We Review WebinarPress & Its Main Alternatives in 2025
Discover our 2025 review of WebinarPress and top alternatives to find the best webinar tool for your needs. Compare features and pricing now.
In this insightful video, we dive deep into WebinarPress, exploring its features, usability, and overall performance in 2025. We also compare it with leading alternatives in the market, helping you make an informed choice for your webinar needs. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just starting, this review will equip you with valuable insights.
This Week’s Sponsors
LifterLMS: LifterLMS
Convesio: Convesio
Omnisend: Omnisend
The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:01.450] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 122. In this episode, we will be talking about a quite exciting WordPress plugin that came on my radar, which I think even my co-host, Kurt, is also quite interested in. We’re going to be doing a review of a plugin called Webinar Press. I’ve been looking for something like this for quite a while. I really believe live webinars are a great way to get a list for your pre-launch offer. It’s totally possible for somebody who hasn’t got a big following to use it. So I’ve been looking forward to this discussion. So, Kirk, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?
[00:01:02.810] – Kurt von Ahnen
Jonathan. My name is Kurt von Ahnen own a company called Manananomas, which focuses primarily on membership and learning websites and provides services to WP Tonic and Lifter LMS.
[00:01:14.440] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. And like I say, we’re going to be doing a review of Webinar Press. Plus, in the show’s second half, we will be looking at the leading competitors and our final thoughts. It should be a great show. But before we go into the meat of this particular show, I’ve got a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. Before, like I say, we go into the review of Webinar Press, I want to point out that we’ve got some great special offers from the sponsors of the show, plus a list of the best WordPress technology to help you build a membership and community website. Plus, we’ve got a course by Kirk that shows you how to make a membership or community website on WordPress from A to Z in the easiest way. And, plus, you get a half-price offer on the course. You can get all these goodies by going over to wp-tonic. Com/deals, wp-tonic. Com/deals, and you find all the goodies there. What more could you ask for, my beloved listeners?
[00:02:34.380] – Jonathan Denwood
So let’s go into it. So let’s go into the intro. So like I said in the intro to the show, I do believe doing webinars, especially live webinars, and doing them to your target audience is an excellent way of gathering an email list, promoting what you’re doing, a pre-promotion, a pre-launch, just it’s affordable with this particular product. I’m pretty excited. If you were trying to explain this to somebody who would come for a consultation, Kirek, how would you explain using webinars and your intro to Webinar Press?
[00:03:19.680] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think, again, this is one of these great products, though, that use case is so important because there’s a difference between a co-hosted meeting or a conference and an actual webinar. I view these webinars as an opportunity to teach, share, or lecture rather than have a meeting. And so there are tools we’ve reviewed in the past that are great for live meetings, and then there are tools that are great for presenting, sharing, and teaching. I think that this is the use case that takes that to the next level.
[00:03:53.560] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, there is a lot of overlap. I agree. There is a difference between a mastermind group and a public webinar. I A public webinar, classically, is utilized to promote or offer. So basically, in the land of online marketing, it used to be extremely popular and still is with some of the biggest names. It’s the methodology they utilize all the time, using paid advertising to get people into a funnel to join a live webinar and then do their sell afterwards. But I think it has a purpose in that many people haven’t… They’ve got a lot of balls to juggle, and they usually don’t concentrate on how they’re going to market. And I think it’s a big problem. And a lot of marketing takes time, and they don’t have much time. They need to get some results. But I think listening to what we’ve discussed, finding your niche, finding a problem, a particular issue which your niche faces, and then having the webinar on that specific problem and just dealing with one or two elements of that big problem, and giving them some value, but getting their name and email and then making a pre-launch offer, it’s a natural. I think it’s possible for anybody to utilize this and to start building up their email list.
[00:05:26.620] – Jonathan Denwood
What do you reckon, Kerr?
[00:05:28.010] – Kurt von Ahnen
But I want to take it one more step further, one more step to a finite point of why I think what we’re talking about today is essential. I believe that every business initiative, however you want to phrase your project, needs a home base. I think the temptation is to reach out to this tool or that tool or the other tool when we could be doing things on our own. You’ll hear Jonathan and me talk about Fluent CRM and Fluent Form, and that’s because you’re using a tool that’s through your own website, and I think it helps with marketing and branding and things like that. And so as we discussed, this particular tool it’s a tool that works within your own website, and I think that’s important. So all the things that Jonathan mentioned is excellent, but you’re also sending people to your site to view the webinar as opposed to, Hey, go to this erroneous make-believe third-party link somewhere and connect with me in real time. You have it’s in your own site, which is a significant step for branding and recognition.
[00:06:35.760] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. So how would you explain Webinar Press? And I’ve had a look at it, you’ve had a look at it. What were the key things that you liked and what were some of the key things that you didn’t? Or I was quite impressed with what they’ve done.
