinars in one software
Getresponse is primarily an email marketing tool you can make great funnels with, webinar is an add-on functionality, making it a great all-in-one tool especially to increase sales and engagement before and after the webinar.
It’s the right tool for a more marketing-oriented company or team.
Adobe Connect has come to change the way web conferencing works. Apart from creating webinars, this software allows you to host videos, meetings and easily share documents to attendees. Adobe Connect is ideal for businesses that want to effectively showcase their products and services through the delivery of impactful live events.
Pricing
Adobe Connect has three pricing plans. Webinar pricing comes with addon participants and a steep price:
Information retrieved from AdobeConnect on 31st March 2020.
Pros
Cons
A professional choice
One of the biggest brands, Adobe, offers its unique take on webinars with a premium platform. Its pricing reflects the quality of the product is one of the most expensive choices in this list.
Zoho Meeting is another great option to choose from. As a web conferencing tool, it is suitable for a small business but also large organizations that seek to host online meetings, product launches, do sales presentations or simply educate their users on their products.
Pricing
Zoho Meeting comes with the following pricing plans:
Information retrieved from ZohoMeeting on 31st March 2020.
Pros
Cons
The budget-friendly alternative
Zoho meeting and webinars is the budget-friendly alternative to this list. It’s a decent webinar platform in the low-end of the pricing spectrum.
WebinarNinja is backed up with powerful features that make it easy to create webinars. It’s quick to use as well allowing you to create a webinar in less than a minute. This tool is ideal for marketers and businesses that want to create a range of types of webinars including live, automated, series or hybrid – a combination of live and recorded videos.
Pricing
WebinarNinja has four pricing plans:
Information retrieved from WebinarNinja on 31 March 2020
Pros
Cons
Easy to use
WebinarNinja is an easy to use webinar platform that comes with pre-build with everything you need to market your webinars, landing pages, automated emails, and more.
EasyWebinar promises to help you create high converting webinars that can boost your sales. So if you are planning to use webinars as the center of all of your marketing efforts, this is the platform to use. EasyWebinar comes with a lot of powerful features and offers the possibility to create both automated and live webinars.
Pricing
Information retrieved from EasyWebinar on 2nd April 2020.
Pros
Cons
A solid platform
It’s a solid platform and offers an especially good price for its medium plan of up to 500 attendees that makes it great for medium businesses.
Cisco Webex is another popular webinar platform that is used by large companies and enterprises to help the team collaborate effectively. With it, you can host meetings for your organization and organize training sessions. Out of its strongest points, its compatibility with multiple devices, and its user-friendliness.
Pricing
Information retrieved from Webex on 2nd April 2020.
Pros
Cons:
The enterprise choice
As part of the big family of CISCO, Webex is preferred usually for medium to big businesses for its high-security standards and integration with Salesforce. It doesn’t come with the high price tag you might expect from an enterprise-level software, making it a good choice for smaller businesses as well and can easily host up to 40.000 attendees that few webinar platforms can.
BigMarker is another notable webinar platform that is worth looking more into. The best thing about it is its unique live-streaming capabilities that allow you to host massive events with up to 10,000 participants and its interactive features – chat, polls, and Q&A. Also, BigMarker comes with white-label options that allow you to create webinars and embed them to your website without any coding needed.
Pricing
Information retrieved from BigMarker on 2nd April 2020.
Pros
Cons
A versatile platform
The BigMarker is a versatile platform that can be used for meetings, webinars and even summits. It also offers some of the best white-labelling capabilities but you need to contact sales for that and it will probably come with a steep price.
EverWebinar is short for ‘evergreen webinar’ and it’s an ideal platform to use if you want to create evergreen events to improve your sales. This platform is integrated with WebinarJam but can also be sold separately. Amongst its best features is the advance scheduling system, its ‘Ask a Question’ option, and the access to ‘Webinar University’ it offers upon purchase.
Pricing
Information retrieved from EverWebinar on 2nd April 2020.
Pros
Cons
Webinars on autopilot
EverWebinar takes a much different approach than the rest offering recorded webinars on auto-pilot as their main competitive advantage and they do that very well. The price is a little high, but the platform is focused on businesses with high traffic that want to automate their webinar process.
Livestorm offers you the ability to create live, on-demand or automated webinars. With it, you can produce webinars that can be used for product sales and customer training. This platform is great when it comes to email marketing as it allows you to send promotional emails, automate and customize emails and also check their status.
Pricing
Information retrieved from Livestorm on 2nd April 2020.
Pros
Cons
An alternative to Zoom
Let’s face it, Zoom dominates the market, and Livestorm is one of the top alternatives, offering a meeting and webinar software that can compete with it in terms of ease to be used by all sizes of companies.
Popular for its ease of use and for being a user-friendly platform, AnyMeeting allows you to create webinars quickly and effectively. It is ideal for any small business that wants to host meetings of up to 4 attendees using the free version or up to 1,000 attendees on the paid plan. AnyMeeting’s web conferencing tools allow you to hold collaborative sessions with your team members, partners or clients.
Pricing
AnyMeeting offers two services: Video Conferencing and Webinars. Each one comes with three pricing plans to suit your preferences.
Video Conferencing: prices range depending on the number of attendees.
Webinars:
Information retrieved from Intermedia.Net on 2nd April 2020.
Pros
Cons
The awesome offer
Intermedia (AnyMeeting’s parent company) is offering both video conferencing and webinar platforms for free through all of 2020 due to COVID-19.
