ReactLive vs Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere, but built this decade.

ReactLive is the modern Poll Everywhere alternative. Live polls, Q&A, surveys, word clouds, ranking, attendance tracking, branding, integrations — every feature you've been using for years. The difference: repeat questions get answered automatically with citations, sentiment is tracked while the event is happening, polls draft themselves the moment they become useful, and the post-event email writes itself before your team logs off. One pricing model for everyone — no separate Business and Education tracks, no annual lock-in on entry plans.

BETA COHORTS OPENING · THREE EVENTS FREE · MIGRATE FROM POLL EVERYWHERE IN UNDER AN HOUR
— The short version

Same audience experience. Modern team experience.

Poll Everywhere has been a category-defining product. Used by 75% of the Fortune 500, founded back when SMS-based polling was the cutting edge. The basic idea — text a code, see the audience response on a screen — was transformative in 2007. ReactLive matches everything Poll Everywhere does today: live polls, word clouds, Q&A, surveys, ranking, attendance tracking, all the integrations. The audience can't tell which one you're using.

What's different is what your team does. With Poll Everywhere, your moderator scrolls every Q&A queue by hand, your trainer builds every poll in advance, your facilitator writes the recap two weeks later. With ReactLive, the queue triages itself, polls draft themselves the moment they become useful, sentiment surfaces minute-by-minute, and the recap is written before the room empties. One pricing model for everyone — Business and Education on the same plans. Monthly billing on every tier. Self-serve up to enterprise scale.

— Feature by feature

The full comparison.

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

Feature Poll Everywhere ReactLive
Polls & activities
Multiple choice polls
Word clouds
Open-ended responses
Ranking / order
Clickable image polls
Q&A with upvoting Plus AI ranking by relevance, not just upvotes
Surveys
Quizzes with leaderboards
Anonymous responses
Audience experience
No downloads, no logins
QR code or short URL join
SMS-based response Original Poll Everywhere mechanism QR / link only — most modern audiences
Attendance tracking
Custom branding & themes Teams plan and above All paid tiers
Integrations
PowerPoint add-in
Google Slides
Apple Keynote
Zoom & Microsoft Teams
Cisco Webex
LMS integrations (Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle) Campus-wide plans only Roadmap Embed widget works in any LMS today
Custom embed for any platform Limited One-line embed, full API
MCP connector for AI tools (Claude, Cursor, agents) Build agent workflows directly
AI capabilities
AI-assisted activity creation Engage tier and above From slides, agenda, or transcript — all tiers
Real-time speaker transcription Whisper-class, <400ms, 100+ languages
Auto-answer repeated questions from transcript The Auto-Answer Loop. 0.8s median.
Live sentiment tracking
AI-suggested polls from speaker context
Configurable AI persona (tone, red lines) SOUL.md — version-controllable
Post-event AI debrief
Analytics & exports
Live engagement analytics
Excel & PDF exports Engage tier and above All paid tiers
Advanced reporting Engage tier and above
Enterprise & security
SOC 2 Type 2 Enterprise / Campus-wide only
SSO Enterprise / Campus-wide only
Audit logging Enterprise
Phone support Events Plus and above No phone support on most plans ✓ All paid tiers
Pricing model
Free tier 25-participant cap Hard limit, no exceptions Generous limits, AI included
Two-track Business vs Education pricing Yes — separate price lists No. One pricing model for everyone.
Monthly billing option Engage & Teams only Other plans annual-only ✓ All tiers
Per-presenter licensing Required on Teams plan Never. Credit-based, usage-metered.
Self-serve sign-up
— What changes about your day

Four jobs your team stops having to do.

Poll Everywhere has been faithfully reproducing the 2007 model of audience engagement: build every poll in advance, click through them by hand, scroll the queue manually, write the recap two weeks later. 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 the 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. Poll Everywhere waits for you to build the activity in advance. ReactLive proposes it the second it becomes useful.

Suggested · 14:23 Which pricing tier matters most?
04 · A voice that's yours

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 Poll Everywhere is still the right call.

We're not here to tell you Poll Everywhere is bad. It defined this category. Here's when sticking with it makes sense.

— The honest list

You should probably stay on Poll Everywhere if

  • You're on a Campus-wide Enterprise contract. University-scale Poll Everywhere deals are deeply integrated with Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle. If your institution's IT department signed a multi-year contract with LMS provisioning, the smart move is to evaluate ReactLive ahead of renewal — not now.
  • Your audience genuinely uses SMS to respond. Poll Everywhere pioneered SMS-based polling. If your audience is on flip phones, in poor wifi environments, or in classrooms where smartphone use is restricted, the SMS channel is a real differentiator they have over us. (Most modern audiences use the QR code, but not all.)
  • You need deep LMS integration today. Poll Everywhere's Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle integrations are mature. Our embed widget works in any LMS but we don't have the same depth of grade-passback and roster sync yet.
  • Your events genuinely don't benefit from AI. A 30-person classroom poll, a board meeting icebreaker, a quick pulse check during a town hall — Poll Everywhere is mature and works. ReactLive's AI engagement layer is overkill for those scenarios. You can also turn ours off entirely if you switch.
— 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 Poll Everywhere's published structure.

