Revised September 30, 2021
Revised February 1, 2021
Revised December 3, 2020
With live events on hold for now, webinars have become a more popular channel than ever for communicating directly with sales prospects. But with seemingly everyone producing webinars now, how can you make yours stand out and attract busy buyers?
Several elements determine the success of your webinars. Probably the most important is content: are you giving attendees useful, actionable information—not just a thinly veiled sales pitch? Is your information unique? Presenting results of original research is often a strong draw.
Image credit: Karolina Grabowska from Pexels
Promotion is certainly another vital component. Email will likely be your primary medium for driving registrations. But social media, paid advertising, and influencer marketing can also play important roles.
A third important element is your presenters. If you’ve got a rock star influencer inside your company, great! If not—consider co-presenting with an outside expert, industry analyst, or customer (for lower-half-of-the-funnel webinars). At the least, make sure your internal people are compelling speakers.
A final, sometimes overlooked element, is your webinar technology platform. GoToWebinar and WebEx (which is more of an online meeting tool) are no longer your only options. Actually, there are a growing number of compelling alternatives that offer unique features and potentially a differentiating experience for your attendees.
Here are 10 12 of the best webinar and webcasting tools to consider evaluating for your next online presentation. Providing your attendees with a fresh experience may help you attract, grab, and keep their attention in the crowded webinar space.
A quick note on the ranking methodology: These 10 tools were searched across five popular software comparison sites: Capterra, G2Crowd, TrustRadius, SoftwareAdvice, and GetApp. They were then ranked on both the number of total reviews (popularity) and average user ratings (quality). Those scores were then combined to produce an overall rank.
1. BigMarker
Total reviews: 552
Average user rating: 9.54 (out of 10)
A video platform for webinars and virtual conferences that enables you to brand the video player then build in interactive elements like lead forms, quick polls, and Q&A, all with no software for attendees to download. BigMarker makes it easy to stream video feeds, slides, videos, and screen shares to Facebook and YouTube Live, and integrates with popular tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, MailChimp, and Drip.
Pricing: $79/$159/$299 per month; enterprise pricing by quote
2. Restream
Total reviews: 1,098
Average user rating: 9.23 (out of 10)
Restream enables you to stream live to 30+ social platforms at once. Tools include Studio (stream live from your browser using a custom branded background, bring on guests, answer audience questions); Multistreaming (YouTube, Twitch, and many others with automatic alerts for Twitter, Discord, and Facebook audiences); Chat (display text messages from multiple streams in a single chat box, and enable users on different platforms to exchange messages); and Analytics.
Pricing: free; $16/$41 per month
3. GoToWebinar
Total reviews: 4,423
Average user rating: 8.84
Though it’s by far the most widely used of the 13 tools here, GoToWebinar scores only in the middle of the pack for user rating, barely ahead of WebinarNinja. It provides event registration and management; videos and polls to boost engagement; automatic invitations and reminder emails; and attendee analytics. GoToWebinar safe choice for marketing webinars, training, and internal meetings, though it won’t make you stand out.
Pricing: $49/$99/$199/$399 per organizer per month
4. Demio
Total reviews: 380
Average user rating: 9.72
While not (yet) widely used, Demio scored #1 in user satisfaction among these webinar tools. It provides functionality for marketing and promoting your event, online registration, email notifications, branding of all event materials, interactive polls, the ability to promote downloads, chat, Q&A, and audience analytics. It records webinar video in HD and lets attendees join with one click and nothing to download.
Pricing: $34/$69/$163 per month
5. Crowdcast
Total reviews: 316
Average user rating: 9.39
Crowdcast is a live video platform that enables content creators to produce webinars, live video Q&As, summits, and interviews. In addition to interactive Q&A, features include chat, polls, analytics, and the ability to send in-app emails. Videos can be streamed in HD with no delay through Facebook Live, Periscope, or YouTube Live. A wide variety of content creators have set up their own Crowdcast channels, including Social Media Examiner.
Pricing: four levels from $20 to $139 per month
6. WebinarNinja
Total reviews: 463
Average user rating: 8.72
An easy-to-use tool that allows new users to quickly start producing webinars and includes all the basic features one would expect: custom registration pages; ability to produce live, recorded, and paid webinars; interactive Q&A,. chat, polls, and offers; performance analytics; no download for attendees; integrations to popular CRM tools and email service providers; and automated email notifications and follow up. It also offers built-in marketing optimized for search.
