WebinarJam vs Zoom Webinars – which one is a better choice for hosting webinars?
In short, WebinarJam is better for marketing and sales-focused webinars.
Zoom Webinars is better for in-house webinars if you’re already using Zoom for meetings.
To give you a much better overview, we’ll compare WebinarJam and Zoom Webinars side-by-side by these 10 important factors:
- The ease of webinar setup
- Registration page customization options
- Reminder email editor & scheduling
- Audience interactions during the webinar
- Video quality & the support
- Webinar presentation tools
- Attending on mobile devices
- Follow-up & the webinar replay
- Webinar analytics & data exports
- Pricing packages & trial
Pros
- Stable connection
- Reliable and known provider
- Easy to learn, if already using Zoom Meetings
- Hold up to 10,000 simuntaenous attendees
- Q&A has upvoting
- Rich whiteboard tool
Cons
- Requires downloading & installing
- No landing page customization options
- No call-to-action offers
- No automated webinars
- Steep pricing when scaling
- Not meant for marketing or sales webinars
Best or unique feature
- Best for large scale webinars with thousands of attendees
Webinar Types & Setup
Audience Interactions
Presentation Tools
Pricing & Trial
Webinar Funnel Pages
Video Engine & Support
Webinar Replay
Email Reminders
Mobile Devices
Analytics & Exports
Pros
- Many registration page layouts & templates
- Built-in registration page A/B testing
- Rich email editor & attendee segmenting
- Live offers with images & urgency timer
- Attendee questions during webinar replay
- Integrated slideshow & preview next slide
Cons
- Only live webinars
- No custom questions on registration page
- No monthly pricing packages
Best or unique feature
- Widest variety of webinar landing pages + flexible landing page editor
Webinar Types & Setup
Audience Interactions
Presentation Tools
Pricing & Trial
Webinar Funnel Pages
Video Engine & Support
Webinar Replay
Email Reminders
Mobile Devices
Analytics & Exports
Ease of Setup & Webinar Types
On both webinar platforms, you can only host live webinars, there is no automated webinar feature on either platform. You can either host one-time or recurring webinars.
The setup on WebinarJam is a lot more streamlined. WebinarJam setup takes you through the whole setup as a sequence, so you can set up all the webinar settings and audience interactions.
On Zoom Webinars, the setup is just one view. It’s also quite short and easy, but it has significantly less customization options. The user interface on the webinar setup is also not that smooth.
Furthermore, Zoom Webinars has one major downside – the host and all the attendees have to download and install the Zoom desktop application even to just join the webinar. It’s a huge downside, because people aren’t willing to download a separate file just to join a webinar. Some people can’t even do it on their work computers.
Winner for Ease of Setup & Webinar Types: WebinarJam
Although, both only offer live webinars, the clear winner is still WebinarJam, because the attendees can join the webinar easily, since it’s entirely browser-based.
WebinarJam: Webinar Types & Setup
Zoom Webinars: Webinar Types & Setup
Webinar Registration & Funnel Pages
Webinar funnel pages, more specifically, the webinar registration page determine how many registrations are you going to gather on your webinar.
WebinarJam has 17+ registration page templates, with different layouts. Some templates feature large images, some have embedded videos and some just list the main bullet points. They all look great.
You can even design 2 simultaneous registration pages and A/B test them and track which one converts registrations better.
Zoom, on the other hand, offers very limited customization options. Basically, you’re stuck with an archaic-looking registration page. On Zoom webinar registration page, you:
- Can’t change the page layout
- Can’t add images/videos
- Can’t add custom questions
Basically, it’s very standardized and boring.
Winner for Webinar Funnel Pages: WebinarJam
When we compare the webinar registration page on WebinarJam vs Zoom Webinars, it’s very clear that WebinarJam has taken a marketing-focused approach. They focus more on conversion tracking and great UI to maximize the webinar registrations.
WebinarJam: Webinar Funnel Pages
Zoom Webinars: Webinar Funnel Pages
Reminder Email Editor & Scheduling
To maximize your webinar attendance rate, it’s a good idea to schedule webinar reminder emails.
Zoom Webinars have quite limited reminder email scheduling options. You can only schedule the reminder emails for 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week before the webinar.
Another downside for Zoom Webinars is that the majority of the email is instructions how to download, install and join the webinar. They try to make up for the download and installation requirement by sending long instructions in every email.
WebinarJam on the other hand offer very flexible email scheduling. You can add shortcodes to the email body, including a direct link to join the webinar. That’s a lot better user experience – just click on the link and you’ve joined the webinar. No downloads, no installation process, no hassle.
Another great feature on WebinarJam is the audience segmentation options. That means you can craft separate email messages to your audience based on their attendance.
Winner for Email Tools: WebinarJam
WebinarJam has clearly better email editor, customization and segmentation options. And for the attendee, the email looks a lot cleaner. That means you can focus on the key value propositions and offers in your emails, instead of technical instructions.