A real free tier.

Unlimited events. Real AI features, not a crippled preview. No 25-participant cap on the free plan — 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 · Poll Everywhere's published pricing
  • Free Intro25-participant cap, basic features
  • Business · Present$10/month · annual-only · 700 participants
  • Business · Engage$49/month · monthly available · AI-assisted creation
  • Business · Teams$84/month · per-presenter, custom branding
  • Business · EnterpriseCustom · SOC 2, SSO, dedicated success manager
  • Education · Lecture$9/month · annual-only
  • Education · Educator$16/month · annual-only · attendance & grading
  • Education · Educator+$27/month · 3,000 participants
  • Education · Campus-wideCustom · LMS integration, SSO
  • Per-event "Events" plans$999+/event (Plus), $4,999+/event (Pro)
  • Two-track pricingSeparate Business and Education plans
  • Monthly billingEngage and Teams only
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 Poll Everywhere?+

ReactLive does everything Poll Everywhere does — live polls, Q&A, surveys, word clouds, multiple-choice questions, ranking, open-ended responses, attendance tracking, custom branding, integrations with PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. What's different is what your team has to do during the event. Poll Everywhere was built in 2007 for SMS-based polling and has been retrofitting features ever since — your moderator still scrolls every queue, your trainer still builds every poll in advance, your facilitator still writes the recap two weeks later. ReactLive uses real-time AI to handle the repeats automatically, draft the polls the moment they become relevant, track sentiment minute-by-minute, and write the recap before the room empties. Same poll types. Different century.

Does ReactLive have all the Poll Everywhere features I rely on?+

Yes. Live multiple-choice polls, word clouds, Q&A with upvoting, open-ended responses, ranking, clickable images, surveys, quizzes, leaderboards, custom branding and themes, attendance tracking via passcode or external ID, exports to Excel and PDF, and integrations with PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams 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 Poll Everywhere?+

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 AI features included, self-serve paid plans at a level marketing teams can approve themselves, and enterprise contracts when you genuinely need them. No per-presenter licensing, no two-track Business vs Education pricing. Poll Everywhere's published structure has Business plans starting at $10/month (Present, annual-only) and rising to $84/month (Teams, 700 participants), with monthly billing only available on the higher Engage and Teams tiers. Education plans run a separate, lower-cost track. Waitlist members get final pricing locked in and three events free.

Why does Poll Everywhere have separate Business and Education pricing?+

It's a legacy of how the company built its market. Education plans are substantially cheaper for similar feature sets — the Educator+ plan at $27/month supports 3,000 participants, while the comparable Teams business plan at $84/month supports 700 participants. The split predates AI, predates remote work, and predates most of the modern audience engagement category. ReactLive uses one pricing model for everyone: same plans, same features, same prices, regardless of whether you're a corporate L&D team or a university lecturer.

Can I migrate from Poll Everywhere to ReactLive?+

Yes. Most teams switch over in under an hour. Event setup mirrors Poll Everywhere's flow — create an activity, share a link or code, audience joins on any device with no app download. Existing polls, questions, and surveys can be recreated quickly using AI setup, which generates the full event from your slide deck or activity description. We help migrating teams personally during early access.

When is Poll Everywhere still the right choice?+

If your institution is on a Campus-wide Enterprise contract you can't break, the smart move is to evaluate ReactLive ahead of renewal. If you're an educator who specifically needs the LMS integrations Poll Everywhere has built (Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle), they have a head start there — we're catching up but we're not at full LMS parity yet. And if SMS-based polling is genuinely a hard requirement for your audience, Poll Everywhere has a deeper history with that channel than most.

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 polling and Q&A platform — a direct Poll Everywhere replacement with a more generous free tier and one pricing model for everyone. 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. Like Poll Everywhere, we offer SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, SSO, audit logging, and regional data residency on enterprise plans. Anonymous Q&A, attendee codes, and event passcodes are supported on every tier for confidential sessions.

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

All worth knowing about. Slido is closer to Poll Everywhere in corporate-event positioning but doesn't have an AI engagement layer either — see our Slido comparison. Mentimeter is the polished interactive-presentation product with a 50-participant rolling-month cap on the free tier. Pigeonhole is strong on hybrid events and AI translation. Most teams evaluating Poll Everywhere are looking to modernise; the deciding factor is usually whether you want a polling-and-Q&A tool, or an AI engagement teammate that does more of the work for you.

Your next training, running like it's 2026.

Same audience experience your team trained on. None of the busywork that came with 2007. The full Poll Everywhere feature set, all the AI handling repeats and sentiment and polls and follow-up, one pricing model for everyone. Most teams are running their first event in under 90 seconds.

MIGRATE FROM POLL EVERYWHERE IN UNDER AN HOUR · DOGFOODED AT OUR OWN TOWN HALLS