Zoom Whiteboard Tutorial (Step-by-Step Guide)
Jake Lizarraga
Livestorm is a video engagement platform for hosting webinars and online meetings. This makes it possible for customer success, sales, and marketing teams to host webinars on the same platform they use when collaborating internally.
However, this comes with a steep learning curve and somewhat unintuitive user interface — not to mention numerous user complaints about slow response times from the Livestorm support team. That being the case, we've reviewed the 8 best Livestorm alternatives to help you find a better solution.
Because Livestorm is a hybrid webinar platform — i.e. it supports both live and automated webinars — we'll be segmenting the list of alternatives accordingly. Even if you're only doing live webinar hosting, we'd still recommend looking at the automated webinar alternatives to Livestorm.
Here are the top four Livestorm alternatives for live webinars:
Here are the top four Livestorm alternatives for automated webinars:
Are you still hosting webinars live? There's nothing wrong with hosting a one-off event live but if you do recurring webinars (e.g. sales, demos, or onboarding) then you'll be spending countless hours hosting the same presentation over and over until you burn yourself out.
If you're curious about how automated webinars can double your attendance rates while freeing up the time you spend on live webinars, watch our on-demand demo or skip to this section!
8 best Livestorm alternatives (live and automated)
Livestorm alternatives for live webinars
Let's start by going over the features, reviews, and pricing of these four popular live webinar platforms. This will help you figure out which platform is the best fit for your needs and budget while gauging the satisfaction of their existing customers.
If you're looking for automated webinar platforms then click here to skip to the next section!
Zoom
When most people hear Zoom, online meetings are the first thing that come to mind. However, those willing to pay extra for Zoom Webinars can use the same platform to host their webinars. Certain Zoom meeting features like breakout rooms and the raise hand button are also available during webinars.
You can even run polls, hold Q&As, send post-webinar surveys, or stream your Zoom Webinars to YouTube and Facebook Live. Last but not least, the Zoom App Marketplace has thousands of integrations with 350+ available for webinars including HubSpot, Pardot, Zapier, and more.
Zoom reviews
Zoom Webinars has a rating of 4.5 on G2 and 4.7 on Capterra.
Zoom pricing
Zoom Webinars has a single plan that starts at $79/month for 500 participants. However, upon exceeding the 500-participant limit, the price will more than quadruple to $340/month and continue to increase as your audience grows.
GoTo Webinar
GoTo Webinar is more expensive than its video conferencing counterpart GoTo Meeting but can accommodate more participants. It includes additional features like remote control access that lets you pass keyboard and mouse control to a co-presenter.
Engagement options include polls, surveys, and Q&As. Additionally, you can include a certificate of attendance (which will only be sent to registrants who attended the webinar) in your follow-up emails. Finally, you can use GoTo Webinar's video library to save and manage recordings of past events.
GoTo Webinar reviews
GoTo Webinar has a rating of 4.2 on G2 and 4.5 on Capterra.
GoTo Webinar pricing
There are four GoTo Webinar plans to choose from:
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Lite. Starts at $59/month for 250 attendees.
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Standard. Starts at $129/month 500 attendees.
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Pro. Starts at $249/month 1,000 attendees.
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Enterprise. Starts at $499/month 3,000 attendees.
Note: All subscriptions to the Standard plan or higher come with one license for GoTo Meeting.
Webex
Like Livestorm or Zoom, Webex can accommodate both meetings and webinars while offering engagement features like reactions, polls, hand-raising, or Q&As. It's also able to handle up to 100,000 concurrent attendees making it suitable for large-scale webinars (whether internal or customer-facing).
In addition to automatically removing backgrounds, Webex can recognize the voice of presenters in order to better filter out background noise while providing real-time captioning in over a hundred languages.
Webex pricing
Webex Webinars is priced on a quote basis and doesn't list prices publicly on its website.
Webex reviews
Webex Webinars has a rating of 4.4 on G2 and 4.4 on Capterra.
ON24
ON24 is a virtual events platform that lets you host branded webinars and promote them through a personalized content hub. Attendees will be able to submit questions during events using the Q&A section or share their feedback afterward within the post-webinar survey.
