How many times have you tried to attend an online event only to encounter technical issues? Isn’t it frustrating when you have to download or install something before you can join a meeting?
These are the pain points that Livestorm CEO and co-founder Gilles Bertaux tried to address by coming up with his own online meeting solution. Initially released in 2016, the platform has continued to grow in terms of its user base and functionalities. On the site’s home page, the company boasts of hosting at least a million users on their application each month.
In this Livestorm review, we try to establish if and how their video conferencing platform delivers on its promise of being easy to use. We also consider its features, pricing, customer support, and other relevant aspects to help you decide if it’s the right service for you.
Let’s get started.
Livestorm Overview
Headquartered in Paris, Livestorm is designed to “level the playing field” for remote workers and empower them with its video-conferencing application.
It offers general features that its competitors do like the ability to host and pre-record webinars, combine live events with pre-recorded sessions, and interactive features for attendees.
Though you can only have meetings with up to four attendees under its free trial, Livestorm can accommodate up to 3,000 attendees under its premium Enterprise subscription.
When it comes to the number of presenters it can accommodate in a single event, Livestorm generously allows you to include an unlimited number of speakers. This isn’t something that most competitors offer.
What Makes Livestorm Different?
Livestorm was designed to be incredibly user-friendly in the sense that you can host and join meetings with the least amount of effort.
The team behind it boasts that you can use their services without needing to download or install anything on your device. It can also be seamlessly used on mobiles, tablets, and computers. You can even dial in by phone.
If you’re the host, some web conferencing solutions require you to have their software installed or download a file before you can get your meeting started. With Livestorm, you can skip this process and get full functionality on your browser as a host.
All you have to do to join a virtual meeting is register using the event link provided and you’re in! You don’t even have to open an account with them.
According to the developers, it only takes eight minutes to create and publish your own Livestorm event page while their events enjoy 53% higher attendance because of how their technology works.
Apart from ease of use, Livestorm also offers additional features like the ability to customize registration pages, landing pages, and emails. We’ll take a closer look at its features later on in this review.
Who Should Use Livestorm?
It appears that Livestorm’s target audiences are universities and corporations that are heavily into online meetings. The developers recommend their product for events like product demos, employee onboarding, customer training, and internal communications initiatives.
They provide their services to over 4,000 organizations such as Udemy, Audencia Business School, and OpenClassrooms.
Because of how easy it is to hold meetings and jump into a call, Livestorm is ideal for companies that frequently host events for the general public. It’s also a good option for organizations that want to give their employees the flexibility of joining a meeting from any device they choose, including phones.
Let’s have a quick review of Livestorm’s pros and cons before diving into its features.
Pros
- Easy to host and join a call from any device — no downloads or installations needed
- Customizable landing pages, registration pages, and email notifications
- Offers typical audience engagement features like chats, questions, and polls
- Can accommodate up to 3,000 attendees and unlimited presenters — higher than most competitors
- Hosts recurring events, pre-recorded webinars, and on-demand webinars
- Can host events in high definition (HD)
- Offers analytics after each event
- Events are automatically recorded and shared with attendees
- Multiple integrations
- Multi-language support (supports 19 languages)
- Free trial that doesn’t require credit card details
- Scalable pricing depending on the number of attendees
Cons
- Free trial is limited to ten registrants, four attendees, and 20 minutes per event
- Live support is only available from Mondays to Fridays during business hours
- No private chat function for hosts and guest presenters
- Attendees have view-only access (they can’t share their webcam and audio)
Livestorm Features
We’ve mentioned what Livestorm is, how it works, and what makes it different from other tools in the market. Let’s now take a look at the specific features it offers.
Customized Emails, Registration, and Landing Pages
With Livestorm, you can customize the email notifications, registration page, and landing page associated with your event. Customizations allow you to change the background color, adjust the color of your event buttons and text, and insert a company logo.
For the registration page, it would have been nice if they had templates that you could choose from so that you can have different layouts and designs. Currently, your only choices are a Light version which has a more minimal design at the center of the page, and a Detailed template that occupies more of the screen.
The same is true for its customized emails. Livestorm has one design that allows you to customize general fields of information like the name of your event, the attendee’s name, and the time and date of your webinar.
You’re allowed to send five types of emails per event: a confirmation email, two reminders, and two follow-ups. You can adjust when these emails are sent out and even come up with your own template but the latter requires some HTML editing knowledge.
Host Your Event in HD
There aren’t a lot of video conferencing solutions out there that offer HD-quality video. Some corporations have to purchase expensive equipment and pricey subscriptions to enjoy the extra clarity and detail that HD offers.
It’s therefore impressive that Livestorm provides unlimited HD video for free and through a browser no less. Of course, you can’t enjoy this feature unless you and your co-presenters and guests have excellent bandwidth.
Audience Engagement Tools
Livestorm offers typical engagement tools that are expected from video conferencing solutions of its kind. You can have chats, Q&As as well as polls.
