ReactLive vs Pigeonhole Live

Events that don't fall behind themselves.

ReactLive is the modern Pigeonhole Live alternative. Live Q&A, polls, surveys, quizzes, moderation, branding, in-person and virtual and hybrid events — all the features you rely on, the same audience experience your attendees know. The difference: repeat questions get answered automatically with citations, sentiment is tracked across every track and session, polls draft themselves the moment they become useful, and the post-event debrief writes itself before the room empties. Your event team stops triaging the queue and starts running the event.

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— The short version

Same hybrid event. Less of it falls on your team.

Pigeonhole Live built one of the more thoughtful audience engagement platforms on the market. Hybrid event support is genuinely good. AI translation across 54 languages is real and useful. The security posture is solid. We respect the work. ReactLive matches the audience-facing experience — Q&A, polls, surveys, quizzes, moderation, branding, integrations, the same in-person/virtual/hybrid support. What's different is what your team has to do during and after the event.

With Pigeonhole, your moderators triage every queue, your producers build every poll in advance, and someone spends Monday morning writing the recap. With ReactLive, repeats get answered automatically, polls draft themselves, sentiment surfaces minute-by-minute, and the recap is written before the room empties. No per-event pricing. No annual-only billing. No logo gated behind the Business tier.

— Feature by feature

The full comparison.

Honest, line by line. Where we match Pigeonhole, we say so. Where we go further, we explain how. Where Pigeonhole has the edge, we mark it.

Feature Pigeonhole Live ReactLive
Core Q&A & engagement
Live Q&A with upvoting
Anonymous questions
Question filtering & moderation Business tier and above Pro plan does not support filtering Plus AI ranking by relevance, not just upvotes
Live polls (multiple choice, word cloud, rating, ranking)
Surveys (pre / post / async)
Live quizzes with leaderboard
Live chat & reactions Reactions on Captivate plan only Full chat + emoji reactions, all tiers
Projector / Stage panel
In-person, virtual & hybrid
Native support for in-person, virtual & hybrid
QR code or passcode join
No downloads, no logins
Speaker overlay (Zoom Layers-style)
Time-to-first-event Documented learning curve G2 reviewers cite "lots of practice runs" <90 seconds AI generates the event from your agenda
Branding & customisation
Custom themes (colors, background)
Custom logo on audience app & panels Business tier and above Not on free or Pro Free tier included
Custom event passcodes & URLs
Integrations
Zoom (incl. Zoom Layers)
Microsoft Teams
Cisco Webex
PowerPoint & Google Slides
Custom embed for any event platform One-line embed, full API
MCP connector for AI tools (Claude, Cursor, agents) Build agent workflows directly
AI capabilities
UI translation (audience app interface) 54 languages Browser-native translation Wider UI coverage on Pigeonhole today
Real-time speaker transcription 100+ languages Whisper-class, <400ms — market-leading coverage
Auto-answer repeated questions from transcript The Auto-Answer Loop. 0.8s median.
Live sentiment tracking
AI-suggested polls from speaker context
AI event setup from agenda or slides
Configurable AI persona (tone, red lines, escalation) SOUL.md — version-controllable
Post-event AI debrief & summary
Analytics & exports
Live engagement analytics
Excel & PDF exports Pro tier and above G2 reviewers note "messy panel-by-panel" data Free tier included; consolidated reports
Team workspace / multi-account access Team Workspace plans only Per-event Pigeonholes are single-account Collaboration on every paid tier
Enterprise & security
SSO Team Workspace+
Encryption (TLS in transit, AES-256 at rest)
GDPR-compliant
Regional data residency Enterprise Enterprise
No model training on your event content Not stated Explicit policy
Pricing model
Free tier 1 Q&A + 5 polls + 1 survey per event Unlimited sessions; AI features included
Per-event pricing required $338–$928 per event without an annual plan Never. Events are unlimited on every paid tier.
Monthly billing option ✗ Annual-only ✓ Monthly or annual
Logo branding on entry tier ✗ Business+ only ✓ All tiers
Self-serve sign-up
— What changes about your day

Four jobs your event team stops having to do.

Pigeonhole gives your team the tools to run a hybrid event — they still have to do all the work. Here's what the AI takes off your plate.

01 · Auto-Answer Loop

Repeats answered before they hit the queue.

Half the questions in any audience queue were already answered on stage three minutes ago. ReactLive transcribes the speaker in real time, embeds each incoming question, and matches against the live transcript. If confidence clears your threshold, the questioner gets a grounded, cited answer in under a second — and the moderator never sees noise.