[00:06:54.190] – Kurt von Ahnen
There’s a lot to be impressed with. However, first time jumping in to use it, I put it into a test site on my own. I said, Well, if we’re going to talk about it, I should at least try and use it. And so there were a couple of things. I remember the first time I wanted to go live on LinkedIn, and I was doing that connected to a Zoom. I had to open up Zoom, and then I had to get a code from LinkedIn, and I had to put the code in and then connect. And meanwhile, while this is happening, I’m live on LinkedIn, and that’s going to Facebook already, right? And then I’m going, is this Is it not live? And I’m clicking different tabs. And I found myself doing that with this product because I hooked up the stream through YouTube. And so I had to open the window, set up the stream in the site, and then set up the stream in YouTube and connect them. And then I had to start the stream in the site. But I noticed that when I replayed the stream in the site, it encompassed the material that I thought wasn’t included in the stream.
[00:08:03.470] – Kurt von Ahnen
Am I making any sense? I probably just confused everybody.
[00:08:06.040] – Jonathan Denwood
No, you lost me there a little bit.
[00:08:07.100] – Kurt von Ahnen
Youtube recorded the whole live, and I thought I missed the first 30 seconds or 40 seconds while I was setting up in the site and connecting the stream. But when the stream was done and I replayed the stream through the site, it played the whole stream from YouTube, including the section I thought that I missed.
[00:08:32.650] – Jonathan Denwood
I think to recap, to see if I got the right message, I know what you’re saying, and this to get a YouTube live stream through, you just have to put in a bit of code, API key. And there was a little bit, even just 18 months ago, especially LinkedIn, you had to jump through a couple of little hurdles. I think you’re saying that that’s what you get with webinar press. But do you think, because it was your first go, that after you’ve done it a couple of times, it wouldn’t be quite such a problem?
[00:09:10.670] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think it would smooth out over time. This particular test that I did wasn’t an API key. It was go live in YouTube and get a link, put that link in this field, and then they will connect. It took a little bit for that special YouTube link to make the connection. I made the assumption that since I wasn’t streaming through the site, nobody would see it. But YouTube picks up that data, that exposure, and then on the replay, it does come through.
[00:09:40.310] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m going to ask us to quickly go through some of what it offers. Then there’s two things that I’m really excited about, which are external services that it works with. It start off with the main features, flexible scheduling options so you can schedule your webinar. That’s about right, isn’t it?
[00:10:07.170] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yep, absolutely.
[00:10:09.180] – Jonathan Denwood
Attendee polls.
[00:10:12.070] – Kurt von Ahnen
That was interesting, too, because you could put a poll right into the webinar, and it was very easy.
[00:10:17.560] – Jonathan Denwood
I think the other thing that really… It sets up a page for your webinar, but you’ve got the option where you can just take take some code and paste it on any page, and then it will… The other main thing that’s really impressive, you get live chat, don’t you?
[00:10:41.010] – Kurt von Ahnen
I really like the chat feature. There was live chat. You would mention pages, so it automatically sets up a registration page for you. If you’ve scheduled it and you want people to pre-register, there’s a registration page. Then when you go to do the presentation, there’s a webinar room where you initiate the and the chat goes active.
[00:11:02.500] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Automatic email reminders. Obviously, if it’s on WordPress, you’ve got to have an email engine to send out the automatic email There’s an important thing with that email reminder system, too.
[00:11:19.580] – Kurt von Ahnen
Something that’s been happening with Zoom lately that’s been really ticking me off is you can schedule in Zoom now and mass email people through Zoom, and it doesn’t seem It’s going to be like any GDPR controls on that thing. I’m getting spammed like crazy from Zoom meetings. Your Zoom meeting has been rescheduled. I don’t even have a Zoom meeting. What’s happening here? This tool lists GDPR consent as part of the email tools and all of that stuff.
[00:11:47.450] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s great. Mobile friendly design. In-screen calls for action. Basically, you can have… It comes with the page that it produces. You can actually have a call, you can have an offer, and then they click a button and it will gather their email name and email. Or you can, like I say, take the code and paste it on the page, and you could utilize a part, one of the key plugins like WP Funnelz or Fluent CRM. Seamless integration. They do offer a number of integrations, and two of them I’m going to be talking about after we got through this list. Webhooks and internal APIs. Do you want to quickly explain what a webhook is, or do you think we should move on?
[00:12:38.400] – Kurt von Ahnen
We’re going to move on because you’ll bound to get some comments when I say it wrong. It’s like when you have a web hook to Stripe, right? My understanding is something happens and it’s like a trigger or a response somewhere else.
[00:12:52.130] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. It thinks with the leading email providers, it does. Some of the SaaS space like Mailchimp, The list was reasonable, not totally extensive because there are so many folks, but some of the leading ones were there. Limit available places. You can put the limit on the amount. To give the impression of shortage, of secure access controls. Yeah? What about that one?
[00:13:26.500] – Kurt von Ahnen
Say that when I go with the controls, the access controls?
[00:13:28.740] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, secure access controls.