Pricing: $29/$99/$199 per month.
7. LiveWebinar
Total reviews: 424
Average user rating: 9.41
LiveWebinar is a cloud-based solution with high-clarity screen sharing, live video streaming, and recording features, plus customized branding, social media broadcasting, and audience engagement analytics. There’s no software to download, and everything runs under your domain; you can embed the tool directly into your website with easy integration options. It works with any device; attendees can join webinars from PCs, Smart TVs, or mobile devices, and the platform integrates with multiple marketing automation systems.
Pricing: free; $15/$119 per month; enterprise pricing by quote
8. WebinarJam
Total reviews: 642
Average user rating: 7.93
In addition to all the basic features one would expect (live or prerecorded webinars, custom registration pages, analytics, chat and interactive Q&A, HD video, email notifications, etc.), WebinarNinja lets you display clickable offers, share “handouts” (system will automatically display selected file like PDF, Excel spreadsheets, JPGs, etc. on your attendees’ respective screens for them to download at will). This was one of only two tools with an overall rating below 8.0, as users reported issues with the UI, video quality, and customer support.
Pricing: $499/$699/$999 per year
9. EasyWebinar
Total reviews: 225
Average user rating: 8.69
Create live or automated webinars for marketing, sales, or training. EasyWebinar includes promotional tools, ability to display offers, and analytics. It integrates with a range of tools including GetResponse, Drip, Keap (Infusionsoft), Aweber, Mailchimp, and Ontraport, and its EasyCast feature helps you to reach audiences across multiple social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube Live.
Pricing: $78/$129/$499 per month
10. MyOwnConference
Total reviews: 273
Average user rating: 8.93
Host webinars and online meetings with features including the basics (screen sharing, recording) plus automated email sequences, no software for attendees to download, support for 16 languages and up to 10 simultaneous presenters, private text chat messaging, custom backgrounds and branding, document and video sharing, and tests and surveys.
Pricing: free or $30/month
11. WorkCast
Total reviews: 23
Average user rating: 8.22
Produce webinars, webcasts, or virtual events for sales, marketing, training, or internal company meetings. Webinar features include embedded video; branding; interactive functions (polls, surveys, chat, Q&A); integration with popular CRM and marketing automation tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, and Eloqua; and attendee analytics to help identify your most engaged sales prospects.
Pricing: $145/$495 per month; enterprise pricing by quote
12. ClickMeeting
Total reviews: 254
Average user rating: 7.68
ClickMeeting offers custom branding; the ability to produce live, automated, and paid webinars; customized invitations and registration pages; streaming on Facebook and YouTube; an interactive whiteboard; interactive pools, surveys, and Q&A; and social media sharing. It should be noted this tool had the lowest user ratings of any tool in this group. Customers reported a range of issues with performance, ease of use, and support. However, the vendor is addressing these, pricing is attractive, and a 30-day free trial mitigates risk.
Pricing: $25/$40 per month; enterprise pricing by quote
13. Tame
Total reviews: 17
Average user rating: 6.06
Tame is a fully customizable, branded webinar platform designed to go beyond simply sharing slides on a screen. Features include on-screen CTAs, live chat and Q&A, screen sharing, and screen-in-screen capability. It’s ideal for marketing, investor, training, and internal communications presentations. The platform includes detailed attendee analytics, and integrated with more than 4,000 applications through Zapier.
Pricing: $103/$208/$520 per user per month; enterprise pricing by quote
14. Gurucan
Total reviews: 4
Average user rating: 8.44
Though it can be used as a general webinar production tool, Gurucan is really designed to create and market online courses. It enables users to create different types of online courses, and track the progress of students by running automated tests or check homework manually. Conduct virtual classes, online conferences, and Q&A session with up to 50 people directly from a browser. Promote courses by creating landing pages and automated email sequences.
Pricing: $39/$99 per month
This was the second in a series of four posts focused on remote work technologies. The first focused on online meeting / video conferencing software; the next two will cover team collaboration apps and virtual event tools.