6 Best Virtual Summit Platforms To Elevate Your Events

A successful virtual summit explores a topic that’s highly relevant to your target audience and helps establish your brand among industry experts and thought leaders.

But planning and running virtual summits while managing busy expert speakers can be stressful. To do it all, you need a powerful virtual summit platform. With workflow automations and engagement features at your fingertips, the right platform will help create an immersive event experience while boosting your brand.

In this article, we explore the six best virtual summit platforms on the market right now—evaluating factors like branding options, engagement analytics, and ease of use.

How we chose the best virtual summit platforms

We’ve assessed each of the virtual summit platforms on our list by looking at the features that boost engagement and branding before, during, and after the event, including:

• Scheduling features
• Branding options
• Customization of the virtual experience
• Breakout rooms or virtual booths
• Engagement analytics
• Ease of use

Scheduling features

Ideally, you need to be able to engage your target audience before the event without losing hours sending out emails. So, we assess which virtual summit platforms include:

• Integrations with calendar software
• Email automation
• Customisable registration pages

Branding options

From the design of your registration forms to the appearance of your virtual meeting room, there are a number of opportunities to generate noise around your brand at a virtual summit. A good platform will allow you to create a cohesive experience that reinforces your brand positioning at every stage.

Customization of the virtual experiences

Virtual summits can all too often feel fragmented and dominated by one speaker at a time. Designing an engaging virtual event means creating an immersive experience that mimics an in-person event. So, we assess which tools have the best features to keep people interacting.

Breakout rooms or virtual booths

High-level attendees often primarily attend online conferences for networking opportunities. For this reason, we take a look at which solutions include breakout rooms and virtual booths where attendees can connect in a more personal environment.

Engagement analytics

Data is your secret weapon for driving engagement at future events So, you need a tool that can give you insights about attendance, replays, and other key engagement metrics. To curate this list, we looked at the level of analytics provided by each platform.

Ease of use

The best virtual summit solutions have a smooth interface for organizers, speakers, and attendees alike. So, we’ve also evaluated how easy to use and accessible each platform is.

6 best virtual event platforms for virtual summits

Here are our six top recommendations for virtual summit platforms. You'll find an overview of each solution with a description of what they are best for, key features, pricing information, and insights from the criteria above.

Livestorm: Best all-in-one video engagement platform

This leading video engagement platform can manage every aspect of your virtual events, including summits, trade shows, and expos. It’s designed to support you from start to finish, with scheduling and marketing integrations, a range of engagement features, and powerful analytics.

Livestorm is ideal if you just want one intuitive, all-in-one solution to handle all events and meetings at your organization. It’s designed for everything from internal meetings to virtual workshops and podcast interviews.

Livestorm’s key features

Livestorm includes:

• A browser-based connection. Attendees can join easily using a link - no downloads or account creation.
• Scheduling tools. Event planners can find the best date for the summit with our Calendy integration and send automated email reminders to boost attendance.
• Custom branding. You can quickly create customizable registration pages with images and videos to create a strong first impression.
• Room design. You can change the background design of your room, add images, or include your company logo to maintain a strong brand identity.
• Customized live experience. Engagement features such as chat, Q&A sessions, polls, emoji reactions, and virtual whiteboards allow you to create a dynamic atmosphere, encourage active collaboration, and prevent event fatigue.
• Breakout rooms. Encourage interesting conversation by manually splitting attendees into breakout rooms or save time by letting our software assign groups randomly. Attendees can also choose their own rooms and navigate networking opportunities freely.
• CRM integration. You can connect Livestorm with your customer relationship solution to compile contacts. This means you can easily follow up with attendees after the event, nurture leads, and ask for feedback.
• Detailed analytics. From our simple dashboard, you can see the number of event attendees, sessions, replay views, and traffic data to optimize future events. Viewers also get unlimited content replays.

Why choose Livestorm?

