Finding the best webinar platform for your brand can be hard, especially when there are so many options to choose from.
If you’ve been looking at the different tools available to host your webinars, you’ve probably encountered tools such as GoToWebinar and WebinarJam.
Both platforms offer a basic coverage of the features you need to run webinars, no matter what your objective is. But how do they compare to one another in terms of offering, value, and pricing?
In this article we'll take a look at the key features and offering each platform has to offer. Let's jump right in.
How we sourced this data
To make sure we provide you with the best and most unbiased comparison possible, we look at 20+ websites.
These websites include user-review websites, specifically those specialized in SaaS, and the websites of the mentioned tools of course.
Information from these different sources were prioritized in the following order:
- Third party websites (no sponsored posts/content)
- User reviews (G2, Gartner, marketplaces)
- Websites of the tools themselves
Some examples of those relevant sources:
- GoToWebinar review on G2
- GoToWebinar reviews on TrustRadius
- GoToWebinar reviews on HubSpot Marketplace
- WebinarJam review on G2
- WebinarJam reviews on Capterra
Pricing, viewer limits, feature list, and customer support options are sourced directly on the website of the tools themselves.
We will try to provide the most unbiased review possible. However, the quality of the viewer experience for each tool is subjective. We will be judging it on the modernity and interactivity of the experience.
Before we get into the key features, here’s a brief overview of the two products, including GoToWebinar vs WebinarJam pricing and online review ratings.
GoToWebinar overview
Cost
GoToWebinar has a very clear and cheap pricing model based on the number of live attendees to your events. However, they only have annual plans.
These start at:
- $588 /organizer/year for <250 live attendees
- $1188 /organizer/year for <500 live attendees
- $2388 /organizer/year for <1000 live attendees
- $4788 /organizer/year for <3000 live attendees
This may seem like one of the cheapest pricings of all the webinar tools, however note that it is based on the number of organizer seats, meaning that if you need to scale up your webinar efforts, it can get pricey, fast.
However, some key features only unlock on some of the more expensive plans, notably (with the respective yearly prices):
- Standard: $1188 /organizer/year
— Recording
— Channel pages - Pro: $2388 /organizer/year
— Integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.)
— Source tracking
— No download interface
— Video upload and presentation
Free plan: GoToWebinar does not offer a free plan.
Free trial: GoToWebinar offers a 7-day free trial. This is enough to run an internal test if you prepare everything well, but won't be enough to run a full-sized test event.
Reviews
Gartner reviews: 4.3/5 (252 ratings)
Ease of use: 8.8/10
Support: 8.2/10
Support options: Email or live chat.
Platform availability: Online, download (on some pricing plans), all devices (mobile and desktop).
GoToWebinar is a webinar platform that is part of the GoTo suite (along with GoToMeetings and GoToTraning). They were one of the first players to make it to the webinar market and build a recognizable brand for themselves in the industry.
They focus primarily on marketing and training/enablement use cases and have a basic set of functionalities.
They offer a cheap and reportedly easy-to-use platform for marketing and hosting webinars (even though "User interface" is their #1 con on G2). They provide interfaces to create basic landing pages quickly and interactivity features like Q&A and polls.
GoToWebinar's CRM integrations are lackluster - providing the basic requirements of an integration but lacking deeper features like compound reporting or reporting on replay views. This makes it harder for the webinar owner (or team) to report back to management on the efficiency of their efforts.
Their per-organizer pricing model also means that it can be complex to enable other teams than the core webinar team to run their own sessions.
Looking for an alternative? Check out our top 10 GoToWebinar alternatives.
WebinarJam overview
Cost
WebinarJam only offers yearly pricing plans. They are centered around the number of live attendees and the number of host and team member licenses.
- <100 attendees: $39/month (1 host + 1 team member)
- <500 attendees: $79/month (2 hosts + 5 team members)
- <2000 attendees: $229/month (4 hosts + 10 team member)
- <5000 attendees: $379/month (6 hosts + 25 team member)
The limited number of hosts and team members can be problematic when trying to scale events as a channel. Most features are available on all plans except for Automated webinars which are only available on the Basic plan ($79/month).
Free plan: WebinarJam does not offer a free plan.
Free trial: No. However, they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Reviews
G2 reviews: 3.6/5
Ease of use: 7.9/10
Support: 6.4/10
Support options: Email or live chat.
Platform availability: Online, no download, all devices (mobile and desktop).
WebinarJam is one of the cheapest webinar platforms on the market, and they offer all the basic features you're going to need to run webinars.
Users report lackluster support options and a platform interface that is not very intuitive to use (both for viewers and for the people organizing the webinar).
They also do not currently offer HubSpot or Salesforce integrations, meaning you have to use Zapier or Make to send registrant data to and from your CRM.
The "Panic button" is a WebinarJam feature to create a new webinar room and redirects everyone into it. Does this mean they often run into reliability issues? Some reviews seem to say so.
Looking for an alternative? Check out our top 10 WebinarJam alternatives.
GoToWebinar vs. WebinarJam Comparison
As you can see from the overview of GoToWebinar and WebinarJam, they offer very similar products. This makes it difficult for users that are trying to figure out which solution best fits their needs.
Let's compare these two tools across 5 main topics:
- Live experience (host and speaker)
- Pre- and post-webinar experience
- Viewer experience
- Integrations
- Support
1. Live experience
As a host, your choice of tool is going to have a big impact on your capacity to put on a good show for your audience.