[00:13:31.600] – Kurt von Ahnen
So my understanding is that that’s a pro feature, and that’s where it can restrict it based on… They can be a user in your WordPress site, they could have a certain role in your WordPress website. Or it could be some WooCommerce membership tie-in. But it’s a pro feature, and I didn’t examine it myself in detail.
[00:13:52.160] – Jonathan Denwood
They do offer a free version, and that’s what we’ve been looking at, folks. But the good news is the pro version is the bargain of the year because for one site license, it’s $197, folks. Compared to the other ones that we’re going to be talking about, almost all of them are reasonable money per month. This is the bargain. It really is a bargain if it works, and I think it does. The free version isn’t crippled, but you do need to pay for the pro to get the true benefit of this plugin. Like I said, it’s 197, which I think is a bargain. Would you agree with that?
[00:14:40.630] – Kurt von Ahnen
After seeing what it does, I would say that it is a bargain. I’m talking as someone that just received an invoice from StreamYard for $826. Yeah, this is a good deal.
[00:14:54.040] – Jonathan Denwood
That isn’t a bargain.
[00:14:55.840] – Kurt von Ahnen
That is not a bargain.
[00:14:58.350] – Jonathan Denwood
They got mine, but I had the lower plan. I was looking at some alternatives, but I just couldn’t be bothered. But I got the lower plan, and they hit me for something slightly over 500, but I wouldn’t pay the 800 plus for the next plan up. I don’t think that’s great value. Now, the two features that really… I did check this, folks, and it works with bunny. Net, our beloved bunny. Net, because unless you’re going to use YouTube, and I don’t think YouTube is a great thing to test, but I wouldn’t utilize YouTube for my webinars. You can, it works with Vimeo, it works with Viseya, but it does work with Bunny. Net. That was saving money. Because you do need hosting, but where the stream is being run on. And if you got… That costs a lot of money, but using bunny. Net, it’s not, and it works. I just love it, that it works with bunny. Net. Did you know that? That it worked with Bunny. Net?
[00:16:19.380] – Kurt von Ahnen
I didn’t connect it or play with it. I just used it directly through YouTube. I also have lifetime access to another platform, and I ran out of time. I was going to try and test it with that one to see if I could connect them.
[00:16:32.000] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. The other great thing, folks, is, you can tell I’m excited by this, so it doesn’t take much to get me excited, is it works with our beloved Fluent CRM. It has native integration with Fluent CRM, my beloved Kurt.
[00:16:52.200] – Kurt von Ahnen
That is fantastic. I thought you were going to say, because you’ve been really focused on SEO lately, I thought you were going to point out it’s SEO capabilities, which I never would have thought of as a video streaming webinar type product, but it has a form built into its interface that encourages you to put in titles and keywords and phrases so that it can index for SEO.
[00:17:15.210] – Jonathan Denwood
No, that’s another great point. But it really does work with Fluent CRM. I don’t know if it works with Funnel WP because they’re both great platforms, but it definitely I checked and it definitely works. But the Bunny, if you’re… Obviously, you can use it with YouTube, but the Bunny is so cheap compared to these other platforms, because if you’re going to really use it, and I think you should, as a real way of promoting, publicizing your upcoming course, really doing these webinars and pushing them to LinkedIn and everywhere, it’s just a great way. And you can really judge if there’s a demand. You can really use it as an authority to judge. Is it worth building out your course? Is there any interest? Is the problem you think. We’ve said this before, haven’t we, Kurt? It’s best to go for a pain relief than a vitamin. So you want a course that that you’re dealing with some real problems, a real urgency. What’s your thoughts about this, Kurt?
[00:18:39.010] – Kurt von Ahnen
I agree on a lot of the proof of concept ideas there, right? The whole idea of, let’s do a proof of concept. Let’s see if we can gather any interest on this thing. So many times, we consult with people that even if it’s a great idea, if it’s a great idea that they haven’t shared with anybody yet, and then they release the website and they think they’re going to make money on it, that’s just a wish. Wishes don’t generally come true. So you have to take action.
[00:19:05.800] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, are you sure about that, Kurt?
[00:19:07.240] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, you have to take action. And so part of the leadership that comes with being an entrepreneur and a course developer and all those things is that you’re going to take action. And this webinar concept is a great way to sample that. What we didn’t mention yet, speaking about sampling things and revenue, is this has a payment gateway in the pro-version. So you don’t have to have… You can have a very simple website, put in this, activate the pro version with the payment gateway, and you could start doing live webinars and trying to sell that time. And then you know, if you have made revenue off of that very simple setup, then you tell yourself, Hey, I’ve got video content and replays I can use for course content. I can use AI to convert some of that into textual summaries and things like that to make lessons out of. Then this could be the tool that helps you build the rest of that infrastructure out. It’s a pretty exciting endeavor.
[00:20:07.150] – Jonathan Denwood
It really is. Is that through Stripe or PayPal or both? Or just Stripe, do you know?
[00:20:13.430] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, it’s the pro version, so I didn’t do it. I’m pretty sure it’s at least through Stripe. I don’t know if it’s Stripe and PayPal or not.
