Zoom meeting vs Zoom webinar for a paid event: which should you choose?

The short answer

Choose a Zoom meeting when the people who paid should take part: talk, show their faces, work in small groups. Choose a Zoom webinar when they’ve paid to watch and listen: a talk, a panel, a product launch or a lecture, where a few presenters speak and the audience asks questions in writing.

Most small paid events, such as workshops, classes, coaching groups and networking, are better as meetings. Webinars earn their keep when the audience is large, or when you want tight control over who is on screen.

Either way, the ticketing works the same: people book, pay, and get the join link on their ticket. The complete guide to selling tickets to a Zoom event covers the whole process.

What each one is

A Zoom meeting is a shared room. By default everyone can turn on their camera and microphone, chat, share their screen if the host allows it, and be sent into breakout rooms. The host manages the room: admitting people from the waiting room, muting, removing someone.

A Zoom webinar is a stage and an audience. Hosts and panellists are seen and heard; attendees watch, and take part through Q&A, chat and polls if you turn them on. Attendees can’t turn on their own cameras or microphones unless the host lets them speak. Webinars are a paid add-on to a Zoom account, so check your Zoom plan before you choose one.

Zoom changes its plans and features from time to time. Check Zoom’s own site for what your account includes, such as how many people can join, rather than relying on anyone’s summary.

Choose a meeting when

• People expect to talk. A workshop, a masterclass with practice, a coaching circle or a book club.
• The group is small enough to manage. A host can admit, mute and organise a few dozen people comfortably.
• You need breakout rooms. Networking, small-group exercises and peer feedback all depend on them, and breakout rooms are a meeting feature. See online business networking on Zoom.
• It’s a regular class. A weekly class feels like a room people come back to. See running a weekly online class on Zoom.
• You don’t have the Webinar add-on. A meeting with a firm host can still feel like a presentation.

Choose a webinar when

• The audience is large, and a sea of cameras would be a distraction.
• Several presenters take turns, and you want them on screen and everyone else off it.
• You want questions in writing, so a moderator can pick the best ones.
• It’s a launch, a lecture or an industry briefing, where people expect to listen more than speak.
• People have paid a premium price and expect a polished, controlled session.

How tickets work with each

Nothing about selling changes between the two. In One Ticket you create an online event, add ticket types (free, paid, early bird, member prices) and set a capacity below the number of people your Zoom plan lets in. Buyers book and pay on your event page, and the join link goes on every ticket, in the ticket email, in the calendar entry and in the reminders.

The join link for a meeting and the join link for a webinar look the same to your ticket holders. What differs is what they see when they click it.

Having One Ticket create it

If you connect your own Zoom account in Settings › Zoom, One Ticket can create either one for you. This is on Pro and Team. Pro and Team are open now: upgrade any time in Settings › Plan. Limited-time offer: A$1 for your first year (first 100 organisers), then A$29/month for Pro or A$79/month for Team. Cancel anytime.

1. In the event’s place, choose Online.
2. Under Generate with Zoom, set the Zoom type to Meeting or Webinar.
3. Save the event. One Ticket creates the Zoom meeting or webinar for you when you save the event, and puts the join link on it.

A generated meeting has the waiting room on and mutes people as they arrive. A generated webinar is made without Zoom’s own registration form, because your tickets are the registration. A webinar needs the Webinar add-on on your Zoom account and the webinar scopes on your Zoom app; without them, One Ticket says so, and you can choose Meeting or paste a webinar link instead. The details are in how to create a Zoom link automatically.

The middle ground: a meeting run like a webinar

If you don’t have the add-on, a meeting can still feel like a stage:

• mute everyone as they arrive (generated meetings do this already)
• keep the waiting room on and admit people from your attendee list
• stop attendees sharing their screen in Zoom’s settings
• spotlight the presenter so everyone sees the same person
• use chat for questions, with a co-host reading them out

It doesn’t scale as far as a webinar, but for a talk to a few dozen paying guests it is often all you need.

Pre-recorded instead of live

If the content is finished and doesn’t need you live, a pre-recorded premiere may suit better than either: your video plays at a set time for everyone with a ticket, like it’s live, and each ticket’s Watch link plays on one screen at a time. Premieres run on One Ticket’s own watch page rather than Zoom, on Pro and Team. Pro and Team are open now: upgrade any time in Settings › Plan. Limited-time offer: A$1 for your first year (first 100 organisers), then A$29/month for Pro or A$79/month for Team. Cancel anytime. Our post on live webinars versus pre-recorded premieres weighs them up, and the webinars page shows both side by side.

Pricing either one

The format can shape the price. A small interactive meeting with expert time is often worth more per person than a large webinar where people mostly watch. Our post on pricing a paid or free webinar helps you pick a figure. On a paid ticket the buyer pays a small booking fee on top and you receive your full price; the figures are on the pricing page.