Most webinar tools offer a webinar studio to help you run more interactive webinars. GoToWebinar offers a "webinar studio" to host and animate your webinars. They offer the same features as WebinarJam but the interface is a little less user-friendly. They offer a lot of options and this can make the tool difficult to use, especially in a live context.
This interface is definetly not the most modern option of all the webinar platforms available on the market and can be daunting for people using it for the first time. But it gets the job done and covers all the main features.
WebinarJam also has its own version of a "webinar studio" to host and animate your webinars. They offer pretty much all the same features as GoToWebinar but the interface is more user-friendly. The many options can make it difficult to use but it has a more modern feel to it making it significantly easier.
Both tools offer similar speaker and moderator options to run your webinar, but GoToWebinar's complex (and a little out-dated) interface makes it a more difficult tool to use.
Winner: WebinarJam
2. Pre- and post-webinar experience
When it comes to your viewers' experience, GoToWebinar and WebinarJam are pretty evenly matched as to the pre-and post-webinar experience, and both cover the basic features.
They both offer customizable and branded registration pages, automated reminder and follow-up emails, recurring sessions, automated webinars, and replays (WebinarJam and GoToWebinar do not record all webinars by default, so be careful if you go with them to run your events).
GoToWebinar gives you a little bit more flexibility when it comes to emails and landing pages but the design is still basic and far from ideal.
WebinarJam has a few more landing page templates to chose from (even though their design isn't as modern as we'd hope).
But both tools allow you to build your own landing pages with 3rd party tools and send registrants to your webinars via automation tools.
As an organizer, however, WebinarJam users have reported that the interface as an organizer offers too many options and can get quite complex to set up and run a webinar strategy. GoToWebinar offers fewer (but better) options, streamlining the process.
Winner: GoToWebinar
3. Viewer experience
GoToWebinar's viewer experience looks a lot like its live experience for admins, moderators, and speakers. Even though they let you brand your webinars, it's not great. Too many tabs, out-dated chat and complex settings make it a distracting experience for viewers and will have a negative impact on engagement.
No-download is the standard now when it comes to consuming content, and especially webinars. This is only available on Pro plans and above.
WebinarJam is by far one of the cheapest webinar tools on the market, and when it comes to the live experience: it shows.
The viewer experience looks like it's straight out of 2010 and will definitely not do your content justice. Too many tabs, an old-fashioned chat, and complex settings are going to distract viewers from your content and negatively impact engagement.
Both platforms let you stream in 720p, but if you're looking for a platform with the best high video-quality and the most engaging experience: you know who to go with.
Winner: WebinarJam
4. Integrations
GoToWebinar has integrations with Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua, HubSpot, Salesforce and other major players. However, these are only available from the Pro plan and above (<1000 participants) so for smaller teams you might end up paying for a way bigger potential audience than you need. These integrations get average ratings across different marketplaces (3.8* on the HubSpot Marketplace)
Looking for the webinar tool with the best HubSpot integration?
Check out Contrast for free (4.9* on the HubSpot Marketplace).
WebinarJam integrates with MailChimp, ConvertKit, Active Campaign, and other autoresponders and CRMs. They currently do not offer native integrations to the most common CRMs like HubSpot, Salesforce, or Pipedrive. However, setting up these integrations can be pretty complex and requires setting up automated rules and "if this then that" conditions. Non-technical webinar teams could find this challenging.
Both GoToWebinar and WebinarJam have Zapier integrations, allowing you to connect them to 3000+ tools. They both offer actions around the participant registering, attending a live, watching a replay. However, GoToWebinar offers triggers and actions around organizing webinars: create event, trigger on new event, etc. This makes it easier to automate the operations surrounding webinars.
Winner: GoToWebinar
5. Support
Both tools offer very similar support options: email and live chat.
WebinarJam and GoToWebinar both have a help center covering the most common issues that users run into. This makes it easier to onboard yourself onto the tool without needing help from an employee.
Users rate GoToWebinar's support higher (8.2/10) than WebinarJam, however this is substantially lower than many other tools on the market where you can easily get in touch with a human to help solve your problems.
None of the two platforms is a clear winner, but following users' reviews.
Winner: GoToWebinar
Which is better — GoToWebinar or WebinarJam?
So we just took a look at each of these platforms, but which one is going to take first place?
If your only goal is to run webinars on the cheapest budget possible, WebinarJam is going to be the best option for you. However, it won't be the best choice for your audience or in terms of usability of webinar data in your CRM or other tools.
If you're looking to put on a more of a show, have a bit more experience running webinars, and are ready to invest a bit more into the tool: GoToWebinar will be the right choice for you.
However, if you have a smaller audience and require integrations like Hubspot, Salesforce, or source tracking, the cheapest GoToWebinar plans where those are available are going to cost quite a bit.
Check out our best webinar platforms for small businesses.
Go beyond webinars
Both GoToWebinar and WebinarJam are great tools for running your webinars.
However, there are many other alternatives to these two webinar tools offering a wide variety of features and pricing plans — and of course don't forget to take a look at Contrast.
Contrast is the most modern webinar tool on the market, covering all the basic features you're looking for in a tool while providing a fun, authentic and engaging experience to your audience.
We also offer tools to help you repurpose your webinar, a Netflix-like branded Channel to host all of your replays and upcoming events, all while providing the highest quality branded video experience on the market and stellar CRM integrations.