[00:20:20.090] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think it’s probably Stripe. I didn’t check that. But thanks for pointing it out because I forgot about that. Because what Kirk’s pointing out is it’s With just this plugin, you’ve got a whole methodology to test your idea, to pre-sell, to get a pre-launch offering, get people to sign up, and prove that people are prepared to give you money. It’s fine that they’re going to give you their name and email, but if they’re prepared to give you some actual money, that really proves that You’re probably on the right track because like what Kirk said, too many people, and I’ve done it myself. I’ve spent a lot of time researching, talking to vendors, thinking that if I offer this option to my own service package that it’s really going to be popular to my target audience, my clientele, and they’re not interested. Having a really great idea is great, folks, but you’ve got to test it that There’s actually a demand for it, don’t you, Kurt?
[00:21:33.470] – Kurt von Ahnen
The demand is huge. It’s got to be… We talk about it all the time.
[00:21:40.860] – Jonathan Denwood
We do. I can’t overemphasize. This is where so many people, when it comes to membership and community, they just don’t do it, do they?
[00:21:48.680] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s not just demand. You have to identify who has the demand. That was my mistake, and I say it all the time. I’m not afraid to tell you my mistakes because I learned from it.
[00:21:59.100] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, you’ve learned That’s the mind for me.
[00:22:01.380] – Kurt von Ahnen
I made a course that was excruciatingly time-consuming, and I made this giant course, and then I sold it to all the wrong people. The people that I was teaching were not the people that would buy the course. Their bosses would be the ones that would buy the course. And so I had marketed to a completely wrong audience, and then I had to remark it to an elevated audience. But by then, I fear that I had already diluted my messaging because I sent it to the wrong people up It’s really important to do your research and get this right.
[00:22:36.270] – Jonathan Denwood
I actually consider in buying the multi-site and offering it as part of our package. But before we go for a break, the one thing I do want to point out is that I think you’re going to need some pretty good hosting. Do not try and run this on some budget hosting platform. It isn’t going to be a fantastic experience. So Something like this needs good hosting, something from Kinted WP Engine or WP Tonic, or anything. But budget hosting isn’t going to play well with this. Would you agree with that, Kurt?
[00:23:16.650] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s the obvious, yeah, you want good hosting. When you have the choice, you pick good hosting. That’s a dumb moment. But I really don’t know what a drain on resources sources this does because you’re hosting the video through another source, and it’s really just porting that. So I don’t know if it’s a big drain or not.
[00:23:38.390] – Jonathan Denwood
I meant more about dealing with the cache issue.
[00:23:42.080] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, caching is going to be a thing because you’ve got some dynamic content in there because it’s managing registrants, what are your list of attendees, email reminders, and all those kinds of things. So from that perspective, you would definitely want to make sure you had a host that understood caching better and understood dynamic content.
[00:24:01.850] – Jonathan Denwood
You don’t get any understanding with the cheaper.
[00:24:06.390] – Kurt von Ahnen
Even some of the good ones.
[00:24:08.570] – Jonathan Denwood
You’re still going to have a… And they might not play well with you, but at least you can have the conversation with the budget one, they won’t even know what you’re talking about. So I can tell you. I think we’ve had a good intro. It’s time to go for our middle break. I think it’s a fantastic product. Definitely going to have a look at it. We’re going to go for our mid break, folks. We’ve got a couple more quick messages from our major sponsors, and we will be back in a few moments, folks. We’re coming back, folks. We’ve had a great discussion in the intro to this great Plugin webinar press. I surprised even Kirk. I think it just come out the blue. Have a look at this, Kirk. We will have a chat, have an episode about it. But Before we go into the second half where we look at some of the main competitors and some of the things you got to know, I want to point out that we’ve got a great free community, and that free resource is on Facebook. It’s the Membership Machine Show Facebook group. I’ve been having some more people joining lately, which is great news.
[00:25:20.750] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s a fantastic free resource. If you’ve got any questions about anything that we discussed in the podcast, you can go there and put your questions and somebody will do their best to answer it. It’s normally me. So it’s a great resource. So go over to Facebook, put in the Membership Machine Show Facebook group. It will come up and it’s totally free. We love you to join that community. So let’s go straight into it. So I’m sure you’ve had these conversations about webinars before when you’ve had doing your consultations, because I have, and it’s always been another painful conversation. So if somebody was coming to you and saying, What are some of the things I need to know about a webinar platform? How would you approach initially the discussion, Kurt?
[00:26:19.400] – Kurt von Ahnen
There’s a couple of things that do work. And I’m going to go back to… Because when we talk about these other competitive products, they’re all going to fall short on the the idea that they’re not hosted or embedded inside the source website, inside your main route business website. That’s a big plus to me. So when I looked at solutions that do work inside websites, I would do things like, yeah, I can do the Zoom integration and I can integrate Zoom with my website and I can use Zoom meetings. I can also use Zoom webinars if I upgrade to that package. Jonathan, we looked at Jitsy before, and Jitsy could do live meetings, and you could also That’s aim for groups.
