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The 12 best webinar platforms: which one should you choose?

This article is 5 years old — prices and terms may have changed.

The 12 best webinar platforms: which one should you choose?

Webinars are becoming an ever more important part of marketing strategy. Companies in education, IT, services and even construction use them. The tool helps reach a wide target audience, build a personal brand, strengthen the trust of clients and partners, and win more sales of a new, complex product. 

The main drawback of this promotional tool is its technical and organisational complexity. 

Such events are planned weeks in advance, and promoting them is no simple matter either. Webinars cannot be run without a dedicated platform — a service for organising broadcasts. 

This selection gathers the best webinar services. Each has its particulars, its advantages and its weak spots. We describe every popular solution in detail so that you can choose the one that suits you. 

What should a good webinar platform be like?

When choosing a webinar platform you need to know the criteria for judging one. Most platforms have a standard set of functions. Among them: 

  • virtual rooms where the webinars and the conversation take place;

  • broadcasting of quality audio and video;

  • access control for attendees;

  • tools for creating tests and surveys;

  • analytics tools;

  • marketing functionality.  

Besides these, most services have unique functions, and those are what become their advantages. 

A clear understanding of which functions matter to you narrows the search and helps you pick a suitable platform faster. 

GoToWebinar — one of the market leaders 

The GoToWebinar platform hosts almost three million webinars a year. More than 55 thousand speakers and companies use the service. 

Strengths: the platform will run series of webinars, and there are reusable templates. You can also schedule a webinar recording that will then play in different time zones. On top of that, users get marketing support from the GoToStage platform, which helps bring the greatest possible number of new listeners to your webinars, listeners who go on to become your clients. 

Weaknesses. The main inconvenience is that working on the platform requires installing the GoToWebinar client program. The set of ways to interact with the audience is also limited: you can only create surveys and write in the chat. 

Price: subscriptions on the various plans run from 59 to 499 USD, depending on the number of attendees and the number of pages on the speaker's channel. 

BlueJeans Events — a tool for webinars and broadcasts 

BlueJeans Events lets you organise interactive webinars and short online broadcasts for clients. 

Advantages. The platform's resources are enough for large-scale webinars: an event can involve up to 150 speakers and several cameras. BlueJeans can be integrated with a variety of third-party services, Facebook Live, Salesforce and Marketo among them. Users can also embed HTML code to let webinars be watched on their own site. 

Drawbacks. The service was originally planned as a tool for online meetings, so some functions that matter for webinars are missing. Among them are personalisation of the landing page, extended analytics reports for speakers and means of holding attention. 

Price: the service is fairly expensive. Payment here is per webinar: running a single event for 500 attendees costs 499 USD. 

On24 — maximum interactivity for live, recorded and hybrid webinars  

The On24 platform delivers a comfortable experience for attendees of live, recorded and hybrid webinars. 

Advantages. The service will create convenient, attractive webinar interfaces with a variety of feedback forms, surveys, chats and other interactive elements. Channels on Twitter and other social networks can be embedded as well. 

Drawbacks. The only serious minus is that the platform has no built-in advertising tools. Organisers are left with targeted advertising and a site where a notice about a scheduled webinar can be posted. The interface is fairly complicated. Want a webinar that can be set up in a couple of minutes? Then you need to look for another option. 

Prices. The service's pricing is very flexible and can change depending on the number of attendees and other characteristics. 

Demio — reliable and affordable 

This platform stands out first of all for being cheap and reliable. 

Pluses. The main advantage of Demio is its accessibility: using it requires no client program to be downloaded. The interface also supports every type of event, including live webinars, automated webinars, series of events and hybrid online events. 

Minuses. The main and almost only drawback is that the program has limited scope for integrations. There is an option to integrate with Zapier and a few other software platforms. 

Price: across the various packages a monthly subscription costs from 49 to 239 USD. The rate changes with the number of webinar attendees. 

WebinarNinja — a simple, intuitive solution 

Top b2b companies use this tool: Podia, Baremetrics, AppSumo. 

The main advantage. The service's chief strength is its simplicity. This universal system has functionality for creating landing pages, exchanging messages and more, and all of it is created in a matter of seconds. You can also upload a presentation to WebinarNinja's server and embed video from YouTube. All of that helps make a webinar more interesting and more substantial. 

Drawbacks: WebinarNinja only has functionality for live web seminars. Recurring events cannot be run on this platform. 

Pricing. The platform is somewhat better value than the others. The range of rates is the same, from 49 to 249 dollars a month, and the maximum audience is 1000 people. The most popular plan is 95 USD, which gathers an audience of up to 300. 

