6 Best Webinar Software Platforms in 2022
Corey McCraw is a staff writer covering VoIP and Unified Communications. Corey has over a decade of experience in marketing, tech writing, and corporate communications and has even penned content for the former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative.
This article is part of a larger series on VoIP.
The best webinar software improves audience interaction, offers flexible formats, and is easy to use. Our top picks meet these objectives while supporting the end-to-end lifecycle of webinars—from event registration to analytics. Find the most effective platform for your business by exploring the features and pricing of six industry leaders.
Based on our research, the best webinar software solutions are:
- Webex: Best overall choice for collaborative businesses wanting interactive meeting tools
- ClickMeeting: Top pick for companies looking to streamline meetings with automation and integrations
- GoTo Webinar: A flexible platform for organizations needing to store and showcase a large number of webinars
- Zoho Meeting: Most affordable webinar platform for small businesses
- Livestorm: A good free option for short, engaging sales demonstrations and meetings
- Zoom Events & Webinar: Best for organizations hosting multiday virtual conferences
Best Webinar Software at a Glance
Webinar Software | Starting Price | Criteria 1 | Free Trial | FSB Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Free for 100 attendees; paid plans start at $15 per license, per month |
| 30 days | 4.53 out of 5 |
 | $30 per month (25 attendees) |
| 30 days | 4.28 out of 5 |
 | $49 per organizer, per month (250 attendees), billed annually |
| 7 days | 3.97 out of 5 |
 | Free for 100 meetings; paid plans start at $3 per host, per month, billed annually |
| 14 days | 3.87 out of 5 |
 | Free for 10 attendees; paid plans start at $109 per month |
| ✕ | 3.67 out of 5 |
 | $79 per license, per month (500 attendees) |
| ✕ | 3.46 out of 5 |
Webex: Best Overall Webinar Software With Interactive Meeting Tools
Webex
Overall Score: 4.53
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Meeting features powered by artificial intelligence (AI)
- Dynamically adjust participants’ video quality
- Free calls to Webex users
What's Missing
- No cloud recording storage on the free plan
- Doesn’t have a built-in payment gateway
- Lacks YouTube integrations
Webex Pricing*
- Webex Webinar: Custom pricing for registration and landing pages, whiteboarding, annotation, breakout rooms, polling, and reports
- Webex Suite – Basic: Free for meetings up to 50 minutes long with 100 people, calendar integrations, polling, chat, and screen sharing
- Meet Plan: $15 per license, per month for 24-hour meetings with 200 participants, breakout rooms, 10 gigabyte (GB) cloud storage, toll-free dial-in numbers, and file sharing
- Call Plan: $17 per license, per month for all of the free meeting features plus a phone number, auto-attendant, and unlimited calling
- Webex Suite – Business: $25 per license, per month for all of the features included in the Meet and Call plans
- Webex Suite – Enterprise: Contact Webex for a quote for advanced phone features like call recording, developer tools, call queues, and call barging
*Webex pricing is based on monthly billing. Save 10% with annual prepayment.
Webex by Cisco is our top pick for interactive meetings and company-wide webinars, earning high ratings for its built-in artificial intelligent (AI) assistant and interactive tools like quizzes and audience-generated word clouds. Webex Meet subscriptions are more than sufficient for hosting interactive meetings with breakout rooms, live question and answer (Q&A) sessions, and polling. However, you’ll need a custom quote for Webex Webinar to access registration and landing pages.
Webex Webinar plans include engagement features found with Webex Meet plans and support up to 500 panelists, hosts, and co-hosts. However, webinar subscriptions require an add-on for real-time transactions, and if your meeting has 1,000 attendees or less, the Webex Assistant is omitted.
Webex is also one of the best conference call services, and all subscriptions let Webex users call each other for free using voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) services. However, Webex doesn’t support ecommerce options, like charging a fee per registrant or selling your course online. Instead, consider GoTo Webinar, Zoom Events & Webinar, or ClickMeeting. These providers offer built-in payment gateways so that you can accept payment for your webinars.
Webex Features
Make your meeting actionable by capturing key items. (Source: Webex by Cisco)
- Webex Assistant: Get more out of every meeting with an AI-based assistant. It provides closed captions and captures meeting highlights and action items via voice-activated technology. Plus, you can review or search post-meeting transcripts, highlights, and notes after the event ends. The Webex Assistant is a meeting and VoIP phone feature.
- Meeting engagement tools: Keep employees and clients involved in your event with breakout rooms, polling, raise-hand, and in-meeting chat. Also, share quizzes with your audience or host an interactive question and answer (Q&A) session.
