WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar – Let’s Settle This Once & For All

WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar – perhaps the 2 most popular webinar software out there. 

But which one is better? 

In this honest and detailed webinar software review, we’ll compare WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar head-to-head according to these 10 criteria:

Overall rating

3.2/5

3.2

7 day trial for free

Pros

Cons

Best or unique feature

Webinar Types & Setup

3/5

Audience Interactions

2/5

Presentation Tools

4/5

Pricing & Trial

3/5

Webinar Funnel Pages

2/5

Video Engine & Support

4/5

Webinar Replay

4/5

Email Reminders

3/5

Mobile Devices

3/5

Analytics & Exports

4/5

Overall rating

4.6/5

4.6

14 day trial for $1

Pros

Cons

Best or unique feature

Webinar Types & Setup

3/5

Audience Interactions

5/5

Presentation Tools

5/5

Pricing & Trial

3/5

Webinar Funnel Pages

5/5

Video Engine & Support

5/5

Webinar Replay

5/5

Email Reminders

5/5

Mobile Devices

5/5

Analytics & Exports

5/5

Webinar Types & Ease of Setup

Both software – WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar are mainly built for live webinars.

However, on GoToWebinar, you can also host automated pre-recorded webinars. That’s a major advantage, because WebinarJam doesn’t have that functionality. WebinarJam only has live webinars.

Also, on GoToWebinar you can host webcasts, which is very similar to webinars, but it allows more participants. However, there aren’t so many audience interaction tools on webcasts.

gotowebinar webinar vs webcast
GoToWebinar setup: Webinar vs Webcast

With GoToWebinar you’ll also get the GoToMeeting software as a bonus to host video conferences or team meetings.

A major downside for GoToWebinar is that the host and all the attendees have to download the GoToOpener desktop installer. That’s right, it’s required even to join a webinar.

The webinar setup is more straight-forward and streamlined on WebinarJam.

WebinarJam setup
WebinarJam setup: Basic webinar settings and step-by-step flow

Winner for Webinar Types & Ease of Setup: GoToWebinar

The webinar setup flow is seamless on WebinarJam.

However, GoToWebinar throws in the automated webinars, webcasts and GoToMeeting video conferencing software.

WebinarJam: Webinar Types & Setup

3/5

GoToWebinar: Webinar Types & Setup

3.5/5

Webinar Funnel Pages

On WebinarJam there are tons of landing pages to choose from. There is literally a whole library of webinar landing page templates with different layouts, color schemas and designs.

landing page templates
WebinarJam landing page templates

On WebinarJam you can have a video, an attractive product image or clearly formatted bullet list to make clear selling points why people should sign up for your webinar.

You can even have 2 landing pages and A/B test them and measure which one converts sign-ups better.

On GoToWebinar, there’s no such thing.

There are literally no landing page template options. You can only choose the colors, but not the layout. That’s why all the GoToWebinar landing pages look the same everywhere.

Want to showcase attractive product images? Forget about it. You can only add a small 200×200 image to your landing page. And videos? Nope.

GoToWebinar Registration Page Customization
GoToWebinar Registration Page Customization

Bonus points for both: You can add custom question to the registration form.

Winner for Webinar Funnel Pages: WebinarJam

The clear winner here is WebinarJam because of its wildly different landing page and thank you page theme options.

On GoToWebinar, it’s just non-existent.

WebinarJam: Webinar Funnel Pages

5/5

GoToWebinar: Webinar Funnel Pages

3.5/5

Webinar Email Reminders & Email Editors

There are 3 purposes for the webinar emails:

In short, to maximize the show-up rate and the purchase conversion rate.

How well do WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar perform head-to-head?

On WebinarJam, there’s a lot of customizability in terms of email body text and scheduling.

The webinar follow-up emails enable tons of customizability. You can segment attendees based on attendance and behavior during the live webinar.

webinarjam emails
WebinarJam: Setting up the webinar emails

On GoToWebinar you can also send email reminders. On the follow-up emails you can separate attendees and no-shows

Furthermore, you can only add a small body text snippet to these emails. Most of it is automatically generated instructions to join the webinar (joining requires download, remember).

As a result, the webinar reminder emails look pretty spammy and lack personality.

GoToWebinar registration confirmation email
GoToWebinar registration confirmation email

Winner for Email Tools: WebinarJam

WebinarJam has solved the webinar reminder emails and the follow-up emails in a smarter way, since it allows for more specific messaging and because of the segmentation options.