Median latency 0.8s · 94% match precision
02 · Sentiment, live

Reads the room while you read your slides.

Sentiment is tracked across every question, reaction, and poll response — minute by minute. When confusion or frustration is rising, your moderator sees it before the chat does. No more discovering on Monday morning that the audience checked out at minute 22.

Trend · last 10 min +0.32 ↑
03 · Polls that draft themselves

The right poll, the moment it's relevant.

ReactLive listens to what's being said on stage and to what the audience is asking, then drafts polls one click from going live. The moderator approves; the room votes. Pigeonhole waits for you to set the poll up in advance. ReactLive proposes it the second it becomes useful.

Suggested · 14:23 Which pricing tier matters most?
04 · SOUL.md

Speaks on your behalf, the way you would.

The AI never goes off-script because the script is yours. One markdown file defines tone, red lines, escalation rules, vocabulary — what the AI can answer, what it has to flag, how it sounds doing it. Version it in git. Ship updates between events. No prompt engineering, no black box, no "AI feature" you can't predict.

SOUL.md # Never speculate on compensation
— Honest section

When Pigeonhole is still the right call.

We're not here to tell you Pigeonhole is bad. It's a thoughtfully built product, especially around hybrid events. Here's when sticking with it makes sense.

— The honest list

You should probably stay on Pigeonhole if

  • You need a heavily-localised UI in 54 languages. Pigeonhole has done the work to translate the audience app's interface — buttons, menus, prompts — into 54 UI languages. Our speech transcription covers 100+ languages (the harder capability), but if your specific requirement is the audience app chrome rendered in dozens of languages out of the box, Pigeonhole is ahead on that work today.
  • You've already locked into an annual Engage or Captivate contract. If you've prepaid USD 1,200 or USD 2,700 for the year, the smart move is to evaluate ReactLive ahead of renewal, not now. Switch costs only pay back if you have time left to use them.
  • Your events are genuinely one-off and infrequent. If you run two events a year and Pigeonhole's per-event $338 model genuinely fits, it can work. (Though even then, ReactLive's free tier is more generous than you might expect — worth at least a side-by-side test.)
  • Your events don't benefit from AI. Small, predictable Q&A sessions where you already know the questions and the room is small — Pigeonhole's product is mature and works fine. ReactLive's AI engagement layer adds nothing in that scenario, though our free tier is still more generous on the basics.
— Pricing

Priced for reality.

We're finalising tiers with our beta cohort before public launch. Here's what you can count on — and how it compares to Pigeonhole's published structure.

A real free tier.

Unlimited events. Real AI features, not a crippled preview. No 1-Q&A-per-event ceiling, no per-event fees — generous enough to run small events indefinitely without ever reaching for your card.

Self-serve, no sales calls.

Paid plans start at a price marketing teams can approve themselves — not enterprise contract territory. Credit-based, usage-metered, no per-presenter trap. Monthly or annual, your choice.

Enterprise when you need it.

Custom contracts for 10,000+ concurrent events, SSO, audit logging, regional data residency, and dedicated capacity. Talk to us when you're ready — not a prerequisite to start.

— For reference · Pigeonhole Live's published pricing
  • Free Basic1 Q&A + 5 polls + 1 survey, no logo, no question filtering
  • Pro (Meetings)USD 96 / year · up to 200 participants, no logo
  • Business (Meetings)USD 300 / year · up to 1,000, logo + filtering
  • Engage (Meetings)USD 1,200 / year · annual subscription
  • Captivate (Meetings)USD 2,700 / year · annual subscription
  • Engage (per event)USD 338 per single event
  • Captivate (per event)USD 928 per single event · 5,000-cap, Reactions
  • BillingAnnual-only on subscription plans
  • Logo brandingBusiness tier and above only
  • Question filteringBusiness tier and above only
  • Team Workspace (multi-account)Separate plan tier required
  • AI featuresTranslation only · no engagement layer
Waitlist perk

Locked-in early-access pricing.

Waitlist members get the final pricing confirmed before anyone else — plus three events free to test drive the platform at any scale you like. No per-seat fee, no annual lock-in, no upgrade ceiling between you and the AI features.

Join the waitlist →
— FAQ

Questions worth asking before you switch.