On the webinar marketing front, ON24 helps with lead scoring by surfacing metrics like number of webinars attended, total minutes watched, and total engagement score. You can even see prospect profiles or generate a custom leads report if you upgrade to the Standard plan or higher.
ON24 pricing
There are three ON24 plans to choose from:
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Essentials. Includes webinars, event management, performance analytics, and 30+ integrations.
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Standard. Includes segment personalization, advanced analytics, and AI-generated content.
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Advanced. Includes personalized content hubs and landing pages.
Note: All three plans use quote-based pricing and charge extra for the virtual events add-on.
ON24 reviews
ON24 has a rating of 4.3 on G2 and 4.3 on Capterra.
Livestorm alternatives for automated webinars
We've analyzed the data from millions of automated webinars hosted on our platform and interviewed our most successful customers. The results of our research clearly show that three key features determine an automated webinar's success: chat, interactivity, and scheduling.
That being the case, we'll be using these capabilities as the benchmark when comparing the four automated webinar platforms below. To get things started, we'll show you how eWebinar works and then explore how the other three products differ.
eWebinar
Watch this one-minute video for a quick overview of how eWebinar works or join our on-demand demo for a more detailed overview!
Why eWebinar is 100% focused on automated webinars
While many webinar platforms have gravitated towards a hybrid model — providing both live and automated webinars to capture as much market share as possible — we genuinely believe that any product that tries to do both never truly succeeds at either.
Specifically, hybrid platforms almost always treat automation as an afterthought rather than a core part of their product. That's why eWebinar is the only webinar software provider that's exclusively committed to automated webinars.
We went "all-in on automation" because of the webinar struggles we encountered for ourselves. While growing our previous SaaS company, we found ourselves trapped in a never-ending cycle of hosting the same onboarding webinar over and over again.
It was like Groundhog Day but with less Bill Murray and more burnout caused by webinar fatigue.
To find a way out of this webinar hell, we began looking for a platform that would let us put our webinars on autopilot without losing the ability to communicate with attendees and provide an engaging experience.
It didn't exist.
The closest we could find were pre-recorded webinar platforms that tried to mimic live webinars. These platforms had a simulated chat that would show attendees fake messages to make them think that the webinar was happening live — damaging the host's credibility whenever an attendee found out.
Fast forward a few years and eWebinar has become the webinar platform we dreamed we had back then. Our software was built from the ground up with an unwavering focus on webinar automation. But you might be wondering, can automated-only really be better than live or hybrid platforms?
Our customers respond with a resounding yes (in both their words and analytics).
How eWebinar lets you communicate with your audience through live chat and email
The biggest shortcoming of platforms like EverWebinar and Demio is their lack of live chat capabilities. EverWebinar uses contact forms while Demio doesn't let you enable chat for on-demand webinars. Conversely, BigMarker has live chat but you're unable to reply to attendees after the webinar ends.
Having the option to chat with the host and ask them questions is what makes webinars so effective in the first place. Anything that takes that ability away — either by removing live chat entirely or only making it available during the webinar itself — compromises the efficacy of your webinar.
Thankfully, eWebinar lets you respond through both live chat and email.
Here's how eWebinar's chat system works:
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Automated welcome messages. Attendees receive a personalized welcome message the moment they join the webinar. If no one's available to reply to them, an auto-response will set expectations on when they'll hear back.
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Instant message notifications. Once an attendee sends a message in the webinar chat, you (along with any assigned moderators) will instantly receive a notification through email, browser notifications, or Slack alerts.
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Live chat + email responses. The host can then choose between replying to attendees in real time through the live chat or responding asynchronously later on. Any replies sent after the webinar ends will automatically be sent to the email address they registered with.
The eWebinar chat was designed to ensure that every questions receives a timely answer.
In fact, we ourselves use the chat to respond to attendees watching our on-demand demo (because we use eWebinar to demo eWebinar).
How eWebinar's interactions engage attendees and increase watch time
Audience engagement is more than just answering attendee questions. That's why eWebinar lets you add interactions like polls, quizzes, and handouts to maximize watch time by keeping attendees engaged throughout the entire presentation.
BombBomb was able to increase their watch time from 70% to 90% just by adding interactions:
Instead of manually entering timestamps for every interaction, our timeline editor lets you add them by simply dragging the playhead to any point of your webinar and choosing which interaction to insert:
To see what our interactions look like from an attendee's point of view just watch our on-demand demo!
