As we enter an increasingly virtual workplace culture, more and more brands are finally realizing that staying relevant requires getting caught up to speed on virtual event-planning—and they’re learning the hard way that it’s more than just hitting “go live” and letting it all fly. Thankfully, video and webinar platform companies are responding: there’s never been more competition out there when it comes to virtual events, webinars, and live streaming platforms to help brands grow their audiences and broaden their online presence.
And the proof is not just in the sheer number of webinar platform options available. An influx of funding in this space means that companies are constantly improving themselves, offering more and more features, allowing for larger audiences, and taking the webinar space to the cutting edge.
Just take Vimeo as an example. In late 2020, the company acquired Wirewax, a virtual interactivity studio that turns video into a multidimensional branding and marketing tool, enabling everything from shoppable videos to unique video experiences. This allows brands to bring customers fully immersive experiences where viewers are not just engaged but active participants.
And we’re just one player in a broad landscape of webinar platforms doing amazing things. Whether you’re looking for globally accessible streaming, rich analytics to help you maximize your viewer’s buying journey, seamless hybrid event-planning and hosting, or fully loaded production suites, there’s a platform for precisely what you want and more.
To see the best webinar platforms and live streaming platforms currently available and find the right one for you, read on.
The best webinar platforms for you in 2022
GoToWebinar
GoToWebinar is a simple and elegant solution for companies planning large meetings and webinars. Part of the suite of GoTo products, GoToWebinar works seamlessly with GoToMeeting, GoToRoom and GoToWebcast to scale your communications as big (or as small) as you want. GoToWebinar also offers cloud access and cloud streams so participants don’t need to download a separate program to attend. The platform has everything you need to get started, including invites and registration, payment processing, engagement analytics and more, in an easy-to-use and simple interface. Its features are tailored for employee training, staff all-hands and more. Plus, pre-recorded video allows all team members to catch up asynchronously on their time.
GoToWebinar is offered on both a subscription basis for a monthly fee starting at $49 per month, or through a flex plan that lets you pay a lower monthly rate ($19 per month) and pay for each independent event.
Best for: Corporate communication, marketing, or existing subscribers of the GoTo suite of platforms.
Microsoft teams
Another video conferencing platform that should already be familiar to many users, Microsoft Teams has established themselves as a go-to meeting solution for workplaces, interest groups and schools and study groups. Beloved for their collaboration tools and user convenience,
Microsoft Teams can also facilitate webinars, which are more controlled environments with a clear leader or presenter.
Microsoft Teams excels as a collaboration tool as well as an enterprise webinar platform with impressive scale. In Presenter Mode, hosts are able to see their audience members, internal or external chat and upcoming slides and content in one handy-dandy dashboard. Not only can a Teams webinar accommodate up to 10,000 attendees, they also have totally unique accessibility features that include screen readers and high contrast mode, as well as slide translations that convert slideshows and presentations into the viewers’ native languages.
Webinar hosting is only included in the Microsoft 365 Business Standard package, which is $12.50 per user per month, which features event registration, email reminders and some attendee engagement reporting which can accommodate up to 1,000 attendees, as well as 10,000 viewers in broadcast mode.
Best for: Marketers and organizers who require slideshow content and other written content to support their webinars; hosts whose audiences are already familiar with Microsoft Teams.
Zoom events
Most of us are already familiar with Zoom, the easy-to-use, link-enabled video-conferencing client. Zoom Events takes everything we love about Zoom—the ultra-shareable URL invite, the chatroom and emoji reacts, the reliable video and audio quality and platform’s general ease of use—and maximizes it for events.
Added features include registration and ticketing, cloud storage for recordings, custom links, audience engagement reports and the ability to support up to 50,000 people for single- or multi-session webinars and events including multiple panelists and hosts.
The costs for Zoom Events increase based on the number of attendees, starting at ($106 CAD VERIFY US) per month for up to 500 attendees. This price also includes unlimited webinar sessions, live streaming for up to 500 attendees and cloud recordings and audience reporting. Users can also pay to add on added features, like audio conferencing, live event services, or a larger capacity for cloud storage.
Best for: Corporate networking events and multi-session webinars; events with multiple speakers and panelists.
On24
The virtual events streaming platform for analytics obsessives, On24 offers tons of tools to help you maximize your hybrid event, including registration pages, on-demand streaming and QR codes for attendees, but their edge is their seamless hybrid streaming features. On24 has production teams to help on-site and online, and engagement tools that keep every attendee involved no matter where they are.
But what they really excel at is tracking, collecting and analyzing engagement data and buying signals to deliver useful insights that increase engagement and capture more leads. From analyzing which types of content reap the most traction on their content hub, to following your customer’s buying journey with stunning granularity, On24 is the gift that keeps giving, even after you’ve wrapped up your webinar.
On24 offers a number of custom packages tailored to their client. Prices are quoted by request.
Best for: Webinars, virtual conferences or events, and hybrid events.
Hopin
With a focus on live events and conferences, Hopin is an virtual event management solution that takes the headache out of virtual event planning webinar planning. While the words ‘all-in-one’ might sound a bit buzzy for a virtual conferencing platform, Hopin’s suite of features truly do cover most event management needs—reception, lobby, stage, and breakout rooms.
