“Webinar” has become a generic term for any online gathering since the start of the pandemic, but do you need to turn your Zoom Meeting into a Zoom Webinar? A Zoom Webinar might restrict your audience or your capabilities to interact, while a Zoom Meeting more than likely meets your needs without you realizing it, so often the answer to whether my Zoom Meeting should become a Zoom Webinar is most often no. 

 

Auburn University encourages the use of Zoom Meetings over Zoom Webinars when possible and here’s why: 

 

Limited Capacity: 

By default, as an Auburn University employee your Zoom Meeting capacity is 300 with an option to increase that number to 500. Auburn University's Zoom Webinar licensing restricts capacity to 100. 

Limited Licensing: 

Auburn University has limited Zoom Webinar licenses for use at a given time. Currently, Auburn University has approximately fifteen, 500 capacity, Zoom Webinar licenses and only ONE, 3,000 capacity, Zoom Webinar license—to meet the university’s needs.

 

Same features: 

Zoom Meetings and Zoom Webinars use the same technology and equipment and have the same features available (e.g., Registration, Branding, Polling, Live Streaming). 

 

The main difference between a Zoom Meeting and Zoom Webinar is the way their attendees participate. 

• Zoom Meetings: allow people to participate by default with audio and video. 
• Zoom Webinars: allow people to participate by default with chat.  

Zoom Meetings can be setup to only allow attendees to participate via chat only, just like Zoom Webinars. 

 

If you need to reach a Very Large Audience (VLA), the Zoom event can be live streamed to a streaming platform such as YouTube/Facebook/Custom Service.

 

If you need to archive a Zoom event, we recommend recording to the cloud and not locally. When the archive is complete, you will receive an email with the link to the .MP4 file, which can be downloaded and placed into Panopto or another platform as access and security are requires. If you want to retain your Zoom event, you must move your file to another platform within 180 days or it will be deleted from Zoom’s cloud recording storage.

Side by Side Feature Comparison

Feature	Meeting	Webinar
Participant Roles	Host and Co-host Participant Learn more about Meeting Roles.	Host and Co-host Panelist Attendee Learn more about Webinar Roles.
Audio Sharing	All participants can mute/unmute their own audio Host can mute/request to unmute participants The Host can set all participants to mute upon entry	Only the Host and panelists can mute/unmute their own audio  Attendees join in listen-only mode* The Host can unmute one or more attendees
Video Sharing	All Participants	Hosts and Panelists
Screen Sharing	✔	✔
Capacity	300. Up to 500 participants with a large meeting add-on. 1,000 available for individual/departmental purchase.	100 possibly available. 100-10,000 participants available for individual/departmental purchase
Participants List	Visible to all participants	Visible to Host and Panelist
Email Reminders	N/A	If registration is enabled
Chat	In-Meeting Chat	Webinar Chat
Meeting reactions	✔	N/A
Nonverbal feedback	✔	Only raise hand
Q&A	N/A	✔
File Transfer	✔	N/A
Whiteboard	✔	✔
Annotation	✔	✔
Polling	Polling for Meetings	Polling for Webinars
Livestream	Facebook, YouTube, Workplace by Facebook, Custom Streaming Service	Facebook, YouTube, Workplace by Facebook, Custom Streaming Service
Registration	Registration for Meetings	Registration for Webinars
Closed Captioning	✔	✔
Recording	✔	✔
Breakout Rooms	✔	N/A
Practice Session	N/A	✔
Waiting Room	✔	N/A
Paypal Integration	N/A	✔
Require Password to Join	✔	✔
International Dial-in Numbers	✔	✔
Closed Captioning	✔	✔

*Note: In a Zoom Webinar, if the host or co-host enables “Allow to talk” for an attendee, the attendee will then be able to enable their microphone as well as mute and unmute themselves.

Be advised that any public-facing/accessible events and archives should have Closed Captioning done to meet accessibility requirements.

Auburn University contracted Captioning Providers:

Archived events, $1.25 per minute ($75.00 per hour): Should go thru REV and should be coordinated through Auburn Office of Accessibility for billing and completion.

 

Live events, $85.00 per hour (one-hour minimum): Should use 2020Captioning and can be set up by the event organizer and paid for with their individual AU P-Card.

• The organizer should provide 2020Captioning with their individual information. 
  
• 2020captioning will need advance notice of the dates and times the service will be needed, and the meeting join link(s).

The general contact for 2020 is: 2020office@2020captioning.com or you can reach out directly to Chris Hopkins chris@archivecaptioning.com or Anne Hopkins anne@2020captioning.com with questions or to inquire about availability when the need arises.

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Purchase a dedicated Zoom License:  

If you find yourself needing to purchase a dedicated Zoom Webinar license or consistently need your Zoom Meeting capacity increased from 300 to 500- 1000, here are the prices. An account number would need to be provided to AU Software ausoftware@auburn.edu.

 

Dedicated Zoom license prices: 

Meeting 500:    $600/year

Meeting 1,000:  $900/year

 

Webinar 100:     $400/year

Webinar 500:     $1400/year

Webinar 1,000: $3400/year

Webinar 3,000:  $4,950/year

Webinar 5,000: $12,450/year

Webinar 10K:     $19,470/year