WebinarJam: Email Tools
Zoom Webinars: Email Tools
Audience Interactions During the Webinar
The audience interaction tools are one of the most important factors when choosing between WebinarJam vs Zoom Webinars.
Starting with the live webinar room user interface – as a host, you can customize the live room color theme to match your brand colors. On Zoom Webinars, it’s pretty much the same as in Zoom meetings, with very formal and minimalistic design.
Both webinar platforms enable chatting and launching polls to the audience. And you can choose to share the poll results with the audience.
On both platforms you can also separate Q&A from the regular chat messages. However, one upside for Zoom Webinars is that the attendees can upvote on each other’s questions. That makes it easier for the host to choose which questions should he pick to answer first.
However, WebinarJam has interactive offers that the host can launch during the webinar. These interactive offers have these elements:
- Text to offer a discount
- A product image (to make the offer look attractive)
- A call-to-action (with customizable button text)
- An urgency timer (custom time limit until offer expires)
Winner for Audience Interaction Tools: WebinarJam
On both webinar platforms you can chat, host polls and Q&A sessions. However, WebinarJam is more suitable for marketing and sales webinars, because of its interactive offer features.
WebinarJam also has a separate control room for just the moderator, who can interact with the audience, while the host is solely focused on the presentation.
WebinarJam: Audience Interaction Tools
Zoom Webinars: Audience Interaction Tools
Video Engine & Support
Since Zoom is a desktop application that the host and all the attendees have installed, the computer resources can be utilized better for rendering the video.
Zoom is quite famous for its crisp video quality.
However, WebinarJam doesn’t fall behind, the video is very clear and reliable there as well.
In terms of stability, WebinarJam has a “Panic! Button”, which is a unique feature. Whenever you might run into any kind of technical difficulties during your webinar, you can just press the “Panic! Button” and WebinarJam will create a new webinar room and automatically import all your attendees into it.
It all takes less than 10 seconds and it’s really smooth. This gives you a peace of mind that whenever there might be a problem, you can easily fix it.
WebinarJam vs Zoom Webinars have a very different approach to customer support.
Zoom has a chat bot on the website, so you can ask questions quickly. But there’s no human answering you. It’s just a bot. And it’s not that smart.
WebinarJam, on the other hand, has a thriving Facebook community with 40,000+ members. Whenever you have a technical or webinar marketing related question, people will happily help you in the community.
Winner for Video Engine & Support: Zoom Webinars
WebinarJam has a better peer-driven support system with the Facebook community. However, the video engine is better with Zoom Webinars. It’s just a more important factor for your webinar audience.
WebinarJam: Video Engine & Support
Zoom Webinars: Video Engine & Support
Webinar Presentation Tools
Despite being a pioneer in video conferencing, Zoom Webinars has quite primitive presentation tools for the host.
As a host on Zoom Webinars, you can only share your screen and annotate. Everything you want to show to your audience is based on screen-sharing. It’s bad because the video quality depends a lot on each attendee’s connection quality.
That means if their connectivity is bad, the slideshow becomes pixelated.
WebinarJam is much more powerful in that sense. You can pre-configure all your presentation materials before the webinar even begins. That means you can:
- Pre-upload the slideshow
- Pre-upload videos you want to show
- Pre-upload file handouts you want to share
WebinarJam even has slideshow controls for the slides you uploaded.
With these controls, it’s much easier to switch between the slides and the webcam, to create a more focused presentation for your audience.
Winner for Presentation Tools: WebinarJam
The pre-uploaded slideshow on WebinarJam allows you to launch the slideshow directly from the webinar platform. In this way, the slideshow is shown for each attendee on their side. That means the quality is much higher and doesn’t depend on the video.
On Zoom Webinars, there are no special controls for slideshows and video clips. Everything has to be screen-shared, which reduces the quality.
WebinarJam: Presentation Tools
Zoom Webinars: Presentation Tools
Attending on Mobile Devices
When choosing your webinar platforms, it’s important not to forget your attendees who might want to join with their mobile devices.
WebinarJam and Zoom Webinar rooms are both compatible with mobile devices.
However, Zoom requires mobile attendees to download the Zoom mobile app just to join the webinar. This is again a blocker for some attendees and will decrease the webinar attendance rate.
On WebinarJam, the attendees can simply click the webinar room link and Boom! – They’re in.
The webinar room and all the features and controls are mobile responsive and easy to navigate on WebinarJam.
Only critique I have to WebinarJam is that the “Speaker request” and “Attendee count” are perhaps in a too prominent spot, since they’re not that frequently used features.
But overall, the navigation is easily understandable and the user interface looks clean.
Winner for Mobile Devices: WebinarJam
When hosting marketing or sales webinars, it’s important to maximize the attendance rate. Every roadblock on the way creates a drop-off in the attendance rate. And the requirement to download the Zoom application is a roadblock for attendees.
