Best Webinar Software 2024: Ultimate Guide To Choosing

Hosting webinars helps establish your company’s expertise and drive brand awareness. It’s a great way to interact with your audience and strengthen your connection to them.

With the rise of remote work, the popularity of webinars has gained significant momentum. According to a 2020 survey, 99% of marketers considered webinars to be a critical part of their plan. Moreover, 89% stated webinars outperformed other channels in generating qualified leads.

But you need to do a lot of work before and after webinars to make them successful. You need the right toolset and planning to organize a webinar for good business results.

That’s why you need the right software to seamlessly handle your webinar operations. It impacts your planning, the webinar itself, and how successful it is afterward.

So, here is a list of the best webinar software of 2024 and tips for choosing one that fits your requirements.

1. Contrast
2. Livestorm
3. Zoom Events
4. Webex
5. Zoho

Importance of choosing the right webinar software for your business needs

Investing in the right webinar software is the easiest way to maximize the ROI of the webinars you host. Besides easing your marketing team’s stress, it offers several additional perks:

Simple setups

With the best webinar software, you won’t have to put effort into learning complex features. The right platform offers an intuitive and no-frills interface. You can also set it up and go live in minutes.

Simplifies webinar management

Hosting a webinar involves managing lots of details. It can take up a major chunk of time. The best webinar software can make that easier. It should be able to automate things like registration pages and reminder emails for you.

Webinar software should also make it easy to coordinate with guest speakers, facilitate webinar moderation, and give you many interactive features to engage your audience.

Enhances attendee engagement

Built-in features like Q&As, breakout sessions, and polls encourage interaction. They grab your audience's attention and turn passive listeners into active participants. You can’t expect attendees to just sit around for an hour actively listening. By giving them a way to interact, you’re making the entire experience more collaborative and engaging.

Seamlessly integrates with existing tools

Switching between tools in your existing tech stack can be frustrating and makes you vulnerable to avoidable errors.

But the best webinar software offers extensive integrations with popular productivity tools. This lets you do things like sync your contact data and send invitations to the right people. You can also sync registration data back to your CRM in order to nurture those qualified webinar leads.

Provides analytics

Make sure the tool you choose provies detailed webinar analytics. It collects relevant data, and measures KPIs like:

• Total registrations
• Attendance rate
• Conversion rate
• Attendee watch time
• Engagement metrics

They create accurate benchmarks and provide actionable insights to improve your future webinars.

Post-webinar repurposing

The best webinar tools will give you many different options to repurpose your webinars. With the right webinar platform, you can:

• Record events
• Create blog articles from transcriptions
• Create newsletters, social posts, and highlights
• Edit short clips for distribution on social media and your website

These recorded live events can also be shared on-demand to increase ROI further. Our metrics show that over 50% of webinar views happen on-demand. It would be a shame to miss out on all those views.

Best webinar software of 2024

Given these considerations, here are our recommendations for the best 5 webinar platforms of 2024:

Contrast

Contrast is the best webinar platform for hosting fun, engaging, and authentic webinars. We built it specifically for engagement.

Contrast provides everything a memorable webinar needs. You even get a webinar studio for editing and sharing clips. Your team will adapt to our webinar platform in a jiffy, thanks to its simple and intuitive interface.

In short, Contrast will take away the pain of long and tiring planning sessions. It frees up your time to focus on what’s important.

Features:

• Unlimited seats
• Recurring webinars
• Engaging Q&A sessions
• Modern chat with emoji reactions
• Custom branding and white labeling
• Aesthetic animations and prebuilt layouts
• On-screen widgets like trending messages and tickers
• Extensive integrations with popular tools like HubSpot, Zapier and Make.com
• APIs and Webhooks for advanced integrations
• Repurpose AI to turn each webinar into 10+ pieces of content
• Rich analytics and reporting features

Pros:

• Fast and easy
• Offers unlimited seats so you don’t have to worry about growing your team
• Eliminates the boredom of typical B2B software with lively animations and widgets
• Customizations to keep every webinar and virtual interaction on brand
• Built-in transcript features make the platform accessible
• A modern chat interface
• Dynamic layouts to fit every mood and theme of your presentation
• The webinar channel centralizes every webinar recording and simplifies repurposing
• Users can embed these videos directly into their websites or social media
• 24x7 assistance to cater to your every query

Contrast’s ability is not limited to the above-mentioned features. It is the best webinar software to provide any assistance to host a successful and memorable webinar. It takes no special technical skills to set it up. Just sign up for free and start engaging your attendees in minutes.

