7 Best Pre-recorded Webinar Platforms: 2026 Guide

Key takeaways:

• Pre-recorded webinars allow for polished, error-free presentations without forgoing audience interaction.
• Types of pre-recorded webinars include automated, on-demand, evergreen, asynchronous, and simulive webinars.
• Consider ease of use, customization, automation, and integration availability when evaluating pre-recorded webinar software.
• Riverside is the top all-in-one choice for recording, editing, hosting, and repurposing pre-recorded webinars.

Pre-recorded webinars look polished and professional, but unlike live ones, people may think they’re plain videos if they don’t engage your audience. 

Don't worry. We've done the heavy lifting and detailed comparisons to find the best pre-recorded webinar platforms for all needs and budgets.

Types of pre-recorded webinars

There are several types of pre-recorded webinars, each with its niche, purpose, and potential audience. Here’s a brief recap:

Automated webinars

Automated webinars are pre-recorded webinars that simulate the experience of a live webinar. Automation allows the audience to interact with pre-programmed elements, such as videos, Q&As, and polls.

On-demand webinars

On-demand webinars are often hosted in resource hubs and can be at the audience's convenience. They require no scheduling or registration and usually include downloadable materials or extra resources, like clickable links.

Evergreen webinars

Evergreen webinars are designed to remain relevant and reusable for a long time. They can be on-demand or automated webinars, tutorials, or thought leadership content, but what really matters is that they retain their relevance over a long period of time.

Asynchronous webinars

Asynchronous webinars are flexible online sessions that allow participants and hosts to engage on their own schedules. Often used for educational purposes or for remote debates, participants can interact with the pre-recorded elements at their convenience.

Simulive webinars

Although pre-recorded, simulive webinars simulate the dynamic experience of a live webinar. The webinar and other types of pre-recorded content play automatically at a specific time or when the audience interacts with a specific element. Some parts of a simulive webinar can actually occur live, like the Q&A and live chat.

Best pre-recorded webinar platforms: Our top picks

As new pre-recorded webinar tools keep emerging, finding the right one can be a chore. Still, you want to ensure that the platform you use has everything you need. 

We’ve rounded up the best ones for you.

1. Riverside: Best all-in-one platform

Price: Free plan. Paid plans starting from $24/month. Webinar plan is $79/month.

Riverside is an all-in-one platform for streaming, recording, editing, and running a webinar.

Before rolling, Riverside lets you schedule your pre-recorded webinar and generate email invites for up to 10,000 attendees.  You can even create a customizable registration form that syncs all registrants’ information to HubSpot or Salesforce.

Upload up to 10 pre-recorded files per session, with a max size of 5 GB per file or 2 hours in length. Or, you can just select one of your previous Riverside recordings. You can record video in up to 4K resolution, with your own customizable branding and lower thirds. And local audio and video recording means you don’t need to worry about the quality of your guests’ internet connection.

Going live will create a more simulive experience. Play your pre-recorded webinar when you like, and push it to platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Engage with your audience live with Q&A, polls, and a single omnichat, or even invite them to call in.  

After your session, edit your recording into an evergreen webinar, or repurpose it in minutes with our chat-based editor, Co-Creator. Just tell it what you need, and AI will polish your content, add branding and captions. Or ask it to reprupose your live into blog posts, newsletters or short clips.

User review: “I’ve worked with several webinar platforms over the years—most of them solid, but always with a production team supporting me behind the scenes. What sets Riverside.fm apart is that it empowers me to create and produce professional-quality webcasts and podcasts entirely on my own. The results speak for themselves.” — Michael E., Executive Director - Marketing

‍Key features:

• Easily plan and schedule events, as well as upload your email lists to your CRM.
• Upload up to 2GB of media files for your pre-recorded webinars.
• Up to 4K video and 48kHz audio resolution.
• Custom branding options and a live media board with hundreds of free music, sounds, and video clips.
• Live stream to multiple platforms (X, YouTube, Facebook, etc.) and custom RTMPs.
• Manage chats across multiple platforms with Omnichat, and run live polls and Q&A.
• Customize guest layouts during the recording, or let Riverside automatically focus on the speaker.
• Teleprompter feature makes staying on script easy.
• Share your screen, slides, and presentations in high quality.
• Live audience engagement feature with call-ins.
• Producer Mode allows a team member to manage the webinar without being on camera.
• Chat-based editing polishes and repurposes your content via text prompts.
• Highly accurate AI-powered transcription with show notes and timestamped chapters for easy repurposing.

Want to give it all a try? Sign up and start recording high-quality webinars with zero friction right now!

2. eWebinar: Best for fully automated webinars

Price: Free 14-day trial. Paid plans starting from $99/month.

eWebinar has a singular approach to webinars: it does not support live events at all. Instead, it’s built to turn any pre-recorded video into a webinar with lots of real-time interactions and engagement widgets. It’s ideal for small businesses and teams who want to save time by automating onboarding demos or training sessions. 

It features a chat system where live chat moderators can be on standby when the webinar streams and get notified when someone asks a question. Even if no one is managing the webinar in real time, eWebinar can send an automated welcome message to attendees and auto-respond to common questions.

eWebinar’s real limitation is that it does not provide advanced video editing features, so you’ll likely need to import your files into a third-party editor.

Key features:

• Asynchronous live chat for real-time interactions and automated responses.
• Pre-programmed engagement widgets with polls, quizzes, tips, downloadable resources, etc.
• Webinars can run non-stop and play in loops as fully automated events.
• Advanced analytics with post-webinar reports.
• Integrations with Zoom, Twilio, Zapier, and Slack.

3. Demio: Best for simple on-demand webinars

Price: Paid plans starting from $45/month.

Demio is a pre-recorded webinar software that emphasizes simplicity and ease of use. It’s user-friendly, and the minimalist interface keeps your audience focused on your message.

Great for straightforward automated and on-demand events, the price of Demio’s simplicity is a general lack of advanced customization. For example, you cannot change the registration page layout and there are few options for webinar design beyond the provided templates.

User review: “We’ve been using Demio to run quick, high-impact webinars, and it’s been a smooth ride from day 1. The platform is simple and intuitive, perfect for our marketing managers to spin up sessions on the go without needing heavy support. The platform is quite basic, yet again, that's exactly what we need.” — Verified G2 user in Information Technology and Services

Key features:

• Interactive engagement features that can run on autopilot with pre-recorded content.
• Integrations with Facebook Lead Ads, Google Ads, Mailchimp, and many others.
• Engagement analytics track metrics like average time focused, session duration, attendance, etc.
• Detailed connectivity and audiovisual check in the lobby room.
• Mentions function in the chat allows hosts to reply directly to specific attendees.

4. EverWebinar: Best for simulated live events

Price: Paid plans starting from $79/month.

EverWebinar is a dedicated platform for creating automated, evergreen webinars designed to run on autopilot. Built by the team behind WebinarJam, EverWebinar works by uploading a video of a live webinar (recorded elsewhere) and turning it into an evergreen webinar. What you get is an event that simulates the live experience with details like attendees joining and leaving and a pre-recorded live chat with questions and comments.

EverWebinar provides tools for capitalizing on the user's immediate interest and impulse to register. For example, it automatically detects when a user visits the landing page and displays the next webinar “starting in 15 minutes.” For marketers selling courses, coaching, or information products, these features make for powerful conversion levers.

The biggest downside is that EverWebinar only allows pre-registered events, so if you want to go live once in a while, you’ll need an additional platform.

Key features:

• Flexible scheduling and calendar feature.
• Dynamic attendance curve to mimic an actual event.
• Simulated live chat.
• Live chat and Q&A features.
• Just-in-time scheduling and clickable offers with expiration countdown to infuse a sense of urgency.
• Customized post-webinar follow-up includes both emails and SMS texts.