Another downside for Zoom Webinars is that while the host is sharing their screen, the webcam becomes way too tiny. The host is barely visible.
WebinarJam: Mobile Devices & Browsers
Zoom Webinars: Mobile Devices & Browsers
Follow-up & the Webinar Replay
On WebinarJam, the webinar replay recording video is automatically sent along with the webinar follow-up email. They even go so far to create a “Replica Replay”. That means all the interactions, like chat, polls, offers and Q&A will be launched exactly at the same time mark as they happened during live.
That’s a great feature for creating a live-like webinar experience even for the replay attendees.
However, Zoom Webinars don’t include the webinar replay link in their follow-up email at all. That’s a huge downside, because a portion of your registrants would still want to watch the webinar, but now they can’t even get the replay.
One positive feature for Zoom Webinars is that you can trim the webinar recording after the event. You can basically trim out the start end the end of your webinar. Just leave in the middle, where you deliver the main topic.
Winner for Webinar Replay: WebinarJam
An important factor to consider is if the replay attendees can still engage and ask questions in some way. On Zoom Webinars, there’s no way to do that. There’s not even an option to send an email to the host.
On WebinarJam, there is that option. This way you can engage even with the webinar replay attendees.
WebinarJam: Webinar Replay
Zoom Webinars: Webinar Replay
Webinar Analytics & Data Exports
To always be improving on your webinars, you need to look at the webinar attendance metrics. WebinarJam vs Zoom Webinars – both have their own type of reporting.
On WebinarJam, there’s the webinar analytics dashboard, which features:
- Registration page conversion rates (incl. A/B testing variants)
- Reminder email & Follow-up email open rates
- Attendance rate through-out the live webinar
- Attendance rate through-out the webinar replay
- Who answered the polls and what were the poll results
- Chat logs & what questions were asked
- Product offer clicks and sales tracking
On Zoom Webinars, there’s no analytics dashboard. They take an old school approach. You can generate and download CSV reports regarding your webinar.
Zoom Webinars CSV files include only basic attendance and engagement data, like:
- Webinar attendee list with their emails
- Poll results by attendee
- Questions asked during the webinar
Winner for Analytics & Data exports: WebinarJam
When comparing WebinarJam vs Zoom Webinars for getting insights and learning from your previous webinar sessions, then WebinarJam is clearly the winner.
They have a very insightful analytics dashboard with webinar data that you can use to learn and improve upon your future webinars.
WebinarJam: Analytics & Exports
Zoom Webinars: Analytics & Exports
Pricing Packages & Trial
It’s clear that WebinarJam is made exclusively for webinars, while Zoom started as a meeting software and they just included the webinars add-on.
For Zoom Webinars, you first have to subscribe to the Zoom Meetings Pro package ($ 14.99 / month) + the webinars add-on ($ 40 / month). That’s the cheapest package for zoom and will get you up to 100 attendees. It only gets more expensive after that:
That’s quite a lot. The upside is that you’ll get the Zoom Meetings Pro for hosting meetings without a time limit.
WebinarJam also has a downside with the pricing – they only have annual packages. But that’s actually okay if you’re serious about hosting webinars as a long-term strategy.
The cheapest package is $ 499 / year and will get you a webinar room of 500 people. That’s more than enough. And you know there’s room for growth.
So, to compare the pricing for WebinarJam vs Zoom Webinars, we have to take them to a common level:
The annual price for a 500-attendee room:
- WebinarJam: $ 499
- Zoom Webinars: ($ 14.99 + $ 140) * 12 = $ 1,859.88
That means WebinarJam is 3.7x cheaper!
Also, WebinarJam has a 14-day trial for just $1.
Zoom has no trial for webinars. You can only get a Zoom Meetings trial so you can host up to 40-minute meetings.
Winner for Pricing & Trial: WebinarJam
WebinarJam is clearly a cheaper choice if hosting webinars is your long-term marketing and sales strategy. And it should be – it’s a very profitable strategy once you get good at it.
WebinarJam gets you far superior features with only 1/3 of the price.
WebinarJam: Pricing
Zoom Webinars: Pricing
Conclusion for WebinarJam vs Zoom Webinars
To conclude this detailed feature-by-feature comparison of WebinarJam vs Zoom Webinars, let’s summarize the scenarios where WebinarJam is the better choice and when is Zoom Webinars a better choice.
When to Choose Zoom Webinars?
Choose Zoom Webinars when:
- You’re already using Zoom for meetings
- You only want to host in-house / internal webinars
- Your webinars are not focused on marketing or sales
- Webinar funnel conversion optimization is not important for you
When to Choose WebinarJam?
Choose WebinarJam when:
- Your webinars are primarily focused on marketing and sales
- You only want to host live webinars
- You want to track and optimize your webinar funnel to maximize attendance
- You want to analyze when and why did people leave the webinar
- You want to engage your webinar replay attendees
