Best Slido Alternatives in 2026: 12 Tools for Q&A, Live Polls, and Meeting Engagement

Updated August 2026

Mentimeter is the closest straight swap for what Slido does, Poll Everywhere publishes a full price ladder that Slido doesn't, and Vevox is the cheapest serious paid tier with Q&A depth built natively into Teams and PowerPoint. This guide ranks 12 Slido alternatives for live Q&A, polling, and meeting engagement, including the two options (Kahoot! 360 for gamified quizzing, Microsoft Teams polls and Forms for zero incremental cost) that solve a narrower version of the same job.

Here's the real reason this search happens: Slido doesn't publish a single dollar figure on any crawlable page, and it doesn't sell monthly billing at all. Every paid plan is an annual commitment quoted by sales, and the free Basic tier caps out at 100 participants per event. That's a fine trade for a Cisco-standardized enterprise that already has a Slido rep on speed dial. It's genuinely painful for a comms manager or events lead who needs a number before a procurement cycle even opens. So this guide is built around that gap: what you can actually buy today, at a published price, without booking a call first. Every tool below is evaluated on published pricing where a vendor has one, exact free-tier caps verified against the vendor's own documentation (not copied from a competing listicle), and fit for the meeting or event size you actually run. For the wider category this cluster sits inside, see the Best Audience Engagement Software in 2026 roundup.

Key Facts

Meetings, Q&A, and Audience Engagement

• Global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020, costing the world economy an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity, or 9% of GDP. (Gallup)
• Executives now spend an average of nearly 23 hours a week in meetings, up from under 10 hours a week in the 1960s. (Harvard Business Review)
• 57% of meetings today are ad hoc calls booked without a calendar invite at all, per Microsoft's Work Trend Index research on the "infinite workday." (Microsoft WorkLab)
• Only 28% of webinars use live polls regularly even though it's one of the fastest ways to read a room in real time, and sessions that do run Q&A average 20.4 questions each. (Livestorm 2026 Webinar Benchmark Report)
• A meta-analysis covering 111 effect sizes across 53 studies and more than 26,000 participants found that audience response systems reliably raise participation and engagement, even though their effect on raw learning outcomes stayed small. (Hunsu, Adesope & Bayly, Computers & Education)

Quick Comparison Table

Stage Fit Matrix

Sizing and Persona Table

Free-Tier Comparison: What Each Vendor's Own Documentation Actually Says

The free tier is where most competing roundups get sloppy, because everyone assumes they already know the number. Every cap below is verified against the vendor's own pricing page or help documentation, not a third-party listicle.

Two of these get named wrong in almost every other article on the internet. Mentimeter's free plan is not "unlimited participants": it's 50 a month, account-wide, on a rolling counter, and one big all-hands can burn through the whole month's allowance in a single session. Wooclap's free tier looks generous at 1,000 participants per event, until you notice it caps at 5 active questions per 30-day period, which rules out anything beyond a single short session.

1. Mentimeter: The Closest Direct Substitute to Slido

Mentimeter and Slido solve the same core job, live polls, word clouds, quizzes, and Q&A layered into a presentation, and Mentimeter is where most Slido evaluators land first. The difference that matters is pricing: Mentimeter publishes a real per-presenter number and offers monthly billing on its entry tier, something Slido doesn't do at all. Menti AI can generate a full interactive presentation from a prompt, shortening setup for a one-off town hall or training session. For the direct head-to-head, see Slido vs Mentimeter.

Pricing: Free covers 50 participants per month, account-wide, with 23 slide types and Menti AI. Basic is $11.99 per presenter per month billed yearly ($143.88/yr), with monthly billing also available, and adds unlimited participants, slide import, and result export. Pro is $24.99 per presenter per month billed yearly ($299.88/yr), an annual-only commitment, and adds workspace collaboration and more design control. Enterprise is custom and adds SSO, SCIM, participant verification, and workspace insights. (mentimeter.com/plans)

Best for: Teams that want Slido's core job (polls, quizzes, Q&A) built directly into their own slide deck, with a published price and the option to pay monthly instead of committing to a year up front. Not ideal for: Anyone who assumes the free plan behaves like Slido's, capped per event. It isn't; it's a monthly, account-wide ceiling, and if Mentimeter itself doesn't fit, the best Mentimeter alternatives guide covers the rest of the field from that angle.