[00:27:01.570] – Jonathan Denwood
There is overlap.
[00:27:03.040] – Kurt von Ahnen
You could repurpose it, but it’s not a perfect finish.
[00:27:06.980] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s not meant for this. It’s just not there.
[00:27:09.290] – Kurt von Ahnen
The other one that you can do, and I’ve already mentioned, I got to-Let’s go through the list first.
[00:27:14.680] – Jonathan Denwood
I meant more the broad. Is there any broad that you think somebody needs to know before we delve into the individual ones?
[00:27:23.450] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. I think what I started out with is the broad statement. The broad statement is, what are the tools that How does that work well within your site and how are you going to market and make your site the magnet for that activity?
[00:27:37.790] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, it’s getting that name in the email. And also having the ability, if you want to, to make offer. This is like you said, this isn’t a meeting. This is a promotional marketing scenario, isn’t it?
[00:27:56.990] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. It could be educational, it could be marketing, but It’s a call to action of some kind. It’s not a meeting.
[00:28:04.780] – Jonathan Denwood
We’ve discussed YouTube, and it’s great strength. It’s free and it’s pretty rock solid. You can put iFrame on a web page, But it’s all the marketing being able to take… You can use it. You can use it with webinar press. But I think for this specific scenario a webinar, I don’t think you… Especially if you got something like bunny. Net, you don’t want to use it. That’s my opinion. What’s your thoughts on YouTube Live?
[00:28:42.920] – Kurt von Ahnen
For testing purposes, it’s great. For content that is meant to be strictly open, free, and marketing-centered, YouTube can be a good choice because it’s a very highly ranked search engine in the Internet space. So it can be a good space to work on your your domain authority and your ID. I picture some other people influencers in the WordPress space, so they host stuff in YouTube for that reason. So there are reasons to use YouTube. But if it is content that is more restrictive, more centered on a concept I only want to share with a certain audience, I want that on a separate channel that I am in total control of, not something that is public like YouTube. Yeah.
[00:29:31.680] – Jonathan Denwood
On to another one, Zoom webinar. It used to be the default because the others are not cheap. And this ain’t cheap, really, but compared to some of the other. But it comes with a lot of bag. It’s not done through the website, folks. It’s an app. The app works on everything, though. You do This will not work with… Yeah, and you’re saying, Well, this won’t work with a free version of Zoom. Are you going to need a paid version of Zoom? And you’re going to be thinking, Well, if I use, I think the free and the paid, you can have up to 100 people. Well, the thing is, though, folks, you don’t get all the things that you need for a webinar, which you do get the Zoom webinar, which is like polls, question and answer sessions, chat, speaker background, and name tags. But the thing is, you’re going to need the pro version, which is going to start at about $159 a year. And then this starts for 500 attendees. It’s lowest price per month is $79, which compared to some of the other ones we’re going to be talking about, it’s still one of the more budget.
[00:31:01.490] – Jonathan Denwood
But if you’re starting out and your budget’s really tight, 79 a month, that’s why I think the 197 per year for the pro-version of webinar press is a bargain. What’s your thoughts on this?
[00:31:24.260] – Kurt von Ahnen
When it comes to Zoom webinars, there’s a certain comfort level that comes with the ubiquitousness of the platform. A lot of people are familiar with it. There’s not a lot of onboarding to do. People get it. They sign in, they do the meeting, they get it. What I don’t like is you’re looking at something that’s $80 a month and you’re restricted on attendance. You’re looking at something that you have those Q&A reactions and you’ve got those customized speaker backgrounds and things that you can do. But realistically, if I were to make an apples to apples comparison and say, do I want to open my webinar up in a third-party application, or do I want people to stay on my site, and do I want to pay a premium for people to leave my site, as opposed to have them stay on my site, I’m going to find a way to get them to stay on my site.
[00:32:16.910] – Jonathan Denwood
On to the next one, which is always comes up, is Webinar Naja. I always pronounce it, not very well. But it’s been around, but they’ve had It’s their technical problems. People really pushed it in the early days. I think it was on AppSuma. I might be wrong about that, but I think they’ve been on AppSuma multiple times. But a lot of people had technical problems with them. I don’t like the pricing model because they charge a flat fee per attendee. They have different plans, but I was looking at, and it’s $1. 20 per per month. I just don’t like it. It’s been a while, but I remember I was setting it up and we had a hell of a lot of problems with it. But it was a couple It was about three or four years ago. They’re still in business, and they’ve probably ironed out all the problems. I don’t know because I haven’t used it in anger. I don’t know if you know what the situation with them is, but I just don’t like the pricing model, but you might have a different view of it. What do you reckon?
[00:33:36.900] – Kurt von Ahnen
I signed up, I completely failed at integrating it, and I got my money back.
[00:33:42.300] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m not too broad, am I?
