Quick Answer

Convay is the best alternative to Zoom for webinars in 2026, supporting up to 10,000 participants with HD video, screen sharing, live Q&A, recording, and end-to-end encryption — at a fraction of Zoom Webinar’s $149/month starting price. Zoom Webinar is sold as an expensive add-on on top of an already-paid Zoom licence. Convay’s Big Meeting add-on delivers equivalent scale and a richer host experience within a single per-user plan, making it the most cost-effective webinar platform for businesses of every size.

Best Alternatives to Zoom for Webinars in 2026: Compared and Ranked

Zoom Webinar has a pricing problem. The platform most businesses already pay for — Zoom Pro or Business — does not include webinar capability. Zoom Webinar is a separate add-on starting at $149/month for 500 attendees, rising to $340/month for 1,000, and escalating sharply beyond that. For a marketing team running monthly product webinars or a training department delivering quarterly all-hands sessions, that add-on cost sits on top of an existing per-user Zoom licence — creating a double-billing structure that inflates webinar costs well above what the feature complexity justifies.

The webinar software market has matured significantly, and businesses no longer need to accept Zoom’s pricing model to access enterprise-grade webinar capability. A new generation of platforms — and some established alternatives — deliver equivalent or superior webinar experiences at dramatically lower cost. Some bundle webinar capacity within their core plans. Others offer purpose-built webinar tools with richer engagement features than Zoom provides. The best alternatives to Zoom for webinars in 2026 give marketing teams, trainers, and executives the scale they need without the add-on premium.

This guide compares the seven best Zoom webinar alternatives across participant capacity, engagement features, recording and analytics, pricing, and ease of setup. Whether you run weekly product demos for 50 prospects, quarterly town halls for 2,000 employees, or annual industry conferences for 10,000 registrants, this comparison gives you the data to choose the right platform and stop overpaying Zoom for webinar access you should not need to pay extra for.

The 7 Best Alternatives to Zoom for Webinars

1. Convay — Best Zoom Webinar Alternative for Value and Scale

Convay is purpose-built for organisations that need reliable, large-scale video delivery without Zoom Webinar’s punishing add-on pricing structure. The Convay Big Meeting add-on scales to 10,000 participants — ten times Zoom Webinar’s 1,000-attendee standard tier — within a single per-user platform cost that eliminates the separate webinar licence overhead. Host controls include presenter management, attendee muting, Q&A moderation, screen sharing, and live annotation — everything a professional webinar host needs to run structured broadcasts without the technical overhead of managing a separate webinar platform. End-to-end encryption is included across all plans, giving webinar hosts confidence that sensitive product announcements, investor calls, and internal town halls are not accessible outside the intended audience.

The economics of running webinars on Convay versus Zoom Webinar are stark for any organisation already using a video conferencing platform. A 100-person company on Convay Pro at $9.99/user/month pays $11,988/year for their entire communications platform — including webinar capacity for 10,000 participants. The same company on Zoom Pro would pay $15,996/year for their Zoom licences plus $1,788/year for the 500-attendee Zoom Webinar add-on — totalling $17,784/year before they even approach 10,000-participant scale. That $5,796 annual saving scales with organisation size. Convay’s recording feature captures all webinar sessions to the cloud, and the built-in analytics dashboard tracks attendance rates, engagement duration, and drop-off points — giving demand generation teams the data they need to optimise future sessions. Start Convay free today and run your first webinar without a licence fee.

2. Zoom Webinar — The Market Standard, But Expensive

Zoom Webinar remains the most widely recognised webinar platform in the market, and for good reason: its reliability, integration ecosystem, and attendee familiarity are unmatched. The Zoom Webinar add-on provides a dedicated broadcast mode where attendees cannot unmute or enable video by default, a panellist management system for multi-speaker events, a Q&A panel, polling, and post-webinar analytics including attention tracking. The platform’s integration with marketing automation tools — HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce, and Pardot — makes it a natural fit for demand generation workflows where webinar registration data flows directly into CRM and nurture sequences.

The cost structure is the primary objection. Zoom Webinar 500 starts at $149/month ($1,788/year) as an add-on on top of existing Zoom licences. The 1,000-attendee tier is $340/month ($4,080/year). Beyond 1,000 attendees, pricing moves to custom enterprise contracts. Organisations that run occasional webinars rather than continuous programmes find the monthly add-on cost difficult to justify — paying for 12 months of webinar access to run 4–6 events. The per-event cost model of some competitors, or Convay’s bundled approach, often represents better economics for lower-frequency webinar programmes.

3. Demio — Best Purpose-Built Webinar Tool for Marketing Teams

Demio is a webinar platform designed specifically for marketing and demand generation teams, with a workflow built around the webinar as a lead generation and nurture event rather than a general-purpose broadcast. Registration pages are built into the platform with customisable branding and integrations to major marketing automation tools. The attendee experience is clean and browser-based — no download required — which reduces registration-to-attendance drop-off that plagues Zoom Webinar’s app-dependent join flow. Automated webinars (pre-recorded sessions delivered as live events) are supported natively, enabling evergreen demand generation programmes that run without host involvement.