To briefly run down the checklist, they’ve got landing pages and ticketing for your sales and marketing; virtual hosting and managing (complete with attendance checking and self-serve check-in for onsite management) and even badge and wristband printing. Their platform can also seamlessly integrate with a wide range of translation, collaboration, management and marketing tools. That means that the event-planning experience works with your team’s existing workflow, not against it.
Plus, last year, Hopin acquired Streamyard, an inbrowser production studio that can create professional quality videos streamed directly onto most popular social media sites. How’s that for all-in-one?
Hopin’s basic package is free, which includes capacity for up to 100 attendees and some limited event builder features, while their starter package (which can handle up to 100,000 attendees) is on offer for $83.25 per month.
Best for: Organizations planning online or hybrid events of all shapes and sizes—especially unconventional ones.
Demio
Easy on the eyes as well as on the user, Demio makes marketing and sales webinars a breeze, even for first-time event organizers. With easy-to-toggle customizable branding and registration pages, options to stream live or on-demand (or both!), and features including private or public chat, slide presentation or video uploading, and more, Demio lets you choose what you want and handles the rest.
Their three-tiered subscription is billed on a monthly basis, starting at $34 a month (paid annually) for solo entrepreneurs and small businesses hosting events that cap at 50 attendees. Prices increase depending on the scale of the company and include larger rooms, more hosts, and more custom features. For companies who aren’t sure which plan they need, Demio offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card registration required.
Best for: smaller events with 50 attendees up to 1,000 attendees, small businesses, entrepreneurs, or SaaS companies.
Vimeo Events
When it comes to shooting and producing high-quality, professional video with ease and flexibility, Vimeo has it all. Companies who work with Vimeo’s Vimeo Events solutions love the platform’s reliability (Vimeo has hosted 17,000 webinars to date), as well as their user-friendly customization features, onsite video editing, professional quality streams, and sleek and sophisticated branding.
From a viewer perspective, webinars and videos streamed on Vimeo look virtually the same on a mobile display or a desktop one. Registration pages are just as sleek and beautiful no matter what device you’re accessing it on. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, audience participation tools like chat polls, Q&As and others help drive rich, actionable analytics tied to individual audience profiles, which takes the guesswork out of identifying leads and following up.
Vimeo’s premium live streaming package includes unlimited viewers and 7 terabytes of storage and is billed at $95 per month. For more support and features, contact their sales department for a quote.
Best for: Companies and organizations looking to live stream internal communications, broadcast virtual events, and help any creator produce high quality live streaming video content.
Splash
Attention to detail, branding and beautiful design are what makes Splash events, well, a splash. While this platform doesn’t have much of a production studio, they do offer a robust suite of marketing tools that help corporate events make a strong impression without any of the hassle.
Among its competition, Splash stands out for its seamless attendee experience (including beautiful landing pages and registration forms, unique links for each attendee that helps with gate events, countdown pages, and easy check-in) and templates and backgrounds that make hosts look as polished as possible throughout the entire journey—no graphic design degree required.
Splash’s integration with Youtube, LinkedIn and Vimeo means that well after the event, viewers and no-shows can stream the webinar on demand through their preferred viewer. On the host side, all of that viewing information gets reported back to them through Splash’s data dashboards to help drive insights for future engagement.
Splash offers multiple membership tiers, starting from a free version for individuals and small businesses and larger packages that start from $12,500 per year.
Best for: Organizers and influencers who don’t require much when it comes to video production and editing but still want to make a polished impression with their marketing.
BigMarker
Known for ease of use and an end-to-end webinar hosting experience, Big Marker packs a lot into their browser-only platform. Organizers can build landing pages and registration forms with ease, pre-load presentations and other content into their webinars and add as many presenters as they want into their webinars. They can also choose from BigMarker’s suite of interactivity tools, like pop-up offers and giveaways, polls and quizzes, and Q&A upvotes to identify the most important questions. BigMarker also easily links with Twitter if you want a live Twitter Chat to run alongside your stream.
This events platform is in the beginning stages of building out their hybrid events management features. Currently, hosts can stream in-person and virtual content with viewer options across desktop and mobile. For larger virtual conferences, BigMarker offers an Expo section that allows presenters to set up virtual booths, with unique guest QR codes for check-ins and raffles.
BigMarker offers monthly subscription, starting at unlimited webinars for audiences of up to 100 people for $79 a month.
Best for: Companies and organizations who host larger virtual conferences or shows with more speakers and presenters involved.
Livestorm
Livestorm is a webinar and video communication platform with all of your average high-powered promotion, engagement, organization and analytics features, wrapped up in a browser-based client that is viewable on both browser and mobile.
Great for webinars, product demos and video courses, the platform offers a super simple, intuitive interface, so organizers only need to worry about the content and leave the heavy lifting and production for the platform. Users can also download the data they want, including poll and survey results, guest lists and analytics data while keeping the rest in the cloud.
Livestorm offers a free limited plan that includes events of up to 20 minutes and 10 attendees per event, as well as meetings for up to four people. From there, users can opt for a monthly plan, which can host events of up to four hours for unlimited attendees for $99 per month for an annual membership.
Best for: Panel discussions, virtual courses and internal communications.
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