- Ease of use: Attendees can join by web browser, desktop, and mobile apps. Webex is the only webinar software that supports wearable devices. Other features, like noise suppression and high-definition (HD) voice and video, provide a smooth experience.
ClickMeeting: Best Webinar Software for Automation & Integrations
ClickMeeting
Overall Score: 4.28
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Automatically exports leads to your CRM
- Advanced webinar analytics and reports
- Pre- and post-event marketing automation
What's Missing
- Whiteboard and breakout rooms require 25 or more attendees
- Only 1 presenter and 1 host per event
- Doesn’t integrate with Stripe
ClickMeeting Pricing*
- Live: $30 per month for breakout rooms, 6 hours of recording storage, screen sharing, whiteboarding, polls, and chat
- Automated: $45 per month for 10 hours of cloud storage, the engagement tools included in the Live package plus auto-streaming to Facebook or YouTube, and automatic invites and follow-up messages
- Enterprise: Request a custom quote to host events for up to 10,000 people
*Pricing above is based on 25 attendees with monthly billing. The price decreases for larger events, and you can save up to 20% with an annual prepayment.
ClickMeeting is the best webinar platform for small business automation and integrations. Use ClickMeeting to develop a webinar cycle action plan and automation tools to streamline each step. It connects to social media channels, has application programming interfaces (APIs), and integrates with popular customer relationship managers (CRMs), such as HubSpot and Pipedrive.
Like other webinar software, ClickMeeting helps you automate your email communications. It also provides time-saving features, allowing you to publish your webinar to YouTube and automatically save a copy to your Dropbox account.
ClickMeeting’s Live and Automated subscriptions support 1,000 attendees. If you need a slightly larger event, ClickMeeting offers a custom quote, whereas other featured solutions provide pricing for 3,000 people on their websites. ClickMeeting is similar to GoTo Webinar because both support paid webinars, custom landing pages, and CTAs. However, GoTo Webinar lacks native Twitter, Slack, and Google Analytics integrations.
ClickMeeting Features
View your events and statistics from a central location. (Source: ClickMeeting)
- Timeline visualization: This feature helps keep track of current and upcoming webinars. You will be able to schedule or duplicate events, view webinar chats, and download reports.
- Payment gateway: ClickMeeting connects to PayPal, so you can charge event fees, manage payments, and review statistics to find your money makers. If you’re looking for Stripe integrations, check out Zoom or GoTo Webinar.
- Customization: Easily personalize most aspects of the ClickMeeting experience, including chat settings (no chat, moderated chat, or answer later) and how long (and when) to display your call to action (CTA).
GoTo Webinar: Best Webinar Software for High-volume Content Creation & Storage
GoTo Webinar
Overall Score: 3.97
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Unlimited cloud storage
- Searchable transcripts from recorded events
- Built-in video editor tools
What's Missing
- No free version
- Doesn’t integrate with PayPal
GoTo Webinar Pricing*
- Lite: $49 per organizer, per month for up to 250 participants
- Standard: $99 per organizer, per month for up to 500 attendees
- Pro: $199 per organizer, per month for up to 1,000 participants
- Enterprise: $399 per organizer, per month for up to 3,000 attendees
All plans include unlimited cloud storage, Stripe integration, recordings, transcripts, and polls, plus GoTo Meeting features like screen sharing, whiteboarding, and breakout rooms
*Pricing is based on annual subscription.
GoTo Webinar is an excellent solution for high-volume webinar creation and storage. Other webinar services provide four to 10 hours of cloud storage, with only Zoho Meeting coming close by storing up to 25 webinars in the cloud. GoTo Webinar is also the only provider offering a flexible, pay-per-event plan for companies with infrequent large webinars.
Like ClickMeeting, GoTo Webinar supplies email templates, so you can automate your sales funnel. All GoTo Webinar subscriptions include meeting, live, and on-demand features, whereas ClickMeeting and Zoho Meeting offer bundled or standalone packages for meetings.
Along with unlimited cloud storage, GoTo Webinar offers a video editor. This tool helps you edit dead space from your webinars without additional software. And similar to Webex, GoTo provides transcripts for your videos and separate business phone system plans. Search what was said during live meetings and download your transcripts to gain insights about commonly asked questions or ways to improve the format.
GoTo Webinar Features
Track webinar metrics and generate reports from your dashboard. (Source: GoTo Webinar)
- Video editor: The video editor lets you delete dead space from the beginning, middle, or end. Once you save your changes, it takes up to an hour to process them, and then GoTo Webinar automatically updates it on your channel pages and follow-up emails.