2. Poll Everywhere: A Published Price at Every Tier

Poll Everywhere earns its reputation as the enterprise and higher-education standard in North America the plain way: it publishes real numbers, all the way from a free Intro plan through Enterprise seat pricing, at a time when Slido, Wooclap, and Sendsteps publish none. That transparency is the whole pitch for a procurement team that wants to compare options without booking three separate sales calls.

Pricing: Intro is free, with a 700-person audience limit for the first 30 days that steps down to 40 afterward, plus 10 AI prompts a month. Present is $10/month or $120/year, with a 700-person audience and 100 AI prompts a month. Engage is $49/month or $588/year, including attendance management and 2 users. Teams is $84/month or $999/year, adding custom branding, logo removal, and phone support for 2 users. Enterprise is custom with SSO. Additional seats run $120 to $499 annually depending on tier. (polleverywhere.com/plans)

Best for: Higher-ed departments and enterprise training programs that want a full, published price ladder and can budget against real numbers before talking to sales. Not ideal for: A team wanting Poll Everywhere as its primary tool for the ongoing free tier; the 700-person grace window is generous, but the steady-state 40-person cap afterward is tighter than most rivals here. If Poll Everywhere itself is the tool under review, the best Poll Everywhere alternatives guide covers that comparison directly.

3. Vevox: The Cheapest Serious Paid Tier, Built Into Teams and PowerPoint

Vevox's whole pitch is depth inside tools your organization already runs. Its Microsoft Teams and PowerPoint integrations aren't a bolt-on add-in, they're baked into the free tier, and the Starter paid plan undercuts every other paid tier in this guide on price while still unlocking a real jump in participant capacity.

Pricing: Free covers 100 participants per session for 1 user, with unlimited basic polling, quizzing, and Q&A, AI question creation, and Teams and PowerPoint integration included. Starter is $11.95/month or $143.40/year billed annually, raising the cap to 250 participants per session. Pro is $24.95/month regularly, or $19.96/month with the ENGAGE promo code, and $239.52/year billed annually, covering 1,500 participants per session with the option to add users. Enterprise is custom, covering 5,000 participants per session with 3 or more users. (vevox.com/pricing)

Best for: Corporate trainers and university lecturers already living in Microsoft Teams and PowerPoint who want Q&A depth at the lowest real paid price in the category. Not ideal for: Teams outside the Microsoft 365 ecosystem; Vevox's value case leans on integrations that don't apply if your meetings run through Zoom or Google Meet instead.

4. Pigeonhole Live: Built for Multi-Session, Multi-Track Conferences

Where most tools here optimize for a single presenter in a single room, Pigeonhole Live is built for a producer running several concurrent sessions across a full conference agenda. Every tier, free included, bundles unlimited Q&A, polls, chats, and surveys, which matters more once you're managing five breakout tracks instead of one keynote.

Pricing: Starter is free for up to 100 participants, 1 user, with both Event and Presentation formats. Presenter is $13/month or $156/year, covering 250 participants, Presentation format only. Standard is $150/month or $1,800/year, covering 2,000 participants and 3 users across both formats, note that the annual price is exactly twelve times the monthly rate, so there's no discount for committing to a year. Enterprise is custom, covering 5,000-plus participants and 25 or more users with SSO and API access. (pigeonholelive.com/pricing)

Best for: Conference producers and events teams running several concurrent sessions who need one tool spanning the whole agenda rather than a per-presenter poll widget. Not ideal for: A single presenter running one session; paying $150 a month for Standard, with no annual break, is overkill next to a per-presenter tool like Mentimeter or Vevox. If venue and registration logistics are also part of the evaluation, the best Bizzabo alternatives guide covers the adjacent event-management layer this tool doesn't touch.