[00:33:44.370] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. And that sounds mean. I know it does. And I’m looking at the history.
[00:33:49.150] – Jonathan Denwood
You’re a lot less meaner than me.
[00:33:50.830] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m looking at the history books and going, It’s been a long time. I’m sure if they’re still in business, they’ve fixed some things. But it was during the time when this A company called Prime Meat had come out. They’re not even in business anymore. They’re gone. And that was the same thing. I put it in, nothing worked. So the pricing structure for me, I don’t do well with this. We talk about bunny. Net a lot, and we promote bunny. Net a lot. But when I send new customers to look at their pricing page, they leave just as confused as people on this page. And here’s the difference. At bunny. Net, you You do the math at the end of the month and you saved money. On this platform, I’m trying to figure out if I would make money or save money or what, and it looks like this could get expensive on me really pretty quickly.
[00:34:41.690] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, that’s right. But I understand why Bunny. Bunny can give you a flat rate because they don’t know how much bandwidth you’re going to use. But I can assure you, how much bandwidth you’re using is going to be about one-fifth the cost of the other video streaming services. Unless you’re using YouTube. That’s just the reality, isn’t it, Kurt?
[00:35:09.350] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. It’s just when you come across what looks like a video hosting service and it says $3. 60 billed annually, it really makes my caution flags go up. I’m like, I got to read the details and see what this really is. And as I went through this, I was like, okay, so it says unlimited registrants, but then you get charged per registrant. So it’s like, okay, what does that mean? And then you have to look up their glossary of terms to figure out what they define an attendee as. And then you read it, go, well, that’s different. And then it’s just not what you think. It’s one of those things, the way that it’s marketed causes me to look for another option.
[00:35:50.170] – Jonathan Denwood
On to the next one, which I’ve only come on my radar doing the research for this show, which is Webinar Geek. I do like the name, though. I They’re pretty good. It’s very similar price to Zoom, though. $79 for the basic, then up to $119 for the premium. But at least you got two prices. I like the website. I don’t know. It’s web-based, I presume. I don’t know. Do you know anything about them, or what was your insights having a quick look over them?
[00:36:24.900] – Kurt von Ahnen
Their user interface is modern. It has that glass-look appearance. It’s very modern, and I think that that goes a long way right now. I know that you’re not the fan, but I am. I really like the sky pilot theme with Lifter, and this looks like this would be a natural fit for that- I love it, but I just don’t like full-site editing.
[00:36:47.180] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s my opinion.
[00:36:48.610] – Kurt von Ahnen
But when I think about looks and feels, it’s like, that’s a modern theme. This is a modern user experience. I think that they go well together. But when I looked at this You’ll have to correct me if I’m wrong, because maybe I am wrong, but when I looked at integrations, it integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, but it doesn’t say integrates with WordPress, which is telling me I’m going to have to send people to some third-party app or something to be able to see these webinars, and it’s not connected to my website. Am I correct or am I wrong?
[00:37:22.410] – Jonathan Denwood
I didn’t do enough, but I noticed that they’re not promoting it and they don’t offer the information. I presume it’s not been… In my experience with these pages and feature pages, if they’re not promoting it, it means there’s a reason why they’re not promoting it, if you know what I mean.
[00:37:40.230] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. Well, we had looked at Whereby for meetings, and Whereby has a whole developer section about how to take its code and it’s this and use it in different platforms and things. I wasn’t seeing that information. So I tried to do the research for you folks. I tried to say, is this a WordPress thing? It doesn’t look like it is. So it looks like you could run a really great-looking webinar, but it would be on something other than your WordPress website. And so you’d be playing that game with two different things to send your people to.
[00:38:12.790] – Jonathan Denwood
On to Amy. It looks pretty good, but it is the price. It’s for 500 attendees. Was it 100? I think it could be just 100, actually. It’s 167 a month.
[00:38:30.100] – Kurt von Ahnen
That was for 100 attendees.
[00:38:31.890] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s for 100.
[00:38:33.260] – Kurt von Ahnen
And then it says scalable to 10,000.
[00:38:37.040] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m sure it is, but God knows. Real Geeks looks Yeah, what can you say? On to the next one. That’s all I can say about it, really. You got anything more to say about it?
[00:38:55.700] – Kurt von Ahnen
I had a question for you.
[00:38:58.840] – Jonathan Denwood
You’re going to put me on the What are you?
[00:39:00.460] – Kurt von Ahnen
They had a lot of screenshots of their sites and their samples. Did those look like what you would expect in today’s modern design era, or did you think they were retro? What did you think?
[00:39:16.200] – Jonathan Denwood
It wasn’t that great. Even the site looks a little bit…
[00:39:20.500] – Kurt von Ahnen
It looks sassy to me. It looks like a SaaS platform where it’s like, Here’s a gradient background, and then a splash of this and a splash of that. But it didn’t have a high sense of design to me. But then it did today.
[00:39:34.140] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s aimed at higher corporate clientele because they’re promoting Spotify, Ford. If you look at the global, it’s aimed at It’s aimed at more the corporate market, isn’t it?