WebinarJam: Email Tools

5/5

GoToWebinar: Email Tools

3/5

Audience Interaction Tools

GoToWebinar has perhaps the worst audience interaction tools that I’ve ever seen on a webinar software.

Let me give you a few reasons why:

GoToWebinar Q&A docked
GoToWebinar Q&A questions in a docked view are hard to manage

What’s the kicker? WebinarJam has all these features. And, they’ve done it with excellent quality.

The user interface is easier on the eyes, the polls are in the focus when launched. And the Featured offer is prominently displayed to immediately draw attention.

There’s even urgency and scarcity features to encourage attendees to take action.

WebinarJam product offer as attendee
WebinarJam: Seeing the product offer during the live webinar

Perhaps the only good thing about the GoToWebinar interaction tools is that you can set up a survey at the end of the webinar.

Winner for Audience Interaction Tools: WebinarJam

Clearly, WebinarJam has superior tools when it comes to interacting with your webinar audience. They have more features and the quality of each feature is way better than on GoToWebinar.

WebinarJam: Audience Interaction Tools

4.5/5

GoToWebinar: Audience Interaction Tools

1.5/5

Video Engine & Tech Support

The video quality is decent on both software. It might be slightly more stable on GoToWebinar because their software is installed on the computer. Installed software has the potential to be more stable and reliable.

GoToWebinar webinar video quality
GoToWebinar webinar video quality

However, WebinarJam has solved the “potential problems” issue with their “Panic! Button”.

What it does is this – whenever there’s a problem with your webinar, you can press the Panic! Button and it will generate a new webinar room and automatically import all the attendees there.

This takes about 10 seconds and solves all potential problems.

WJ panic button - reboot room
WebinarJam Host view: Pressing the Panic! button
WJ redirecting all attendees
WebinarJam Host view: Redirecting all attendees

What about the support? You know, when you have some technical questions and you need help.

To be honest, neither WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar have a fast customer support chat.
It’s probably because they’re the 2 biggest webinar behemoths and don’t have the HR capacity to handle all the customer questions immediately.

How have they solved this instead?

GoToWebinar has a quite rich knowledge base.

WebinarJam has an active and helpful Facebook community with 40 000+ members.

Winner for Video Engine & Tech Support: WebinarJam

Since both have good enough video quality, the “Panic! Button” gives peace of mind.
Also, the WebinarJam Facebook group is great for sharing webinar marketing tips in general. It makes the users feel a lot more connected.

WebinarJam: Video Engine & Support

4.5/5

GoToWebinar: Video Engine & Support

3.5/5

Presentation Tools

WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar – both have useful presentation tools:

But when speaking of presentation tools, we can’t ignore a keystone component – your slideshow.

On WebinarJam, you can pre-upload your slideshow to the platform. In this way, your slideshow has the maximum quality for all the attendees, because its launched straight from the platform.

There’s even built-in slide transitions.

WebinarJam slide presentation controls for host
WebinarJam Host view: Injected slideshow presentation controls during live webinar session

On GoToWebinar, there’s no such feature. You’d have to screen share and show your slides, which is dependent on the video streaming quality.  

Also, handling the webcam is super annoying on GoToWebinar. There’s no clear way of seeing how the attendee is experiencing the webinar. Does he see the webcam? Where are the slides?

GoToWebinar attendee seeing the webinar videos
GoToWebinar: How the attendee will see the videos. Webcam and video windows are undocked.

On WebinarJam, the host controls what the attendees see and it’s clear to the host. As a host, you want to be in control of the webinar experience as you’re presenting your webinar content.  

To end on a positive note, there is one unique feature on GoToWebinar – the attentiveness rating

This shows you real-time data about when you’re losing the attention of your attendees.

GoToWebinar attentiveness rating
GoToWebinar attentiveness rating

Winner for Presentation Tools: WebinarJam

Despite the useful attentiveness rating, GoToWebinar presentation tools are clearly inferior. Mainly because of the inconvenient slideshow and webcam tools. These are a very integral part of your webinar and enable you to control the webinar session much more. WebinarJam has superior features in that area.

WebinarJam: Presentation Tools

4.5/5

GoToWebinar: Presentation Tools

2.5/5

Mobile Devices & Browsers

This is an uneven comparison here. That’s because when attendee wants to join a webinar on GoToWebinar, they must download the mobile app.

GoToWebinar android webcam
GoToWebinar attendee view: Webcam on mobile
GoToWebinar webcam and slides on android
GoToWebinar attendee view: Slides + Webcam

Perhaps an upside for the GoToWebinar app is that it directs attendee attention better.
For example, when the polls are launched, they go full screen for the attendee. This ensures higher participation rate.