5. AhaSlides: The Budget Option

AhaSlides wins on one axis clearly: it's the cheapest published annual price in this entire guide, and its free tier doesn't cap the number of presentations you can run, only the live audience size per session. For a solo presenter or a small team running occasional interactive sessions, that combination is hard to beat on cost alone.

Pricing: Free covers 50 live participants with unlimited presentations and AI features included. Essential runs $95.40/year for non-educators, roughly $7.95/month equivalent, while the educator-focused Edu Small tier is $35.40/year. Pro caps at 10,000 live participants, but AhaSlides doesn't confirm a Pro dollar figure on a crawlable page (its pricing page renders client-side); treat any number you see elsewhere as unverified. Enterprise covers 100,000-plus participants and is custom. Legacy "Plus" plans closed to new customers after September 2024, though existing subscribers keep their benefits until they cancel. (docs.ahaslides.com)

Best for: Budget-first presenters and small teams that want the lowest annual commitment in the category and don't need Slido-grade Q&A moderation. Not ideal for: Buyers who want a number before they commit past Essential; the Pro tier's price simply isn't published anywhere a crawler, or a reader, can verify directly.

6. Wooclap: Education and Training First, With a Real LMS Story

Wooclap's strength is depth for education and corporate training rather than a lower price. Its Corporate tier integrates directly with existing learning management systems and supports SSO through SAML and CAS, the kind of IT-department checklist item that matters more to a training department than a per-seat discount.

Pricing: Starter is free for up to 1,000 participants per event, with 20-plus question types, but only 5 active questions per 30-day period and no result downloads. Basic is not published and covers up to 1,000 participants with unlimited questions and PDF/Excel export. Pro is not published, billed per presenter annually, and adds AI-powered sessions, team collaboration, custom branding, and moderator mode. Corporate is a custom quote with a minimum of 6 presenters, adding LMS integrations, SSO via SAML or CAS, and an admin dashboard. Wooclap publishes no dollar figures at any paid tier; treat any number you see quoted elsewhere as third-party reporting, not vendor-confirmed. (wooclap.com/en/pricing/pricing-business)

Best for: Universities and corporate training departments that need LMS integration and self-paced session support and are comfortable getting a quote before seeing a price. Not ideal for: A team smaller than 6 presenters evaluating the Corporate tier, or anyone who wants a number before a sales conversation; the best LMS software roundup covers the systems Wooclap is built to sit alongside.

7. Kahoot! 360: When the Job Is Gamified Quizzing, Not Q&A

Kahoot! 360 solves a genuinely different problem than Slido. Where Slido's design center is moderated, upvoted audience questions, Kahoot's is competitive, timed quiz gameplay with leaderboards, built for onboarding, sales kickoffs, and training sessions where a bit of game-show energy helps retention. Its business pricing now lives on its own domain: kahoot.com/pricing and kahoot.com/business/pricing both redirect to kahoot360.com/pricing.

Pricing: A free plan is available with account creation, no card required. 360 Pro Start is $19/month ($228/year) for 50 participants. 360 Pro Standard is $25/month promotional, $29/month regular ($300/year), for 200 participants. 360 Pro Plus is $49/month ($588/year) for 1,000 participants. 360 Pro Max is $69/month promotional, $79/month regular ($828/year), for 2,000 participants. 360 Pro Ultra is $79/month promotional, $99/month regular ($948/year), for up to 5,000 participants with onboarding. (kahoot360.com/pricing)

Best for: HR, sales enablement, and training teams that want gamified quizzing with leaderboards rather than a moderated Q&A queue. Not ideal for: Live event Q&A or meeting audience questions; Kahoot's whole format is built around quiz gameplay. If Kahoot itself is the tool under review, the best Kahoot alternatives guide runs that comparison from the other direction.