How is ReactLive different from Pigeonhole Live?+

ReactLive does everything Pigeonhole does — live Q&A, polls, surveys, quizzes, moderation, branding, integrations with Zoom and Teams and Webex, in-person and virtual and hybrid event support. What's different is what your event team has to do. With Pigeonhole, your moderators triage every queue, your producers build every poll in advance, and someone spends Monday morning writing the recap. With ReactLive, repeats get answered automatically with citations from the speaker's transcript. Sentiment is tracked across every track and session. Polls draft themselves the moment they become useful. The recap is written before the room empties. Pigeonhole has done good work on AI translation. ReactLive uses AI to take the busywork off your team.

Does ReactLive have all the Pigeonhole features I rely on?+

Yes. Live Q&A with upvoting, anonymous questions, multi-type live polls, surveys, quizzes with leaderboards, question filtering and moderation, attendee tracking via passcode or external ID, projector panels for displaying questions and polls on stage, custom logo branding, custom themes, embed code for any event platform, and integrations with Zoom (including Zoom Layers-style speaker overlay), Microsoft Teams, Webex, PowerPoint, and Google Slides are all supported. The full feature set has been battle-tested at major Microsoft conferences for years through our sister product, Pubble.

Is ReactLive cheaper than Pigeonhole?+

We're finalising tiers with our beta cohort before public launch — see the pricing section above. The shape: a real free tier with unlimited events and the AI features included (not a crippled preview), self-serve paid plans at a level marketing teams can approve themselves, and enterprise contracts when you genuinely need them. No per-event pricing, no annual lock-in. Pigeonhole's per-event Engage plan is USD 338 per event and Captivate is USD 928 per event. Their annual Meetings plans start at USD 96/year (200-participant cap, no logo, no question filtering) and the Business plan jumps to USD 300/year. There's no monthly billing option. Logo branding and question filtering are gated to the Business tier and above. Waitlist members get final pricing locked in and three events free.

Does ReactLive support in-person, virtual, and hybrid events like Pigeonhole?+

Yes. Same model — attendees join via QR code or event passcode from any device, no downloads, no logins. The presentation panel runs in any browser for projector display. Embed code drops into any event platform (Bizzabo, Hopin, Eventbrite, custom), and integrations with Zoom, Teams, and Webex are native. The audience experience is the same whether the event is in-person, fully remote, or hybrid.

Can I migrate from Pigeonhole to ReactLive?+

Yes. Most teams switch over in under an hour. Event setup mirrors Pigeonhole's flow — create an event, share a code or QR link, attendees join. Existing Q&A, poll, survey, and quiz content can be recreated quickly using AI setup, which generates the full event from your agenda or slide deck. We help migrating teams personally during early access.

When is Pigeonhole still the right choice?+

If you specifically need the audience app's UI rendered in 54 languages today, Pigeonhole has invested in that work and is ahead of us on UI localisation. (For real-time speech transcription, ReactLive supports 100+ languages — but UI translation and transcription are different capabilities.) If you've already locked into an annual Engage or Captivate contract for the year, the switching cost may not pay back until renewal. And if your events are genuinely one-off and infrequent — say, two per year — the per-event Pigeonhole pricing model can work, though even then ReactLive's free tier may be more generous than you'd expect.

Is ReactLive's AI optional?+

Yes, completely. Every AI feature can be turned off individually or all at once, per event or permanently. With AI off, ReactLive operates as a clean, fast Q&A and polling platform — a direct Pigeonhole replacement with a more generous free tier and no per-event pricing. You can flip AI back on for a single event to evaluate it without commitment.

What about data privacy and security?+

Transcripts, questions, and analytics are yours. ReactLive does not train models on your event content. Retention is configurable from one event to indefinite. Enterprise plans add SSO, audit logging, and regional data residency. Like Pigeonhole, ReactLive uses encrypted SSL/TLS in transit and AES-256 at rest, supports anonymous Q&A, attendee codes, and event passcodes for confidential sessions, and is GDPR-compliant.

What about Slido and Mentimeter — should I look at those instead?+

Worth knowing about both. Slido is the most direct Pigeonhole competitor in feature shape (Q&A-led, corporate-friendly) but doesn't have an AI engagement layer either — see our Slido comparison for that breakdown. Mentimeter is positioned more as an interactive-presentation product than an event platform, with a 50-participant rolling-month cap on the free tier — different buyer, different lens. Most teams evaluating Pigeonhole end up comparing all four; the deciding factor is usually whether you want a Q&A-and-polling tool or an AI engagement teammate.

Your next conference, running ahead of itself.

Same hybrid event experience your audience expects. None of the busywork falling on your team. The full Pigeonhole feature set, all the AI handling repeats and sentiment and polls and follow-up, a free tier that doesn't gate logo branding behind a Business-tier upgrade. Most teams are running their first event in under 90 seconds.

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