A unique feature for GoToWebinar is that the host can simultaneously join the webinar with the app as well. This opens more options to engage with the audience. Also, to share their mobile screen during the webinar. This could be useful when you’re presenting slides on PC, but want to demo an app during the webinar.

WebinarJam allows for joining on the browser. And it’s fluently mobile responsive.

WebinarJam Android attendee Q&A
WebinarJam Android attendee - Q&A
WebinarJam Android polls
WebinarJam Polls on Android

On WebinarJam Android, the chat, the polls, the offers, the speaker requests – all these features are available on mobile too. 

A unique feature for WebinarJam is the integration with Twilio. This enables to send SMS text messages as webinar reminders 15 minutes before the webinar. Another way to boost your attendance rate.

Winner for Mobile Devices & Browsers: WebinarJam

WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar – both have a clean and beautiful mobile experience for the attendee.

WebinarJam’s unique feature is the SMS text message reminders.

GoToWebinar’s unique feature is the multi-device joining for the host.

However, when we’re talking about friction to join the webinar, then the requirement for downloading an app is definitely a way to lose attendees (GoToWebinar).

WebinarJam enables joining straight from the mobile browser and that’s why the mobile experience is better for the attendee.

WebinarJam: Mobile Devices & Browsers

5/5

GoToWebinar: Mobile Devices & Browsers

4/5

Webinar Recording Video & Replay

As the webinar starts, it automatically hits the “Record” button on both software.
Everything is recorded and will be used as a webinar replay.

Depending on your audience, many people can’t join your webinar, but they’re still interested in your webinar contents. That’s why they want to watch the webinar replay.

So, the webinar replay is also a great way to capture sales and engage with the audience asynchronously.

On WebinarJam, there’s the Replica Replay, which mimics the live webinar exactly like it happened. This way the replay attendee will feel more like it’s interactive. And if they have questions, they can easily ask using the question box.

WebinarJam webinar replay configuration
WebinarJam host view: Setting up the webinar replay

On GoToWebinar replay, some engagement is captured, like the polls.

But there’s a huge missed opportunity for GoToWebinar – there is no question box. Meaning, the replay attendee can’t engage in any way.

One unique feature for GoToWebinar is trimming replay recording. You can cut out some pieces from your replay recording.

GoToWebinar trim video
Trimming the GoToWebinar recording

Winner for Webinar Replay: WebinarJam

Bottom line is – webinar replay attendees are just as valuable as your live attendees.
They need to be captured, nurtured and ultimately closed.

WebinarJam enables you to capture their questions and start a conversation with them. That’s the main reason it’s better for webinar replay recordings.

WebinarJam: Webinar Replay

4.5/5

GoToWebinar: Webinar Replay

4/5

Webinar Analytics & Data Exports

If you’re the curious kind, you’ll have plenty of data to dig through with both – WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar.

On both webinar platforms you’ll have this data:

Additional data only on WebinarJam:

WebinarJam webinar analytics
WebinarJam webinar analytics

Additional data only on GoToWebinar:

It must be confessed that GoToWebinar has a quite laconic analytics dashboard.
Most of the data is available through the downloadable webinar spreadsheets.

GoToWebinar session report example
GoToWebinar Session report example

Winner for Analytics & Exports: WebinarJam

If you’re the kind of person enjoying a concise and clear dashboard to analyze your webinars, the WebinarJam is for you.

If you’re old skool and like to mess around with spreadsheets, create pivot tables and create your own data visualizations, then GoToWebinar is more suitable for you.

WebinarJam: Analytics & Exports

5/5

GoToWebinar: Analytics & Exports

4.5/5

Pricing & Trial

A definite downside for WebinarJam is that it doesn’t have a monthly subscription plan. Only annual.

However, when you start comparing the WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar pricing, you’ll see that the latter is grossly overpriced.

Winner for Pricing & Trial: WebinarJam

Clearly, with WebinarJam you’d be getting a bigger webinar room, more features and better features. And with a 2x cheaper price

WebinarJam: Pricing

4/5

GoToWebinar: Pricing

2.5/5

WebinarJam vs GoToWebinar Conclusion

If you’re serious about hosting webinars and stepping your webinar game to the next level, I recommend going with a modern webinar software with quality features.

Some final reasons why WebinarJam is the better choice:

Erkki Muuga

Erkki Muuga

Erkki has over 10 years of experience as a software product manager and a proven track record in building and growing SaaS products. He has a keen eye for key differentiating factors and spotting truly valuable software features that enable business use cases.

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