8. StreamAlive: Engagement Inside the Video Call Chat Itself

StreamAlive skips the second-screen problem entirely. Instead of sending your audience to a separate polling app or a QR code, it reads and visualizes what's already happening in the native chat of Zoom, Microsoft Teams, YouTube Live, and similar platforms, turning chat messages into live word clouds, polls, and quizzes without asking anyone to open anything new.

Pricing: Free covers unlimited sessions with 5 participants per session (sessions under 5 people count as test sessions and don't consume the monthly limit) and 2,000 AI tokens. Starter is $50/month or $20/month billed annually ($240/year), for 10 sessions a month at any audience size, with 36,000 AI tokens a year. Pro is $150/month or $60/month billed annually ($720/year), for unlimited sessions at any size, with 72,000 AI tokens a year. Scale is $375/month or $150/month billed annually ($1,800/year), unlimited sessions provisioned to 5,000 participants per session, with unlimited AI tokens. (streamalive.com/pricing)

Best for: Webinar hosts and marketing teams running sessions on Zoom, Teams, or YouTube Live who want engagement pulled straight from chat instead of a separate polling link. Not ideal for: In-person events, or any format without an underlying live video-call chat to read from; the entire product depends on that chat existing.

9. Crowdpurr: Live Trivia and Mobile-First Crowd Experiences

Crowdpurr is built for a different room than a corporate all-hands: bars, brand activations, conference happy hours, and any in-person event where mobile-first trivia and crowd games are the point. Its pricing structure, a steep 50% discount for paying yearly, rewards event teams running the same format repeatedly.

Pricing: Basic is free for 20 participants per experience, 1 team member, 15 questions per experience, 3 simultaneous experiences, and 15 minutes of live streaming a month. Classroom is $49.99/month or $24.99/month billed yearly ($299.94/year) for 100 participants and 2 team members. Seminar is $149.99/month or $74.99/month billed yearly ($899.94/year) for 500 participants and 5 team members. Conference is $249.99/month or $124.99/month billed yearly ($1,499.94/year) for 1,000 participants and 10 team members. Convention is $499.99/month or $249.99/month billed yearly ($2,999.94/year) for 5,000 participants and 25 team members. (crowdpurr.com/pricing)

Best for: Event marketers and brand activation teams running live trivia and mobile-first crowd games at in-person events, bars, or conference socials. Not ideal for: Standard internal meeting Q&A or corporate town halls; Crowdpurr's entire design center is game-show style crowd play, not moderated audience questions.

10. Klaxoon by Wrike: Workshops and Visual Collaboration, Not Just Polling

Klaxoon solves a broader problem than a single poll widget. It's a visual whiteboard and workshop toolkit that happens to include polling, built for facilitators running brainstorms, retrospectives, and structured workshops rather than a presenter running slide-by-slide Q&A. The vendor now describes the brand as "evolving into Klaxoon by Wrike," though Wrike's work-management suite isn't included unless you bundle it separately.

Pricing: Free is $0 per user per month with a 5-participant limit and free editing permissions. Starter is $24.90 per host per month billed annually, about $298.80 per host per year, covering up to 4 Pros. Enterprise is custom, starting at 5 Pros. (klaxoon.com/pricing)

Best for: Facilitators and agile coaches running structured workshops, retrospectives, and brainstorms who want a visual collaboration toolkit with polling built in, not a standalone poll app. Not ideal for: A team that only wants quick meeting polls; Klaxoon's price and feature depth are built for full workshop facilitation, which is more tool than a simple poll buyer needs.

11. Sendsteps: AI Presentation Generation Plus Interaction

Sendsteps takes a different angle than every other tool on this list: instead of layering interaction onto a deck you've already built, it uses AI to help generate the presentation itself, then bundles polling and Q&A into the same tool. For a presenter who dreads building slides as much as running the Q&A, that's one fewer tool to manage.