You can use Livestorm to catch up with a colleague just as quickly as you can organize a virtual summit for 3000 participants. This means in one place, you can see multi-language marketing templates, customized meeting rooms, and features that are proven to create engaging online meetings.

Livestorm’s pricing

Livestorm’s paid plans start at $79 per month and costs vary depending on numbers of attendees. Large businesses and enterprises will be given a custom quote.

Airmeet: Best for advanced data analytics

Airmeet is a powerful virtual events platform that makes it easy to collect and analyze advanced engagement data in reports or in real time. You can also manage the entire journey, from planning to following up with emails, inside the platform. However, it’s important to note that Airmeet isn’t the most intuitive software to set up and users report a steep learning curve.

Airmeet’s key features

Inside Airmeet, you’ll find:

• Customized themes for event rooms. You can change the colors and backdrop and view edits in preview mode before the summit.
• Branded landing page. Inside the custom landing page editor, you can upload carousel images and event stats to your registration pages.
• Reminder emails. You can send branded reminder emails to attendees in just a few clicks.
• Networking booths. The matchmaking feature allows you to automatically connect relevant people while the social lounge is good for group brainstorming. Airmeet also includes a fluid space where people can network freely.
• Post-event analytics. View attendance, Q&A lists, booth analytics, and poll data to optimize future summits.

Why choose Airmeet

Able to handle over 100,000 attendees, Airmeet is aimed at medium and large organizations running large-scale summits - especially if you want to encourage networking.

Airmeet’s pricing

Airmeet offers a free package for up to 50 event attendees for 90 minutes, but this doesn’t include branding options. Other packages cost between $500 and $1,500 a month and enterprise companies are given custom quotes.

Zoom Events: Best for networking at scale

Zoom Events was created to hold more advanced virtual experiences than the original Zoom software. And with advanced networking features and the ability to host multiple sessions at once, it’s great for larger summit groups where people have fewer existing connections.

Zoom Events’ key features

• Event branding. You can customize your registration page and event rooms with your brand’s colors and logo.
• Networking support. Your attendees can view information about other event participants ahead of time to optimize their networking opportunities. Then they can engage with eachother’s profile information to spark conversations during the event.
• Meeting recordings. All events can be recorded and streamed through to the lobby so audience members can pick which session to join. Then you can make this content available to watch on demand.
• Integration with CRM tools. Zoom Events connects with software such as Dynamic 365 and Salesforce to allow you to follow up with contacts.

Why choose Zoom Events

For organizations looking to host large summits with lots of attendees, Zoom Events is a good option. This is mostly because the software uses a range of networking features to optimize connections in a big group.

Zoom Events’ pricing

Zoom Events costs $1490 per year and comes as a separate package to other Zoom software. Since you pay per user, the price increases when you add more event managers.

Microsoft Teams: Best for small summits

Microsoft Teams is part of the Office 365 Suite of products. This means that alongside planning, hosting, and optimizing virtual summits, you can connect with team members through instant messaging and video. However, it’s important to note that it can only host up to 300 people in one event so wouldn’t be suitable for larger summits.

Microsoft Teams’ key features

• Branding customization. You can change the colors, text, and logos in your registration pages and meeting rooms.
• Live captions. Improve accessibility with automatically generated captions in meetings.
• Breakout rooms. You can manually or randomly assign attendees to networking spaces.
• Engagement features. Use Q&As, chat, live emoji reactions, and polls to keep people interested.
• Green room. Speakers and event hosts can use this space to prepare for the summit and communicate behind the scenes.

Why choose Microsoft Teams

If you’re running small virtual summits, Microsoft Teams is a good option. You can start to experiment with engagement features such as polls and breakout rooms and practice running the event in the Green Room.

Microsoft Teams’ pricing

The free version of Teams allows you to host 60-minute meetings with up to 100 participants. Then, you’ll pay $4-$12.50 per user per month, depending on which features you’d like to access.