5. BigMarker: Best for massive scalability

Price: By request only.

BigMarker is big in all senses. It’s a powerful and feature-rich webinar platform that can run all kinds of complex webinars at large scale. If you’re an event organizer who needs to deliver pre-recorded webinars with lots of interactive features to thousands of people, BigMarker is your answer.

You can host regular live webinars, pure on-demand videos, recurring scheduled webinars, or 24/7 ‘always on’ webinar rooms that attendees can drop into anytime. You even have tools for landing pages, emails, CRM integrations, and everything you need to run an end-to-end webinar marketing funnel.

Just be ready for a steep learning curve (and an even steeper pricing model).

User review: “It has great customization and branding strengths. It helps to fully white label the event room to meet our brand needs. It has a difficult learning curve due to its feature rich interface.” — Dhananjay T., Digital Marketer

Key features:

• White label landing page builder with lots of pre-designed templates.
• Can handle up to 500,000 participants in a webinar session.
• Automatic close captioning during live webinars.
• Integration with popular CRMs, like Salesforce, Hubspot, Marketo, and more.
• Email invitation and reminder system, plus post-webinar follow-up emails.

6. WebinarGeek: Best for advanced data management

Price: Paid plans starting from $57/month.

With a strong emphasis on data collection and brand identity, WebinarGeek is an efficient and straightforward platform for pre-recorded webinars. It lets you fully customize and brand your webinars, registration pages, attendee emails, and post-webinar follow-ups.

WebinarGeek can integrate with countless automation tools, from CRMs to email marketing platforms. You can even connect it to your own website or system through its REST API for custom integrations. Built-in analytics are GDPR-compliant, so it’s ideal for businesses operating in highly regulated industries. 

Sadly, the quality of videos recorded with WebinarGeek may be influenced by the host's internet speed since it doesn’t offer local recording (unlike some competitors). 

User review: “[What] I appreciate most is the easy customization when setting up each session. The platform also handles the scalability for multiple invitees really well, even with bigger groups. What I’m not a big fan of is the navigation. It feels way more complicated than they need to be. It’s definitely not ideal for someone who isn’t very tech-savvy.” — Nicey J., Freelance Web developer

Key features:

• Automated feature for specifically timed interactions (e.g., polls and Q&As can be run on replays of live webinars).
• GDPR-compliant data and analytics.
• Integrates with countless marketing and data collection platforms.
• Fully customizable webinar pages and branding options.

7. Zoom: Best for teams already on Zoom

Price: Pre-recorded webinar plans starting from $290/month (Zoom Webinars Plus).

Zoom Webinars is a paid add-on of one of the most popular online meetings platforms. However, to run pre-recorded, simulive, or automated webinars, you need to pay for the more expensive Webinars Plus plan.

While it’s not as specialized in automation as some others on this list, Zoom’s ubiquity and ease of use still make it a solid option. We all know and used Zoom’s free tier at least once, so familiarity and simplicity are definitely this platform’s strongest assets. You won’t get the advanced interactivity of EverWebinar, the quality of Riverside, or the fully automated workflow of eWebinar, though.

Key features:

• Polls, live chats, and Q&As.
• Automated registration confirmation and reminder emails.
• Low barrier to entry since your audience likely already knows how to use it.
• On-demand webinars to re-watch the event via the original registration page.

Advantages of pre-recorded webinars

Pre-recorded webinars are a very efficient way to market your brand, engage your audience, and educate your followers. 

Here’s a detailed overview of their principal benefits:

• Save time: Just record your content once and reuse it for multiple sessions as you focus on marketing and outreach.
• Increase reach: Different time zones or speaking a different language with no captions can prevent many potential viewers from tuning in to a live webinar.
• Automate your sales funnel: Pre-recorded webinars can integrate into your automated sales funnel, streamlining your conversion processes.
• Ensure consistent quality: You can record content beforehand edit to perfection, providing a more polished and professional presentation with no risk of unexpected live mishaps.
• Reusability and ROI: You can reuse a pre-recorded webinar countless times as evergreen or on-demand content for training, tutorials, demos, etc.