However, there are some limitations that audience members have by default. Chatting and questions can only be done during a live event. They can’t see each other, share their webcam, or use their audio. They can only speak if they’ve been invited to by the event organizers or one of the guest speakers.
Because of these limitations, Livestorm may not be the solution for you if you want to foster a more dynamic group discussion.
Additionally, only the host can start and end the event while only moderators and guest speakers can join an event before a session officially starts.
Customized Backgrounds
Presenting from home? Worry not — Livestorm makes it possible to blur or use a virtual background to give your meeting a more professional feel.
Advertise or Add a Call-to-Action (CTA)
Livestorm lets you add a sales pitch or CTA to any event with a click of the mouse. You only need to call up the dialog window, provide text, button text, and the URL where you want them to go. Upon sending your message, a dialog box will pop up on everyone’s screen with your message.
Though it’s a nice feature to have, the pop-up that appears doesn’t look very polished. It’s also doesn’t seem like you can configure and schedule them in advance to lessen the things you have to do while you have a live event going on.
Analytics
Livestorm provides you with post-event analytics. It covers the usual areas you would expect such as poll results, the number of registrants who attended, the number of times a pre-recorded video was replayed, and source tracking (or how they arrived on the registration page). It also has an “automatic data enrichment” feature that automatically collects data for registrants’ profiles.
Third-Party Integration
To provide additional functionalities, Livestorm offers a wide assortment of integrations. They have over 40 plugins that can enhance and make your event preparation more efficient.
Here are some of the integrations they offer:
- Salesforce
- Zapier
- Webhooks
- HubSpot
- Google Analytics
- YouTube
- Help Scout
- Intercom
- Pipedrive
- Slack
Now that we’re acquainted with some of Livestorm’s basic features, let’s turn our attention to other important aspects.
Livestorm at a Glance
Whether you’re looking for advanced features or just want to join or host a simple call, you’ll want to know how easy Livestorm is to use, what type of security it offers, and how much it will cost you.
Here’s all the information you need:
Ease of Use
You know by now that Livestorm makes hosting and joining calls incredibly easy. No downloads or installations are needed. Just follow the link, register, and enjoy the meeting.
Security
Livestorm takes privacy and data protection seriously. They are compliant with the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GPDR).
They also protect their customers’ data and ensure that their streams are secure by passing an SSL (secure sockets layer) audit. Strong encryption protocols are used for the data that’s passed between their service and clients.
For more information on Livestorm’s security measures, visit Security at Livestorm.
Pricing
You can use Livestorm by subscribing to any of its three plans: a free Starter plan, a Premium $99 plan which is billed annually, and an Enterprise plan (price undisclosed) that’s billed monthly.
Starter Plan
The Starter plan lets you have unlimited moderators, up to ten registrants per event, and meetings with up to four attendees.
Premium Plan
Similar to the Starter plan, you can have unlimited moderators. However, you can also host up to 16 live speakers in one event, and hold an event for up to four hours.
Under the standard plan, a webinar can have up to 100 live attendees but you can upgrade your plan to 250 attendees for an additional $99, and 1,000 attendees for an additional $209.
If you want to have more than one host under your plan, you pay an extra $99 per host.
Enterprise Plan
This is probably Livestorm’s most expensive plan though no prices are mentioned on their website. It includes an unlimited number of hosts, up to 3,000 attendees, dedicated training with one of their experts, and priority support among other features.
To find out how much this plan costs, potential clients are advised to contact their sales team and request a demo.
Customer Support
Livestorm customer support is available by email (help@livestorm.co) and chat through the help widget on the Livestorm dashboard and as a pop-up window on their website.
They provide multilingual support in English, French, and Spanish. However, their support hours are limited to Mondays to Fridays from 1 AM to 5 PM Pacific time.
It’s useful to note that the absence of live support during certain times can be inconvenient, especially for clients outside the United States.
Related:
- How To Change Livestorm Background
- How To Use Livestorm
- Livestorm Breakout Rooms
- Livestorm Integrations
- Livestorm Meeting
- Livestorm Pricing
- Livestorm Recording
- Livestorm Time Limit
Conclusion
If your work entails holding events for the general public or you need to boost online attendance within your organization, Livestorm may be the tool that you’re looking for. However, if you like hosting events with dynamic audience participation, you’ll find its features limiting.
Since audience members can neither see each other nor share their audio and video unless invited, they will be unable to interact with you and with each other beyond chat, Q&As, and polls.
Overall, our Livestorm review has determined that this is a solid service that provides a simple link-to-event experience. While most of its features won’t dazzle you, Livestorm’s key selling point is its easy accessibility and compatibility with different devices and browsers. In this regard, Livestorm certainly delivers.
The team behind the platform understands that one of the biggest obstacles online event organizers face is getting people into virtual meeting rooms. By removing potential technical barriers, attendees and hosts can focus on the event instead of how to get into the meeting room while ensuring a higher attendance rate.