Pricing: Contrast offers the starting package for absolutely free. The annual Pro plans start at €60/month. You don’t need credit card information to sign up.

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Livestorm

Livestorm is a platform for video engagement. You can use it for webinars or virtual events. The company is beginning to focus more on video conferencing now though, so they're adding fewer webinar features.

The platform has all of the standard webinar features you’d need: chat, polls, Q&A, and sign-up pages. If you want more features, you can find them in their extensive app marketplace. But remember, adding more might make things a bit tricky and more expensive.

Features:

• Email cadences
• Custom meeting rooms and branding.
• Analytics
• Registration pages

Pros:

• Multiple language support boosts accessibility
• Custom integrations offer flexibility
• Automations simplify workflows

Cons:

• Livestorm only offers 30 seats in its free package compared to Contrast’s 50 seats.
• Contrast offers more feature-rich packages at a lower rate than Livestorm. For example, you have to pay for 30+ seats whereas we offer 50 seats for free. To upgrade further, our pricing plans are cheaper (€75 vs €99 p/m for 100 registrants).
• Contrast presents every engagement feature as a part of the video itself. Whereas these are hidden in menus on Livestorm.
• Livestorm has more of an old-school approach to webinars. It may not be as effective with ever-changing demands.
• It’s not ideal for HubSpot users. Their rating is 2.8 stars on the HubSpot marketplace. Alternatively, Contrast scores 4.9 stars.

Check out this breakdown of Contrast vs Livestorm for an in-depth comparison.

Pricing: Paid subscriptions start from €99/month.

Zoom Events

Zoom is mainly a tool built for video conferencing, and that's where they focus most of their efforts. It does have an events platform though with all the standard features. You can customize your event, check its data, and create strong landing pages. It's suitable for both free and paid events, live or recorded. But the free plan only lets you host 40-minute events. There's another catch: attendees need to download the Zoom app. This step can be a challenge, especially for those in big companies where downloading apps isn't allowed.

Check out this article for a detailed look at Zoom Events and its alternatives.

Features:

• Registration list
• Screen sharing
• Waiting room
• Whiteboard

Pros:

• Hosts can export attendees to other meetings
• Supports up to 30 hours of webinars
• Individual mute functions make it easy to streamline conversations
• A mobile app is available
• Great features for event sponsors and virtual trade-show booths

Cons:

• Requires a download
• Doesn’t offer an unlimited plan
• The free plan has only a 40-minute time limit
• Paid subscriptions are more expensive than the Contrast webinar platform
• Per-user pricing
• No automated webinars

Pricing: Paid packages start from $149.90/year/user.

Webex

Webex is a product of the internet giant, Cisco. It's mostly made for big businesses, as it integrates with other Cisco tools. It’s also a popular webinar tool for international teams. It offers real-time translations in over 100 languages. You can choose your desired language while scheduling the webinar and your attendees will see the translations live.

Lately, they've added AI tools for hybrid classrooms. They have an AI helper that takes notes and highlights. But, this doesn’t really do much for online events or webinars.

For an in-depth look into their platform and alternatives, check out the 10 Best WebEx Alternatives.

Features:

• Real-time multi-language translations
• Meeting rooms and personal spaces
• Integrations with popular productivity and automation tools

Pros:

• Free plan available for up to 100 attendees
• Translates live webinars to more than 100 languages and helps overcome communication barriers

Cons:

• Must contact their sales team to onboard
• The free plan has a 40-minute time limit on webinars
• Real-time translation costs extra

Pricing:

Paid subscriptions start at $14.50/license/month.

Zoho

Zoho is an ideal platform for businesses already using the other Zoho suite services. It integrates well with them and makes for a pretty seamless user experience. If you use different marketing automation platforms like HubSpot it might not be the best fit. In terms of features, it comes with most of what you’d expect from a modern platform.

Features:

• Webcasting
• Surveys
• Interactive town halls
• Analytics

Pros:

• The free forever plan offers up to 100 seats
• Attendee moderation makes the webinars more engaging

Cons:

• The recording feature isn’t free
• Integrations are only available in paid subscriptions

Pricing:

Zoho offers paid subscriptions starting from $49/month.

How to choose the best webinar software for your business

Choosing the best webinar software is crucial for hosting successful online events. However, the market is filled with similar tools.