“Recently, during one of our webinars, I not only created clips but also took a screenshot of the chat, which was on fire that day. I turned it into a static graphic, and it got way more engagement than the reel I posted. It’s all about thinking creatively. Whether it’s a fun moment, a technical highlight, or even a behind-the-scenes shot of you getting ready to record.” Kendall Breitman — Riverside Community Manager

What to look for when choosing a pre-recorded webinar platform

Here are a few key factors to consider when narrowing down the list of pre-recorded webinar platforms:

• Recording quality: 720p HD video is the bare minimum you should aim for. For more professional presentations, quality should be 1080p or even 4K if you want a truly crisp presentation.

Pro tip: Riverside records locally in up to 4K video and 48 kHZ audio with separate tracks for each speaker!

• Invitee and live streaming limits: Platforms have different attendee limits and sometimes charge in tiers (e.g., 50 attendees, 100 attendees, 1000 attendees, etc). Carefully consider the audience size and reach you need to avoid overspending.
• Editing support: Most webinar platforms are just media players that expect you to upload a finished video. An all-in-one platform that lets you edit out all your mistakes eliminates the need for external software.
• Engagement features: To avoid putting your audience to sleep with a passive watch, you need interactive features. Make sure polls, quizzes, surveys, handouts, pop-ups, and CTA buttons are available in automated sessions as well.
• Branding and customization: When attendees join your webinar, the environment should reflect your brand. Look for platforms that let you customize your studio, logo, background, and lower thirds, like Riverside.
  

FAQs about pre-recorded webinars

How do I run a pre-recorded webinar on Zoom?

To run a pre-recorded webinar on Zoom, you need a paid Zoom Events Unlimited or Zoom Webinars Plus license. From your Zoom web portal, you’ll now find a new “Simulive” webinar type under the “Schedule a Webinar” panel. You can now upload pre-recorded footage that will run at a scheduled time, then transition to a live session, if you want. You can also set up a recurring series.

Note that hosts and panelists can use the chat and Q&A features during the simulive webinar, but they can’t speak or appear on video.

Are pre-recorded webinars effective?

Pre-recorded webinars can be very effective, especially for training and onboarding.

They also work very well in all circumstances where consistency matters, like product demos. They typically convert better than live webinars because you can perfect the pitch and edit out mistakes.

What’s the best length for a pre-recorded webinar?

Aim for 20-35 minutes for introductory topics and educational content. Shorter is better for earlier-stage content because attendees may not commit a full hour to something if they’re just browsing or mildly interested. For deeper or more technical content (e.g., in-depth sales demos, training webinars) you can go longer (30-45 minutes) as long as you keep it engaging.

Can I make a pre-recorded webinar feel live?

Yes. Use a simulive format where the video plays automatically at a scheduled time while a moderator is present in the chat to answer questions in real-time. You can also schedule timed engagement triggers, like polls, quizzes, or CTAs, during your recording.

How do I promote a pre-recorded webinar?

You can promote a pre-recorded webinar by:

• Optimizing your registration page for more successful sign-ups.
• Driving targeted social media ads focusing on the issues you'll cover in the webinar.
• Cross-promotion with popular guests and co-hosts.
• Featuring pop-ups on your existing website or landing page.

Read more about how to market your event in our webinar promotion guide.

How do automated webinars differ from on-demand webinars?

These are both pre-recorded webinars that are often presented as if they were live, usually at a scheduled date/time or on a recurring schedule. They run on their own following a programmed script that gives the feel of a live event.

On-demand webinars, in particular, are events that people can watch whenever they want without having to wait for a scheduled time. Users can also pause, rewind, or skip sections at their convenience. Interaction is usually limited, though, since there is no live host.