Virtual Summits Software: Best for budget summits

Virtual Summits Software offers a dedicated solution for smaller organizations looking to experiment with virtual summits. With its database of speakers and easy customization options, it’s great if you’re just starting out.

Virtual Summits Software key features

• Landing pages. All you need to do is input your information and choose a theme and VSS will create your landing pages for you.
• Database of speakers. You can find expert speakers within the platform if you’re running low on numbers.
• Automated emails. VSS can automatically send out email reminders to speakers and you can approach potential new speakers with templated messages.
• Meeting recordings. Set summits to automatically record for easy content sharing.
• Speaker management. The ability to hide someone’s profile from showing in the summit if they’re running late is a great bonus feature.

Why choose Virtual Summits Software

Virtual Summits Software is particularly good at taking the work out of managing speakers through its automated communications. And if you need fewer features for lower cost, this one’s for you.

Virtual Summits Software pricing

Virtual Summits Software offers three packages ranging from $36 per month to $226 per month. The main difference between them is that you can only include your own branding on the most expensive package.

vFairs: Best for an immersive virtual environment

vFairs have focused on building out the virtual environment that users experience before the summit. This means attendees can engage with exhibit halls, auditoriums, and networking rooms in a virtual space like they would in the real world.

vFairs key features

• Branded landing pages. Add videos and images and customize colors to create engaging reservation pages in multiple languages.
• Email marketing. Send out event reminders easily through vFair’s integration with CRM’s like Hubspot.
• Advanced environment design. vFairs has built a 3D lobby with immersive rooms for networking and learning. You can also customize these with your branding.
• Live chat rooms. Attendees can network in live chat rooms. You can also pair them automatically based on their answers to questions you set.
• Analytics. Track attendance and understand how attendees are using breakout rooms with data from vFairs.
• Accessibility features. You can turn on automated closed captioning.

Why choose vFairs

If you have a large number of participants attending different sessions at your summit, vFair’s virtual environment features will prove useful in engaging them while they wait to get started. In the interactive interface, they can use breakout rooms and auditorium spaces.

If, on the other hand, your concern is more around engaging people in the event itself, look to a solution like Livestorm which includes a wider range of in-summit interactive features.

vFairs pricing

vFairs offers tailored packages and doesn’t list its pricing on its website. When you send over your details to get a quote, you’ll be sent a free demo.

Scaling your brand with the right virtual summit platform

Choosing the right virtual summit platform comes down to weighing up functionality against costs. If you’re running a small-scale event with a few attendees, Microsoft Teams or Virtual Summit Software might be a good fit.

If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a solution you can scale with, one that boosts your brand identity and engages growing numbers of attendees and audience members, look to Livestorm.

This all-in-one platform allows you to schedule reminders, engage participants with an immersive virtual experience, and then analyze success afterward. And crucially, you can also save time by managing all of this alongside internal meetings and other events.

Frequently asked questions about virtual summit platforms

What is a virtual summit platform?

A virtual summit is an event in which industry experts come together to discuss a certain topic. And a virtual summit platform is the software that allows this talk to be held. This means it will include a video livestreaming solution and it may also include event marketing features, engagement tools, networking spaces, and analytics.

How much do virtual conference platforms cost?

The cost of virtual conference platforms varies depending on the features, number of attendees, and users, and length of meetings. Some platforms offer free basic versions, and others charge over $1,000 dollars per month. The average platform costs between $50 and $100 per month.

What are the benefits of virtual conference platforms?

Virtual conference platforms give event organizers more control over planning and running their online events and help them to engage speakers while boosting branding. Livestorm, for example, offers scheduling software, customized room branding, and audience engagement features like polls, emoji reactions, and Q and A sessions.

Which is the best virtual conference platform?

Choosing which conference platform is right for you means considering the size of the events you want to hold and then weighing up which features will be useful to you. Livestorm is a great option for businesses of all sizes because it’s affordable, user-friendly, and allows you to use attendee engagement and branding features at scale. It also includes scheduling and data analytics tools.