[00:39:50.000] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, it has a whole section called Customization. And when I looked at it, it was weird, strange, cartoonish patterns and things like that.
[00:40:02.370] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s.
[00:40:03.510] – Kurt von Ahnen
Whereas I think I’m used to a much more stark user interface that’s more… I think of enterprise as being stark and sterile. I don’t think of it as being like cartoons and hearts and emojis bouncing in the background.
[00:40:19.150] – Jonathan Denwood
The other thing, before we go to the… Well, let’s go for the last one, which is Livestorm, 100 active contacts. See, I didn’t like It’s not users, it’s contacts. Is that people in your email list? It does start the pro starting from $79. It’s got a better website than the last one. I just don’t like the pricing model. What’s the bloody contact? What’s your thoughts on Livestorm?
[00:41:00.120] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, if you jump that to 500 contacts, it’s $300 a month.
[00:41:04.100] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I know. It’s that.
[00:41:05.490] – Kurt von Ahnen
That got me thinking like, Wow, this is another one of those that when I start to scale, I’m going to get really penalized for the positive growth of my own business.
[00:41:15.720] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s one way to prove it.
[00:41:16.980] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, it just seems like a… It’s very progressive pricing for me. Instead of getting better and better with volume, it seemed to almost get worse and worse with volume. And it says, estimate your active contacts volume down at the bottom, right? Your average number of events per month, average number of registrants per event. And then it does this little math calculation for you so you can figure out what to budget. But that scaling for me in this project becomes a burden that I don’t really want to have to deal with.
[00:41:46.250] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s also aimed at the corporate market, isn’t it?
[00:41:49.760] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, and I will say, I’m going to go out on a… Because I just dinged the other one on this one. But their screenshots and their examples of a user interface are pretty damn clean and crisp. I’m going to say, from an enterprise corporate standpoint, I think this is the bar to set. This is the level where people… It’s not cartoonish at all.
[00:42:14.320] – Jonathan Denwood
Because you work for a major motorcycle, global, $500, that’s even registered. Well, in a way, it does, though it doesn’t because that could be really mean, can’t they? The They don’t want to, in some way, spend anything. But if they do make the decision, five, $1,000 per month, it doesn’t really…
[00:42:38.500] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s only money.
[00:42:40.390] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. So I think, as Just to… Because I want to finish this before the hour because I’ve been taking up a bit too much of your time lately. You can see why Webinar Press, they got a good… Because there isn’t Because the problem is Zoom, the real, real… I think it’s only Zoom or WebinarGeek myself. They’re the only two. The problem is, if you’re doing the Zoom, do you have to do that insane thing that we have to do when people sign up for WP tonic, and they want to use Zoom for meetings?
[00:43:20.290] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, it’s the same integration.
[00:43:21.460] – Jonathan Denwood
You still got to do the same, make an app. It’s such a pain in the posterior. That’s why I think it’s not bad value But I couldn’t recommend Zoom now because you got to go through that horrendous, which we do for people. You can’t go, and it’s not… It’s just after you’ve done it a couple of times and you made a video and you made some notes, It’s not too bad, but it’s such a pain in the posterior, isn’t it?
[00:43:49.860] – Kurt von Ahnen
It is. And I got to give them credit where credit’s due. Once you get through that painful setup process, it works. And again, what I don’t like is you can put the webinar pages and all that stuff is in your site, it’s in your site. But when you click, come to my meeting, it opens up in an app and then it’s running on an app. So there’s that. Now your viewers do have the option to open in a browser or open in an app. They get the choice. So if they have the app installed, they can see the webinar in the app or they can see it in the browser, but they’re not seeing it on your website. Whereas with Webinar Press, which we’ve talking about, that’s in your site. The other product that is not on the list that we didn’t discuss yet, and it’s a product that you’ve used before, Jonathan, was WP Stream. Wp Stream allows us to take a StreamYard thing or a Zoom thing, whatever, and port that to the site. And that works in a similar way.
[00:44:52.230] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, but they don’t provide the live chat and the questions. No. See, that’s why I didn’t do it.
[00:44:58.660] – Kurt von Ahnen
And so If you want to do a show in your website but not have the engagement features, that’s there. Streamyard, StreamYard webinars. You can get the code from StreamYard and embed it in your website like an iframe, and you can have a There’s an R on StreamYard that goes right to your website. Boom, bada bing, bob’s your uncle, it’s done. But like I said, I just got an invoice for $826 from StreamYard that I’m not paying and renewing with. I don’t have that type of funding for that type of- It’s just the value-price matrix, and it just isn’t worth…
[00:45:36.520] – Jonathan Denwood
There’s a couple of alternatives now. I’m sure you’re looking at them. There’s a couple, and they’re actually better and cheaper. I think if I could have got a similar service for around $300, $350, but I’m only paying like 520, and it just wasn’t worth me. And I do use StreamYard. I’m doing free podcasts a week. So I thought it just wasn’t worth the agro of me canceling.