EasyWebinar: marketing and other unique functionality  

EasyWebinar combines marketing capabilities with tools for interacting with users. Everything here works towards one specific, clear goal: lead generation through webinars. 

The service's advantages: there are tools for tracking the engagement of every listener. The EasyCast function lets you connect to YouTube and Facebook Live. 

Minuses: the platform has a great many capabilities, settings and functions, and that makes it harder to learn. Another drawback is that a webinar cannot be edited after it has been recorded live. 

Price: rates range from 78 to 499 dollars. The top rate allows webinars for 2000 people. The most popular Pro plan (129 USD) allows any number of webinars a month, with up to 300 people at each event. 

A cloud solution from Webinar Jam

A full-fledged platform for webinar marketing. The tool was built specifically for online events with large numbers of attendees. 

Strengths. The Webinar Jam platform delivers high video quality on any device. A replay function is built in as well: users can play back phrases said earlier and then return to the current moment of the webinar, catching up with the rest of the audience. 

Want to set up webinar reminders? The built-in SMS notification service will do it. 

Minuses. The service is fairly complicated to configure, and only a limited number of speakers can present in a webinar at once. 

Prices. Using WebinarJam makes sense only if your company already has a large established audience and speakers with a strong personal brand. Monthly subscriptions are fairly steep: from 499 to 999 USD. For that money you can reach an audience of up to 5000. 

Zoom: webinars, online meetings, conferences 

This is a fairly universal tool that was not originally positioned as a webinar service alone. With the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Zoom became a competitor to the familiar Skype. On a corporate plan, Zoom will also host meetings with audiences of up to ten thousand people — and webinar guests can attend even with a free account. 

Advantages. The tool is relatively simple. The raised hand function makes moderating online discussions easier. 

Drawbacks. Zoom lacks most of the marketing and analytics tools that matter greatly for webinars. There is also no way to create quizzes, assignments or surveys. 

Prices. Zoom's paid plans range from 50 to 90 USD a month. Most companies use plans with a limit of up to 1000 users. 

ClickMeeting — another option for large audiences 

The ClickMeeting software is aimed at webinars, product presentations and other online events. ClickMeeting reaches large audiences and delivers quality video, sound and active interaction. 

The platform's advantages. Thanks to the built-in functionality, moderators can control the flow of a webinar almost invisibly and very finely. Listen-only and discussion modes can be configured, and there is a virtual whiteboard for working visually. The app lets you enter the webinar room from any device. 

Drawbacks. The platform does not always work reliably, and users sometimes complain about the quality of exported files. You can test the quality of the service during the trial period. 

Prices. The cost is quite affordable: from 5 to 45 USD a month. 

Zoho Meeting 

An extension of the popular CRM, meant for running webinars, meetings and the like. Zoho Meeting is a convenient tool for webinar marketing and for organising in-house training. 

The platform's advantages. It has several unique functions, among them the ability to share recordings that are available without registration. Custom links for registering for a webinar can be created. 

Its main strength is perfect compatibility with Zoho CRM. 

Drawbacks. All the most useful functions have to be paid for, and the cheapest plan's capabilities are heavily cut down. There is no option to work through a client application. 

The service's plans range from 19 to 79 dollars for webinars with audiences of up to 250 people. 

Livestorm 

Advantages. The Livestorm service has a great many advanced functions that fully automate the routine work of preparing a webinar. Any webinar concept is easier to realise on it. 

The platform's main drawback is the limited number of attendees: a maximum of 100. 

Prices. The service has a free trial period. The 99 USD plan gives you the maximum of functions. 

BigMarker 

BigMarker is a browser-based tool for running webinars inside a team or for attracting clients. McDonald's, Google, Nielsen and other large corporations use this service. 

Advantages. The service generates configurable video forms and interactive elements — surveys, offers. Streams from several cameras, and live broadcasts from YouTube and Facebook, are easy to connect. 

Drawbacks. Scaling the platform up is expensive, and users sometimes complain about a complicated interface. 

Prices: rates range from 79 to 299 dollars a month, with a maximum audience of 1000 people. 

Which webinar platform should you choose? 

As with other marketing tools, a webinar service should be chosen with its price, its capabilities and your own tasks in mind. 

If you do not plan to run webinars regularly, choose an inexpensive platform. Livestorm or ClickMeeting suit that situation. 

Run webinars often? Then we recommend the more advanced and powerful options: 

  • Demio;

  • EasyWebinar;

  • WebinarNinja. 

For events with large audiences, try Zoom or BlueJeans Events. 

When preparing webinars, always test the system and set the sign-up funnel up properly. Work out the cost of using each marketing and analytics tool so that you get the most benefit from the event. 

In a separate article we will describe how to promote your goods and services through webinars.