Apart from the option to use these webinar platforms, there are some other ways you can host a webinar. Although these social channels weren’t built to exclusively offer webinar services, they provide the capabilities of doing so and are worth looking into because they are more cost-efficient than others.
One way to do that is through:
YouTube Live:
With YouTube Live and Hangouts OnAir you can create webinars for free. To start using YouTube Live, you need to create a YouTube channel and a Google Account.
Simply go the YouTube’s ‘Live Streaming’ to create an ‘Event’ and choose the date, time (start/end) and other basic information about the webinar such as title, location, tags, type of stream and broadcast control that gives you the choice to make your webinar public, unlisted (available only through invite link) or private.
Once you are done, click on ‘Go Live’. This opens up a new window, but you need to go back to your browser to click on ‘Live Control Room’ and then, ‘View on Watch Page’.
From there, go to the video and click on ‘Share’ to insert the embed code.
Finally, go to the page you want to add the embed code to and you are good to go.
Facebook Live:
With Facebook, you have the option to ‘go live’ directly through your mobile phone or computer using your webcam, but you can’t share on-screen graphs or share your screen.
With a live streaming tool, you can do this easily.
Using Facebook Live to create webinars is free but it needs some extra tools to help you stream it. A live streaming software like Open BroadCast Software ( OBS Studio) – which is also free, or WireCast, Zoom, BlueJeans – which come at a cost, is necessary to start a webinar.
There are many video tutorials that can help you host a webinar using any of these third-party tools. Click on each to get directed to a step-by-step guide that can help you start creating your own webinar with Facebook Live.
Instagram Live:
With Instagram Live you can boost your discoverability as a brand and reach out to your audience effectively. So if you have an Instagram account for Business, you can use it to your own advantage.
To go Live, follow these Instagram guidelines.
What’s great about Instagram Live is that you can share with your audience photos or videos, while you are on screen. You can also save your webinar once it’s ended and replay it for as many times you want.
This guide from Later gives you all the information and tips you need to create your webinar on Instagram Live.
Twitter Live:
If you are on social media and you are more of a Twitter user, you can go live on your favorite platform.
Now there are four ways in which you can broadcast your webinar. You either use the Media Studio Producer, go live through the twitter app, using the Periscope app or via specific third party tools using the periscope API.
For more detailed information on how to go live with Twitter check out Twitter Media.
Viber call:
While Viber isn’t a webinar software perse, it allows you to hold a virtual conference call with up to five participants. If you are a small team and want to use a free tool to communicate with your team members, Viber is the ideal choice for you.
To use this Viber feature, choose the option to ‘Make a Group Voice Call’ on your viber app or desktop.
Whatsapp Call:
Similarly to instant messaging platform Viber, the Whatsapp app introduces the call feature with the only difference that it allows video calls not just voice calls. The group video call on Whatsapp may consist of up to four people.
Start your video call with Whatsapp following their FAQ guidelines.
Skype Video Call (or Skype Teams):
Skype has been a favorite choice for many people and companies over the past few years, and it looks like it’s gaining popularity again.
As a web conferencing tool, it’s a really good choice as it allows you to video call with a group of up to 50 people. This can be done straight from the Skype video app and for free.
If you don’t have the Skype app, you can download it from the web or your mobile App store or Google Play, and start making video calls in the style of a webinar to communicate with your colleagues or audience directly.
As a LearnWorlds instructor, you can have your webinar as part of an online course, or run a webinar as your course. To make it happen you can choose to go with YouTube Live, Zoom or GoToWebinar through Zapier.
With Zapier, you can send all new enrollments to a webinar or register them to all your live classes associated with the course.
Using YouTubeLive:
To use YouTube Live to create webinars, you need to follow the guidelines as explained above.
When you reach up to the point time you take the embed code from YouTube, you go to your LearnWorlds school, find the course you want to embed the live stream to.
Then, click on ‘Add an Activity’ and then ‘Embed’ to insert the code in your course content.
Lastly, go to the ‘Update Embed learning unit’ and paste the “Video Embed” script of your Youtube Stream and you are good to go.
This is how your webinar will appear in your LearnWorlds video player:
To invite people to your webinar you can send them the YouTube page link.
Please keep in mind that not all of the webinar tools/software can be embedded in your LearnWorlds school, that’s why we suggest you use the ideal solution of YouTube Live.
For more details, follow our step-by-step guide to learn how to conduct a live webinar using Youtube Live.
Using Zoom:
LearnWorlds offers an integration with Zoom for meetings & live webinars inside your online courses, or to sell single webinars embedded in a secure platform.
Read more at our article about the Zoom integration release (coming in a few days).
As you can see there are many choices to choose from. Deciding what is the best webinar software comes down to comparing the capabilities and high-quality webinar features each one comes with, its pricing and the type of support you can get so that you are able to use it to its full potential.
In the end, it’s all about figuring out what you need the webinar solution for and identifying what issues can it solve for your business.
So, the question is which one is the best for you?
Start your free trial with LearnWorlds today and find out how you can create your own webinars within the platform!
Kyriaki is a Content Creator for the LearnWorlds team writing about marketing and e-learning, helping course creators on their journey to create, market, and sell their online courses. Equipped with a degree in Career Guidance, she has a strong background in education management and career success. In her free time, she gets crafty and musical.
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