Demio’s Starter plan at $42/month supports 50 attendees for a single host — competitively priced for small marketing teams running intimate webinars. The Growth plan at $75/month scales to 150 attendees with 3 hosts and automation features. The Premium plan at $184/month supports 500 attendees. For very large webinars (1,000+ attendees), Demio’s pricing becomes less competitive than Convay’s bundled approach. Demio is the right choice when marketing automation integration, automated webinar functionality, and dedicated registration workflow are higher priorities than raw participant capacity or cost at scale.

4. StreamYard — Best for Live-Streamed Webinars and Branded Broadcasts

StreamYard takes a different approach to webinars: it is a live streaming studio tool that broadcasts webinars simultaneously to YouTube Live, LinkedIn Live, Facebook Live, Twitch, and custom RTMP destinations, in addition to its own embedded player. For organisations whose webinar strategy includes public-facing content designed to reach audiences on social platforms as well as registered attendees, StreamYard’s multi-destination streaming capability is unique. The brand customisation tools — custom overlays, lower thirds, branded backgrounds, ticker banners — produce a broadcast quality that polished webinar programmes require.

StreamYard Basic is free for up to 20 in-stream participants and watermarked broadcasts. The Basic paid plan at $49/month removes the watermark and adds recording. The Professional plan at $99/month adds multi-streaming to six destinations, custom branding, and 10 on-screen participants. StreamYard’s model is not a traditional webinar platform with registration, Q&A, and attendee analytics — it is a production tool for live broadcast. Teams that need a full webinar workflow including registration, attendee management, and post-event analytics should use Convay or Demio. Teams whose primary goal is live-streaming branded content to social audiences should evaluate StreamYard.

5. Webex Webinars — Best for Enterprise-Scale Compliance Requirements

Cisco Webex Webinars (formerly Webex Events) provides enterprise-grade webinar functionality with the compliance certifications that regulated industries require: FedRAMP, HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II, and ISO 27001. For financial services firms, healthcare organisations, and government agencies running external-facing webinars where compliance documentation is required, Webex’s certification depth is unmatched in the webinar space. The platform supports up to 100,000 participants on enterprise contracts — making it one of the few options for truly massive broadcast events.

Webex Webinars pricing begins at approximately $25/host/month for 1,000 attendees on the Webex Meetings + Events bundle, scaling to custom enterprise pricing for large audiences. The platform’s complexity and the enterprise sales process required for higher tiers make it inappropriate for SMBs and mid-market companies running occasional webinars. For enterprise organisations where compliance certification is a hard requirement for external broadcast events, Webex is the most credentialed option in this comparison.

6. BigMarker — Best for High-Engagement Interactive Webinars

BigMarker is a webinar and virtual event platform specialising in audience engagement — offering polls, quizzes, handouts, offers, breakout rooms, and a virtual expo experience that standard webinar tools do not provide. For organisations running virtual conferences, product launches with live demonstrations, and training events where audience participation is central to the session design, BigMarker’s engagement feature set is deeper than any competitor in this comparison. The platform supports up to 10,000 attendees and automated webinar sequences.

BigMarker’s Starter plan begins at $99/month for 100 attendees, making it one of the more expensive entry points in this comparison. The Elite plan at $299/month supports 1,000 attendees with full engagement tools. Pricing is justified for organisations where webinar engagement metrics — poll participation, offer redemption, chat activity — are KPIs for their demand generation programmes. For teams primarily running informational broadcasts with Q&A, BigMarker’s premium over Convay or Demio is difficult to justify on feature usage alone.

7. Google Meet Livestream — Best for Google Workspace Organisations Running Internal Broadcasts

Google Workspace Business Plus and Enterprise plans include Google Meet’s live streaming feature, allowing internal broadcasts to up to 100,000 viewers within an organisation — a powerful capability for large internal town halls, executive briefings, and company-wide training sessions at organisations already paying for Workspace. The stream runs within the Google ecosystem, accessible via a link in Google Calendar, requiring no separate webinar tool or additional licence for internal broadcasts.

The limitations are significant for external-facing webinar use cases. Google Meet Livestream is restricted to internal audiences — external registration, public attendee access, and external marketing integration are not supported. There is no Q&A moderation tool, no attendee analytics beyond view counts, and no registration workflow. For internal broadcasts to Workspace-managed audiences, it is a strong zero-marginal-cost option. For marketing webinars, customer-facing product demonstrations, and external training, Convay or a dedicated webinar platform better serves the use case.

Full Feature Comparison: Zoom Webinar Alternatives

Zoom Webinar vs Alternatives: Pricing Breakdown

Which Zoom Webinar Alternative Is Right for Your Team?

Why Teams Are Replacing Zoom Webinar

The core frustration with Zoom Webinar is structural: it is an add-on to an add-on. Teams already paying for Zoom Pro licences discover that their existing subscription does not include webinar capability — and the webinar add-on is priced as a premium product in its own right. For a 10-person marketing team running monthly product webinars, the annual cost structure looks like this: Zoom Pro for 10 users at $13.33/user/month = $1,599.60/year, plus Zoom Webinar 500-attendee add-on at $149/month = $1,788/year. Total: $3,387.60/year just for video meetings and webinars, before any other SaaS spend. The same team on Convay Pro pays $1,198.80/year for the entire platform including webinar capacity — a $2,188.80 annual saving.