- Channel pages: Increase webinar views with a dedicated hub for your content. Customize your logo, page banner, color theme, and URL. Choose what content to include and highlight a few featured webinars.
- Webinar analytics: Increase visibility into webinar performance by downloading nine prebuilt reports to your computer or sending links via email. The reports include high-level overviews and journey-specific data, from the number of registrations to a list of survey questions and answers.
Zoho Meeting: Best Webinar Platform for Small Businesses on a Budget
Zoho Meeting
Overall Score: 3.87
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Unlimited co-organizers
- Enable automatic session recording
- Customizable emails and reminders
What's Missing
- Toll-free dial-in numbers are an add-on feature
- Lacks integrations with Zoho products and third-party software
Zoho Meeting Pricing*
- Free: Free to host 30-minute, 100-participant meetings, and webinars with up to 4 video feeds, screen sharing, chat, polls, and custom registration forms
- Meeting: $3 per host, per month for 10 attendees, up to 50 video feeds, chat, and 10 stored recordings
- Webinar: $19 per host, per month for 25 attendees, up to 10 video feeds, polls, YouTube streaming, Q&A, analytics, and custom pre- and post-event emails
*Prices are based on monthly payments for the minimum number of potential attendees. Choose annual billing for volume-based discounts.
Zoho Meeting is one of the best video conferencing tools and provides the lowest price for webinar hosting with 25, 50, 100, 1,000, or 3,000 attendees. The savings amounts to $30 to $1,290 per host, per month over other webinar platforms. One caveat: If you have 250 people, you can save $20 a month by using GoTo Webinar, whereas Zoom Events & Webinar offers the lowest price for conferences with 500 people.
Although Zoho is reasonably priced, it doesn’t lack features. Like ClickMeeting and Livestorm, customize webinar emails and reminders, use polls to engage users, and embed webinar registration sign-ups on your website. Unlike other platforms, Zoho doesn’t limit you to one co-host or organizer, meaning multiple team members can take over on your behalf.
Zoho requires an add-on package for toll-free dial-in numbers and lacks the Facebook and Twitter integrations offered by ClickMeeting. Zoho also doesn’t work with any payment gateways, so if you want to charge for your webinars, consider ClickMeeting, Zoom Events & Webinar, or GoTo Webinar.
Zoho Meeting Features
Allow participants to download materials, including portable document format (PDF) or video files. (Source: Zoho Meeting)
- Email automation: Send event invites and reminders from the Zoho Meeting platform. You can also automatically deliver thank-you’s to every attendee with an attached recording after your event ends.
- Interactive tools: Improve webinar engagement with downloadable materials and polls. Zoho Meeting lets you publish poll results immediately or save them for later review. Plus, you can answer questions privately or share them with the group.
- Post-meeting actions: Zoho Meeting can automatically direct attendees to your thank-you page, feedback form, or website after the presentation ends. However, it lacks built-in CTAs that show onscreen during the meeting. In this case, Livestorm is a better option.
Livestorm: Best Free Webinar Software for Sales Teams
Livestorm
Overall Score: 3.67
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Syncs with your CRM
- Provides replay analytics
- Browser-based events, no app download required
What's Missing
- Paid versions are pricier per attendee than other webinar platforms
- Only offers 4 hours of cloud recording
- No email invites on the free plan
Livestorm Pricing*
- Starter: Free plan supports 20-minute instant meetings with up to 4 people or webinars with 10 registrants, and unlimited moderators
- Premium: Starts at $109 per month for 4-hour events with up to 16 simultaneous speakers and 100 attendees
- Enterprise: Contact Livestorm for a custom quote for up to 3,000 attendees, custom support, and enterprise integrations
*Pricing is based on monthly payments. You can save up to 30% with annual billing and choose from subscriptions for 100, 250, or 1,000 attendees.
Livestorm is a powerful presentation platform that supports many business activities, like product demos and training. But paid subscriptions cost more than GoTo Webinar, Zoho Meeting, and ClickMeeting, so we recommend Livestorm for its free plan. The free version offers 20-minute meetings and the same features as paid versions. Also, you can publish an unlimited number of them without spending a dime.
Like ClickMeeting, Livestorm provides built-in social sharing features, polls, and custom CTAs during the event. You can embed registration forms on your website and send reminder emails. Livestream lets you add team members to your account at no additional charge, so your entire sales group has access to recordings and the ability to moderate a meeting.
Livestorm Features
Display polls in your sidebar during your demo. (Source: Livestorm)
- Custom CTAs: Encourage demo participants to learn more or buy now with personalized CTAs. Select the button text, call-to-action wording, and URL during a meeting and click “send call to action” to immediately display it. For even more customization options, check out ClickMeeting.