So how do you find the right tool for you? Here’s our advice:

Objectives

Before choosing a webinar platform, consider your objectives behind that investment. Identify what your webinar’s goal is and your main webinar KPIs. Align them with your long-term goals.

Then, find the tools and features you require to achieve it. This enables a goal-focused search for the best webinar software.

Features and functionality

Start by checking for some common features in different platforms, including:

• Live chat
• Screen sharing
• Polls
• Recording and editing capabilities
• Integrations with popular apps
• Good video and audio sync

Make a list of potential options. Compare their features and functionality with your business objectives. Sort out the qualified ones. Then benchmark each tool’s features against each other to find the best possible option.

Integrations

Changing between different windows can hamper the creative aspects of your webinar. Choose a webinar platform with productivity and workflow platform integrations for greater convenience.

For example, Contrast offers a HubSpot integration. It allows streamlined marketing in just under 2 minutes. Connecting them lets you add webinar attendees as contacts to your CRM. You can also use HubSpot’s reporting features to measure the performance of your webinars.

Whenever someone registers for or replays a webinar, it triggers timeline events on their activity feed. The marketing benefits here include:

• Tracks registered contacts' activities, like the number of replays, registrations, lifecycle stage, etc.
• The automated webinar attendee list with 13 custom properties makes outreach easier.
• You can qualify leads by identifying the most interested and engaged contacts.
• You can send them relevant messages according to their preferences.

You can also use your landing page for the integration. All you need to do is create a HubSpot form and connect one of our workflows to your webinar page.

If your company focuses on driving engagement, Contrast is the best webinar platform for interaction. Besides live chats, Q&A, polls, and dynamic layouts, we offer unlimited seats. Plus, you can organize your webinars with just a few clicks.

Scalability

Your webinar platform should be capable of growing with your business. So, focus on scalability while looking for the best webinar software for your company.

Some webinar platforms have limited host and attendee capacity. So make sure your software can accommodate all attendees as your audience grows.

Recording and playback capabilities

You need a post-webinar repurposing system to maximize the ROI from virtual events. Editing webinar clips and distributing them across other marketing channels is a great way to get more out of each event. A platform with built-in editing features means you don’t have to pay for another piece of software.

Look for webinar platforms that allow you to embed your webinars onto your website and give you detailed analytics.

Support for different types of webinars

You can’t always host the same type of webinar for every topic and occasion. So, check which video-engagement tools support different webinar formats, such as:

• Live webinars
• Automated webinars
• Recurring webinars
• Evergreen webinars
• Hybrid webinars

Ease of use

You need an intuitive and easy tool for your teams and attendees. Avoid online webinar software with multi-step registration forms, complex joining instructions, and downloads.

Before committing to a platform, attend a virtual event there. You’ll get a practical experience of how intuitive the interface is.

Budget

Getting webinar tools without a fixed budget can be a problem. So, audit your budget to determine how much money you can invest in a webinar platform.

Then explore different packages and their charges. Choose the deal that provides at least most of your required features within the budget.

Customer Support

Certain bumps are inevitable when it comes to implementing technology. Always look into your preferred platform’s reputation in customer support. Opt for tools that offer 24x7 support and prompt resolution.

Security

As you will deal with sensitive attendee data, any data breaches can cause legal trouble. To avoid that, ensure your chosen platform has all the security compliances.

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What Contrast Users Say

Contrast has received rave client reviews on G2, thanks to its features, affordability, and exceptional customer service.

Our customers expressed delight with Contrast's ease of use. They share how the simple navigation cuts down the stress of hosting a live virtual event. Even our first-time users learn their way quickly, thanks to the intuitive interface.

For example, Ellie states her satisfaction with Contrast. She explains how it helps her team personalize communication with each customer. She also mentioned how the Contrast team is always ready to assist users and proactively accepts feedback.

The record and replay features are also an absolute hit with our clients. They rave about Contrast’s engagement-focused features, which makes attendees return for more. It creates an on-brand, lively, and unique event experience for each attendee.

Wrapping Up the Best Webinar Software of 2024

Choosing the right webinar software can make a world of difference for your business. It's not just about hosting an event. It's about creating memorable experiences and building strong connections.

There's no doubt that there are a lot of options out there. It's important to pick a platform that aligns with your goals, is easy to use, and offers the features you need. Ultimately, this is about growing your business. So, take your time, do your research, and pick the tool that's right for you.

Ready to start running engaging webinars for your company? Look no further.

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