Beyond cost, Zoom Webinar’s attendee experience creates friction that reduces effective audience size. The recommended Zoom client download, combined with Zoom account creation prompts for new attendees, introduces a 3–5 minute join delay that causes real drop-off before webinars begin. Convay’s browser-based join — click the link, the session opens — eliminates that friction entirely. In webinar contexts where registration-to-attendance conversion is a metric, the no-download experience meaningfully improves show rates. Convay’s host controls, Q&A moderation, and live screen sharing provide everything a professional webinar programme needs without the app dependency that Zoom Webinar’s attendee experience imposes.

Run your next webinar on Convay — no $149/mo add-on needed

Convay’s Big Meeting supports 10,000 participants with HD video, Q&A, screen sharing, and cloud recording — all within your per-user plan. Stop paying Zoom’s webinar add-on premium and run better webinars for less.Start Free on Convay →View Webinar Pricing

Frequently Asked Questions: Zoom Webinar Alternatives

What is the best free alternative to Zoom for webinars?

Convay offers the strongest free webinar capability in 2026. The free plan supports up to 100 participants with unlimited duration, HD video, screen sharing, and Q&A — making it suitable for small webinars, product demos, and client education sessions at no cost. For larger webinars (500–10,000 participants), Convay’s Big Meeting add-on is available as an affordable upgrade within the Pro plan. Zoom’s free tier does not include webinar capability at all — Zoom Webinar is a paid add-on regardless of your existing Zoom subscription level. Google Meet’s free tier supports up to 100 participants for basic broadcasts but lacks registration workflow and Q&A moderation tools.

How much does Zoom Webinar cost compared to alternatives?

Zoom Webinar 500 costs $149/month ($1,788/year) as an add-on on top of existing Zoom licences. Zoom Webinar 1,000 costs $340/month ($4,080/year). By comparison, Convay Pro costs $9.99/user/month with the Big Meeting add-on for 10,000-participant webinars included — representing savings of over $1,600/year for a single-host webinar programme versus Zoom Webinar 500. Demio starts at $42/month for 50 attendees and $184/month for 500 attendees. StreamYard Professional at $99/month delivers live-streaming capability without a traditional webinar registration workflow.

Can I run a webinar on Zoom without paying for Zoom Webinar?

Not effectively. Zoom Meetings supports up to 100 participants (1,000 on Business+ plans) but lacks Zoom Webinar’s broadcast mode, where attendees cannot unmute or enable video by default. Running a large meeting as a webinar on Zoom Meetings creates participant management challenges that Zoom Webinar’s architecture resolves. For teams wanting a proper webinar experience — attendee broadcast mode, Q&A panel, registration, analytics — without paying Zoom’s webinar add-on, Convay, Demio, or StreamYard are the practical alternatives.

What is the best webinar software for small businesses?

Convay is the best webinar platform for small businesses in 2026 because it requires no separate webinar licence — webinar capability is built into the Pro plan at $9.99/user/month. Demio is the second-best option for small businesses whose webinar strategy centres on marketing automation integration and automated (evergreen) webinars, starting at $42/month for 50 attendees. Both platforms offer browser-based attendee joining, eliminating the app-download friction that reduces webinar attendance rates. Zoom Webinar’s $149/month starting price is difficult for small businesses to justify as a dedicated webinar tool cost.

How many people can attend a webinar on Convay?

Convay’s standard meeting supports 100 participants. The Big Meeting add-on scales Convay sessions to 10,000 participants — covering product launches, company all-hands, industry conferences, and large-scale training programmes that standard video conferencing tools cannot accommodate. This 10,000-participant capacity exceeds Zoom Webinar’s standard 1,000-attendee tier by a factor of ten, and is available within a single per-user monthly plan rather than as a separate escalating add-on licence.

Does Convay support automated (on-demand) webinars?

Convay’s cloud recording feature enables on-demand webinar delivery — recorded sessions can be shared with registered attendees as a replay link, making the content available after the live event. For fully automated webinar sequences where pre-recorded content is delivered as a simulated live event with scheduled broadcast times, Demio’s automated webinar feature is more purpose-built. Teams whose primary webinar use case is live broadcasts with post-event recording access are well served by Convay. Teams building evergreen demand generation programmes with automated evergreen webinars should evaluate Demio alongside Convay.

What is the easiest webinar platform for attendees to join?

Convay and Demio offer the lowest-friction attendee join experience — both are entirely browser-based, requiring no app download or account creation. Attendees click a registration link, complete a simple form, and receive a join link. On the day of the webinar, clicking the link opens the session directly in their browser. Zoom Webinar prompts attendees to download the Zoom client or create a Zoom account, introducing join friction that increases drop-off between registration and attendance. In webinar programmes where show rate (registered-to-attended ratio) is a KPI, browser-based platforms consistently outperform app-dependent alternatives like Zoom Webinar.