Pricing: Sendsteps' pricing page is JS-rendered and exposes no crawlable dollar figures beyond the statement "pay annually and save up to 31%." Treat its pricing as unpublished, and treat any number you see quoted elsewhere as third-party reporting rather than vendor-confirmed. (sendsteps.com/en/pricing)

Best for: Solo presenters and small trainers who want AI to help write the deck itself, with interaction already built in, rather than stitching together a separate presentation tool and polling app. Not ideal for: Buyers who need a real number before committing to a demo; Sendsteps doesn't publish tier pricing anywhere a reader or a crawler can verify.

12. Microsoft Teams Polls and Microsoft Forms: The Free Option Already in Your Licence

For a lot of readers, the honest answer is that a dedicated tool isn't worth a new line item yet. If your organization already pays for Microsoft 365, Teams meeting polls and a Forms link pasted into chat cover basic show-of-hands questions at zero incremental cost. Zoom's built-in polls and Q&A do the same job for teams standardized on Zoom instead.

Pricing: Included with an existing Microsoft 365 or Teams licence; there's no separate price to quote. Zoom's equivalent polling and Q&A features are included with an existing Zoom licence in the same way.

Best for: Teams whose actual bar is "can we run a quick poll without buying anything new," where a Teams meeting poll or a Forms link in chat covers the ask. Not ideal for: Live upvoted Q&A moderation, multi-question interactive decks, or anything approaching Slido or Mentimeter's depth; Teams polls and Forms are basic by design, not built to replace a dedicated engagement platform.

Why Teams Look Beyond Slido

Slido earns its reputation honestly on one job: Q&A moderation and upvoting are still the category benchmark, and because Cisco has owned Slido since 2021, its integration into Webex Meetings and Webinars is first-party rather than bolted on. Audiences who've used Slido at a previous conference or town hall also recognize its join flow immediately, which matters more than an extra feature at a large public event. None of that is in question.

What pushes teams elsewhere is almost always the buying process, not the product. No published pricing anywhere. Slido names its plans, Engage, Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited Enterprise, plus one-time event plans, but no dollar figure appears on any crawlable page. No monthly billing at all. Every plan is an annual commitment; there's no month-to-month option to test the product before signing a year-long deal, something Mentimeter, Poll Everywhere, and StreamAlive all offer. A tight 100-participant free cap, fine for a small team meeting and thin for anything approaching an all-hands. Per-member licensing that scales awkwardly below enterprise volume: Slido's own community documentation notes a bulk discount only from 20-plus members, which tells you the model is built around enterprise-scale commitments, not a department of five or ten people who just want solid Q&A. Polling thinner than the presentation-first competition: Slido leads with Q&A and general polls, not anything like Mentimeter's 23 built-in slide types.

None of that makes Slido wrong for a Cisco-standardized enterprise running meetings inside Webex at scale. It explains why a comms manager or L&D lead evaluating options before a budget cycle keeps landing on this page instead. If the broader event-management stack is also under review, the Best Event Management Software in 2026 roundup and the Best Webex Alternatives guide cover those adjacent decisions. And if the actual gap is a pulse-survey or always-on engagement platform rather than a live meeting tool, that's a different category, covered in the best employee engagement software roundup.

Which Alternatives Publish Their Prices

Bookmark this table if the reason you're here is "I need a number before I talk to anyone."

Eight of these twelve, plus the built-in Teams/Forms option, let you see a real number before you've told anyone your email address. That's the single biggest structural difference between this list and Slido itself.

How to Choose: Decision Framework

What to Do Next

Pick two tools based on which part of Slido is actually blocking you today, not which demo looks best. For pricing opacity, put Mentimeter and Poll Everywhere head to head; both publish a real number and let you pay monthly. For workshop facilitation over meeting Q&A, trial Klaxoon by Wrike against your next session instead.

If all-hands cadence is the underlying problem, not just the polling tool, the best employee communication software roundup covers that adjacent decision. And if the meeting platform itself is also up for review, the Best Event Management Software in 2026 roundup covers the wider category this cluster sits inside.