Slido alternatives: 6 live Q&A tools compared (2026)

Slido is the tool many people think of first for live Q&A. It’s part of Cisco, it works inside Webex, PowerPoint and Google Slides, and its free plan covers a small meeting. So why look for a Slido alternative?

The usual reasons are price and limits. Slido’s free plan caps you at 100 participants and 3 polls per event. Its paid plans are sold yearly or per event, with no monthly option. If you run a few meetings a month, need quizzes alongside Q&A, or want something your team can try without a purchase order, other tools may fit better.

This guide compares six alternatives on what matters for live Q&A: how big an audience the free plan allows, what paid plans start at, and which kind of event each one suits.

Slido at a glance

Before the alternatives, here’s what you get with Slido today:

• Basic (free): up to 100 participants, basic audience Q&A and 3 polls per event.
• Engage: $210 a year ($17.50 a month), up to 200 participants, unlimited polls and quizzes.
• Professional: $900 a year for 2 users, up to 1,000 participants, plus question moderation and branding.
• One-time plans for a single event lasting up to 7 days.

Slido doesn’t accept monthly payments. Question moderation, where a host approves questions before the audience sees them, starts at the Professional plan.

The 6 Slido alternatives at a glance

Tool	Free plan audience	Paid plans from	Best for
Mentimeter	50 participants a month	$14 a month, billed yearly	Polished presentations with many slide types
Pigeonhole Live	100 participants	$13 a month, billed yearly	Conferences and multi-session events
Vevox	100 participants	$11.95 a month, billed yearly	Training sessions that need many poll types
Poll Everywhere	40 participants	$10 a month, billed yearly	Presenters who mainly run polls
AhaSlides	50 participants a month	$7.95 a month, billed yearly	Tight budgets and quiz-heavy sessions
ChimeIn	100 per session	Custom plans on request	Meetings and classes that mix Q&A, polls and quizzes

1. Mentimeter

Mentimeter is an interactive presentation tool: you build slides, and some of them are polls, word clouds, quizzes or Q&A. It’s a strong choice if you want the whole presentation in one place and care about how it looks on screen.

• Free plan: 50 participants a month, with 23 slide types. Q&A is included.
• Paid: Basic at $14 per presenter a month and Pro at $28, both billed yearly only. Q&A moderation from your phone is a Pro feature.
• Watch out for: the free plan’s 50 participants is a monthly total, not a per-session limit, so it runs out quickly if you present often.

2. Pigeonhole Live

Pigeonhole Live is built for events. It handles multi-track conferences, where each session room runs its own Q&A, and it offers AI translation of questions as an add-on.

• Free plan: 100 participants and 1 user, with unlimited Q&As.
• Paid: Presenter at $13 a month (billed yearly, $156) for 250 participants. Standard at $150 a month (billed yearly, $1,800) for 2,000 participants and 3 users.
• Watch out for: moderation is only on paid plans, and the jump from Presenter to Standard is large.

3. Vevox

Vevox offers polling, quizzes and Q&A boards with separate plans for business and education. Its paid plans add word clouds, rankings, numeric answers and more poll types.

• Free plan: 100 participants per session, with unlimited multiple-choice polls, quizzes and Q&A.
• Paid: Starter at $11.95 a month for 250 participants and Pro at $24.95 a month for 1,500 participants, both billed yearly.
• Watch out for: Q&A moderation is only on Pro, and the free plan only has multiple-choice polls.

4. Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere is well known in universities and large companies. Its strength is polling: multiple choice, open text, clickable images and more.

• Free plan: 40 participants (700 for your first 30 days).
• Paid: Present at $120 a year, Engage at $588 a year and Teams at $999 a year. Monthly billing costs more. Paid plans allow 700 participants.
• Watch out for: the free audience of 40 is the smallest here, so it suits classes and team meetings rather than all-hands.

5. AhaSlides

AhaSlides is an interactive presentation tool with polls, quizzes, word clouds and Q&A. It’s the cheapest paid option on this list.

• Free plan: 50 participants a month, with up to 5 quiz questions and 3 poll questions per presentation.
• Paid: Essential at $7.95 a month and Pro at $15.95 a month, both billed yearly. Monthly billing is available at a higher price.
• Watch out for: Q&A moderation is only on Pro.

6. ChimeIn

ChimeIn is our own tool, so read this section with that in mind. It’s built around sessions that mix live Q&A, polls and quizzes. Your audience switches between them in one tap.

• Anonymous by default: people choose whether to add their name, so you hear the questions they’d never raise out loud.
• Upvoting: the audience votes up the questions they care about. Sort by popular or recent, and highlight the one you’re answering so remote attendees can follow.
• No app, no account: participants join from their phone’s browser with a code.
• Built-in video meetings: if you don’t already use Zoom or Teams, ChimeIn Meetings puts video, chat and polls in one link.
• Pricing: free for up to 100 participants per session, with up to 100 Q&A questions and 5 polls per session. For bigger audiences or a whole team, we’ll put together a custom plan. We’re opening accounts in waves; join the interest list or book a demo.
• Watch out for: ChimeIn doesn’t yet offer a moderation queue, where a host approves questions before anyone sees them. If you need that for a large public event, Slido Professional or a paid Pigeonhole Live plan will suit you better today.

How to choose

Start with the event you run most often, not the biggest one:

• Weekly team meetings or classes: most free plans work. Check whether the limit is per session (Slido, Pigeonhole Live, Vevox) or per month (Mentimeter, AhaSlides).
• All-hands and town halls: you want upvoting, anonymous questions and an audience limit above your headcount. Look closely at the 100 to 250 participant tiers.
• Conferences: multi-track Q&A and moderation matter most. Pigeonhole Live and Slido are built for this.
• Training and revision: pick a tool where quizzes and Q&A live in the same session, so you don’t juggle two links.

Whichever you pick, run a five-minute test with two colleagues before the real event. Join on a phone, ask a question, upvote it and put it on the big screen. That’s the whole experience your audience will have.

If you’re new to live audience tools, our guide to creating a live poll walks through a first session step by step.