[00:46:04.680] – Kurt von Ahnen
For what it does, it’s a great product. It’s just the value proposition isn’t matching its outcome any longer. That’s all. Because I do screen capture recording trainings, tutorials, I do live presentations, podcasts, all the stuff through StreamYard I was doing, I’ve got to find a different option because I’m not going to pay that budget anymore.
[00:46:27.730] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, we all got to do. You got to watch the pennies because it’s hard to make a buck.
[00:46:33.140] – Kurt von Ahnen
You can either make more money or you can save some money. In this economy, saving money seems more straightforward than making money. So that’s the ballpark I’m in. I didn’t know about Webinar Press until you brought it to my attention, Jonathan. And then I installed it, tested it, worked with it, and impressed at how it works. And like I said, it stays on the site. I put people on my site to see it. I was a little clunky on activating the live feed with the actual connection, but I think I could get over that quickly.
[00:47:10.200] – Jonathan Denwood
Zoom, definitely, folks, rock solid, but there are some negatives with it. The only other one, I think, apart is WebinarGeek, but I haven’t used it in Anger. I haven’t used it in Anger. So I don’t know… Because I’m definitely… I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s improved, but I cannot recommend Webinar, Nija, Nija. I can’t do it, folks. I’ve been told they’re charming people, but I had other people say that their support was sometimes a little bit iffy. But if we’re just looking at the Facts webinar, geeky, but I’ve not used it. But apart from Zoom, it’s the only one I can see that’s half plausible. What do you reckon?
[00:48:03.890] – Kurt von Ahnen
I like the user interface, and sometimes that’s enough to win me over because there’s a particular look, a certain feel, and a confident expectation to go with the product I’m trying to promote. And so I do like their interface, and I like the way that part works. So that makes total sense to me. Sending people off-site to attend is against what I want to do. But when I look at the other ones we had mentioned, like Airmeat, the look and feel isn’t what I need it to be, and the customization options didn’t seem to give me what I expected.
[00:48:39.340] – Jonathan Denwood
But still, if you look at WebinarGeek, you’re talking about something slightly under $1,000 a year. If you’re paying month to month, I’m sure you will only get 20 %. So you’re still probably looking at $800 compared to under a couple hundred dollars for the year, plus what you’ll pay Bunny—net, which won’t be based on my experience. You need a lot of webinars and streaming to get a considerable bill from Bunny. Net. I think it’s a great offering.
[00:49:18.840] – Kurt von Ahnen
Nothing that we discussed financially is even in the ballpark, Jonathan. Every single one we’ve mentioned with the numbers, Webinar Ninja, the Airmeat, and then, of course, we were talking about Webinar Geek. When you say $1,000, that’s for 250 users capped at, not 500. So when you reach 500, you’re looking at almost $1,700 a year. So why would I pay that if I could go Webinarpress in my own WordPress website and pay for bunny? Net to host the video stream?
[00:49:53.490] – Jonathan Denwood
The only thing I didn’t like was that they don’t tell you what may ‘s needs’ make it. There isn’t a decent About Us page. Nothing on the website tells you who it is and who’s behind it. There’s nothing. And many people, it doesn’t matter because it’s not huge money. And so it doesn’t put me off enough to be enthusiastic. But I like the About Us page, and I want to know who’s behind it, or the people behind it, Kerk.
[00:50:31.270] – Kurt von Ahnen
Maybe it’s the chocolate factory.
[00:50:33.790] – Jonathan Denwood
No, I don’t think it’s too good a bargain for that. If they were doing it, I’d say it would be about 15. So, Kerk, what’s the… He’s laughing because it’s true. True. Kirk, what’s the best way to find out more about you, and if people want to search and get some of your excellent knowledge and advice?
[00:51:02.840] – Kurt von Ahnen
I do much of that through LinkedIn if people want to connect and communicate. I’m the only Kurt von Ahnen there, so I can easily share that. And then when you find me, you know you’ve got me. And then for business, it’s mañana, no No Mas, like tomorrow no more in English, right? Mañana No Mas. That’s on X, Facebook, and of course, mañananomas. Com.
[00:51:23.050] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. If you want to support the show, go to the WP Tonic YouTube channel. We’ve got these shows up there. You can watch me and Kirk. Plus, we do a ton of weekly videos around membership, marketing, and community. It’s a great resource. If you subscribe and hit the bell, you’ll be told when we make new videos, and it’s another great free resource. We will be back next week for another great Membership Machine Show. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye.
Main Alternatives WebinarPress
YouTube Live
Prices Free
Zoom Webinars
https://zoom.us/pricing/events
Prices Zoom Webinars starting at $79 (500 attendees) + Zoom Pro $159 per year
WebinarNinja
Prices $1,20 per attendee per month
WebinarGeek
Prices Basic $79 | Premium $119 per month
Airmeet
Prices $167 per month
Livestorm
Prices Pro starting from $79 (100 active contacts)
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