- Room design: Create a branded demo space using Livestorm’s custom design app available in the app marketplace. You can change the color of your background and buttons, add an image, or upload a company logo.
- Sidebars: Choose which engagement tools to prioritize using the sidebar features. Make visible tabs for polls, questions and answers, chat, and an attendee list. These options also have the option of being turned off during your event.
Zoom Events & Webinar: Best Webinar Software for Multiday Virtual Events
Zoom Events & Webinar
Overall Score: 3.46
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Can view 49 panelists on the screen at once
- Supports paid webinars and event sponsors
- Events hubs for displaying upcoming webinars
What's Missing
- Most expensive cost per attendee for 1,000 or 3,000 people
- Webinar attendees must download an application to join the event
Zoom Events & Webinar Pricing*
- Zoom Webinar: $79 per license, per month for unlimited 30-hour single-session webinars with 500 people, CRM integrations, payment gateways, cloud recordings, and analytics
- Zoom Events: $99 per license, per month for multiday, multitrack sessions, paid ticketing, sponsor support, and unlimited event hubs
*Zoom Events & Webinar pricing is based on 500 attendees with monthly billing. Prices vary for larger conferences, and you can save up to 27% with annual prepayment.
If you want to host a multitrack or multiday virtual conference, Zoom offers the best webinar software for the task. The user interface is similar to Zoom Meetings, so there isn’t much learning curve. Plus, it’s the only solution offering full support for multiday conferences. Zoom is the most flexible platform for webinars because you can set up free, paid, or fundraising public or private events. It’s the only provider on our list that works with both Stripe and PayPal.
Zoom Events & Webinar also performs well for multitrack one-day events, where attendees move into different sessions. In this case, you can run multiple concurrent sessions as part of your conference without buying a second hosting license. Another unique feature is Zoom’s chat-enabled lobbies. Attendees mingle, watch livestreams, and learn about event sponsors.
While Zoom Events & Webinar subscriptions are packed with standout features, there is a downside. Attendees must download the Zoom application to join the conference, whereas other platforms let people join via a browser. Compared to GoTo Webinar and Zoho Meeting, it’s also pretty expensive to host events on Zoom with 3,000 people.
Zoom Events & Webinar Features
Create webinars from scratch or use a template to save time. (Source: Zoom)
- Advanced functions: Zoom Events & Webinar let you run previews of upcoming workshops and concurrent sessions for each event. It provides spaces to interact in lobbies, network with sponsors, and even visit virtual exhibits.
- Events hub: Like ClickMeeting, Zoom Events & Webinar provides a channel to display your webinar content. You can add a custom log, page banner or video, and links to your social profiles. Each hub can be optimized for search engine optimization (SEO) using tags and descriptions.
- Ticketing options: Zoom Events & Webinar lets you charge per webinar or sell session-specific tickets. Also, accept charitable donations and set up an amount your company will match.
How We Evaluated the Best Webinar Software
The best webinar platforms for small business events vary in price, feature sets, and format options. We rated each system based on the cost per attendee while exploring general and advanced features. We scored webinar software on its ease of use and standout features.
Learn how we evaluated the best webinar software by clicking on the tabs below:
20%
Pricing
30%
General Features
25%
Advanced Features
25%
Expert Score
20% of Overall Score
Webinar software subscriptions range from free to thousands of dollars per month. We scored services with free trials and versions higher than those without and calculated the price per attendee to understand how costs differ.
30% of Overall Score
Webinar capacity limits vary by provider and plan, with some free versions supporting 10 registrants while paid plans scale up to 10,000 or more people. We gave points to webinar platforms with whiteboards, breakout rooms, and cloud recording storage. We also rated engagement tools, like polls and surveys.
25% of Overall Score
We looked at selected platforms offering chat translation, multilanguage support, and real-time performance statistics. In addition, we checked for social media integrations and livestreaming options for YouTube.
25% of Overall Score
We considered the overall ease of use and value for the money while identifying standout features of each webinar software platform. We also looked at user reviews for desktop, browser-based, and mobile app tools.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Dedicated webinar software helps you engage your audience, automate your webinar cycle, and develop insights about your events. However, capabilities vary by platform, so deciding if you need a built-in payment gateway or multiday conference support before picking your webinar subscription is essential.
Webex by Cisco earned a rating of 4.53 out of 5, making it the best webinar platform for small businesses. It offers a feature-rich free plan, meeting and VoIP solutions, and dedicated webinar software. In addition, the virtual assistant helps you record and develop insights about your conference or demo. Get started with Webex Meetings using the 30-day free trial, or contact Webex to learn about a webinar subscription.