How eWebinar’s flexible scheduling doubles attendance rates
eWebinar’s flexible scheduling lets you record your presentation once then make it available as an on-demand webinar and set it on a recurring schedule that adapts to the registrant's local time zone. This makes it as convenient as possible for people to attend your webinar.
As a result, the average attendance rate for automated webinars hosted on eWebinar is 65% which is significantly higher than the 40% industry average of live webinars. Many eWebinar customers outperform the platform average and get attendance rates above 90%:
Others see even larger boosts, like Later who 6x'd their attendance after switching from live webinars to eWebinar:
If you want to make engaging webinars conveniently available to registrants at their peak moment of interest without needing to host each session live, start by watching our on-demand demo!
Demio
Demio is a hybrid platform that supports both live and automated webinar platforms (depending on which plan you subscribe to). It comes with basic engagement features like polls, handouts, and CTAs that you can insert within automated webinars.
Demio's scheduling options do include both recurring and on-demand webinars. However, Demio doesn’t let you enable live chat for on-demand webinars. Another caveat is the recurring sessions are scheduled at a fixed time rather than adjusting their schedule based on the registrant's local time zone.
Demio pricing
There are three Demio plans to choose from:
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Starter. Starts at $59/month for 50 attendees and has a three-hour time limit.
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Growth. Starts at $109/month for 150 attendees and an eight-hour time limit.
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Premium. Starts at $184/month for 150 attendees and a 10-hour time limit.
Note: The Starter plan only supports live webinars. You'll need to upgrade to Growth or higher to automate your webinars.
Demio reviews
Demio has a rating of 4.6 on G2 and 4.7 on Capterra.
EverWebinar
EverWebinar is a sister product of WebinarJam that focuses on automation instead of live webinars. While EverWebinar shares scheduling similarities with eWebinar, it takes a completely different approach when it comes to communicating with attendees.
You can either use a simulated chat with fake activity that sends messages from real attendees into the void, embed a question box that lets you get back to attendees through email, or disable chat entirely for a passive viewing experience.
None of these options are ideal but a question box is the lesser evil compared to fake chat or no chat.
EverWebinar reviews
EverWebinar has a rating of 3.9 on G2 and 3.9 on Capterra.
EverWebinar pricing
There are three EverWebinar plans to choose from:
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Monthly. The monthly plan starts at $99/month which ends up being the most expensive option.
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Yearly. The yearly plan starts at $499/year but you have to pay for an entire year upfront.
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Biennial. The biennial plan averages out to $437/year but you're locked in for two years.
Note: EverWebinar does not offer a free trial, instead opting for a paid trial.
BigMarker
BigMarker is a virtual event platform. It sits on the opposite end of the communication spectrum to EverWebinar since it has live chat but doesn't let you reply to attendees after the webinar has ended. This means the only way to avoid losing leads is to attend every session and respond in real time.
As for BigMarker's attendee engagement capabilities, hosts can use interactive features like handouts, offers, polls, questions, and post-webinar surveys. Because BigMarker supports both virtual and hybrid events, you can also print physical attendee badges or launch a mobile event app.
BigMarker pricing
There are three BigMarker plans to choose from:
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Basic. One host license, basic analytics, and up to 1,000 attendees.
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Enterprise. Four host licenses, advanced analytics, and up to 10,000 attendees.
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Enterprise+. Six host licenses and up to 500,000 attendees.
Note: All three plans use quote-based pricing.
BigMarker reviews
BigMarker has a rating of 4.7 on G2 and 4.8 on Capterra.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many platforms to choose from when hosting live and pre-recorded webinars. While some products may try to do both, automation often gets left on the backburner of hybrid webinar platforms.
Which Livestorm alternative you choose ultimately depends on which features you need, how much you're prepared to pay, and whether you'll be hosting every webinar live or scaling your reach through automation.
If you take the automated route, eWebinar's robust chat, engaging interactions, and flexible scheduling are here to help you reclaim your time without sacrificing the attendee experience that makes webinars so effective.
Still on the fence about how interactive an automated webinar can really be? Just watch our on-demand demo to see for yourself!
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