You're researching Slido for an upcoming event, you've opened the pricing page, and the per-host monthly fee on the Professional tier was bigger than you expected. Or your event isn't really a town hall — you have contestants, not survey respondents — and the polls-and-Q&A shape of Slido doesn't quite fit. Or you've used Slido at work and you're now looking for a tool to run the school talent show with, and a corporate Q&A platform feels like overkill. Whichever brought you here, the audience-engagement market has more options than it did a few years ago, and they sit at very different price points and event shapes.
What Slido Actually Is
Slido is a Slovak audience-engagement platform founded in 2012 and acquired by Cisco in 2021. It's the corporate-events default — Q&A moderation, live polls, multiple-choice quizzes, word clouds, and rating questions, integrated with Webex, Zoom, PowerPoint, and Google Slides. For a conference, an internal town hall, a training session, or any meeting where the audience needs to ask questions and respond to polls, Slido is polished, well-supported, and reliably enterprise-grade.
The free Basic plan is real — basic Q&A and a small number of polls per event — but it's narrow enough that productive use lands on the paid tiers. Engage and Professional are priced per host, per month, with the headline tiers in the $15–$50/host/month range, and Premium and Enterprise plans add SSO, dedicated support, and custom contracts. Pricing scales with the number of presenters, not with attendees, which suits the conference and enterprise market it serves.
When Slido makes sense: a multi-day conference with audience Q&A during keynotes, a quarterly town hall where employees vote on options, a classroom or training with multiple-choice quizzes, or any event where polished Webex/Zoom integration and enterprise-grade reliability matter. If that describes the event you're running, Slido is a deliberate, mature choice — and the per-host pricing is normal for the corporate-events market.
When Slido doesn't fit: a talent show, a hackathon final, a cook-off, an awards night, or any event where you need to score entries against criteria instead of asking the audience one question with multiple options. Slido's data model is one question, several answer choices, repeated — it isn't built around the concept of multiple entries scored on multiple criteria. You can technically run a "Which dish was best?" poll on Slido, but you lose the per-criterion granularity, the per-entry leaderboard, and the structured export — which are the things you actually want when scoring entries.
The Real Question Before You Pick a Tool
Before comparing alternatives, ask: is your event built around polling (ask one question, audience picks from options, repeat) or around scoring (a list of contestants, voted on against criteria, with a leaderboard at the end)? Slido and its closest competitors — Poll Everywhere, Mentimeter, AhaSlides — are polling-first. ScoreJudge is scoring-first. They aren't ranked versions of each other; they're different categories for different event shapes. Picking on price alone, without checking the shape, tends to produce regret either way.
The Best Slido Alternatives
1. Poll Everywhere
Poll Everywhere is the older incumbent in the US-focused polling market — founded in 2007, headquartered in San Francisco, and the long-time default for classroom and corporate polling before Slido arrived. The feature set is mature and closely overlaps Slido's: live polls, Q&A, word clouds, ranking, open-ended responses, and integration with PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides.
Pricing is per presenter, per month, and stepped: free for up to 25 responses per poll, then paid tiers that climb into the $30–$120+ per presenter per month range depending on response cap, features, and team size. There's no per-attendee pricing — large audiences are fine — but the 25-response free cap is genuinely restrictive for anything beyond a small classroom.
Poll Everywhere is what you pick if you want a Slido-class tool with stronger penetration in US higher education and corporate training markets, and you're not bothered by per-presenter pricing. The trade-off is the same shape: polling-first, not scoring-first.
Best fit: US-based education and corporate training teams that want a polished, well-supported polling tool.
2. Mentimeter
Mentimeter is the design-led polling alternative — a Swedish company founded in 2014, known for visually polished output and a strong free tier. Word clouds, polls, sliders, scales, and quizzes all look good on a projector, and the brand is widely used in education and conference markets.
Pricing is per user, per month: free with a hard 2-slides-per-presentation cap, then Basic at around €11.99/month per user (more features, unlimited slides), Pro at around €24.99/month per user (custom branding, larger audiences), and Enterprise with custom pricing. The 2-slide free cap is the main constraint — workable for a single quick poll, restrictive for any real event flow.
Mentimeter is what you pick if visual polish is part of the experience, you want one tool to share across a team, and your budget covers per-user pricing. The trade-off versus Slido: less enterprise/Webex integration; trade-off versus ScoreJudge: same as the rest of the polling category — no entries model, no per-criterion scoring, no live leaderboard for ranked competition.
Best fit: design-conscious presenters and education teams who value visual quality and have a per-user budget.
3. AhaSlides
AhaSlides is the direct Slido alternative — a 2019 entrant explicitly positioned as a cheaper Slido replacement. Feature parity is close: live polls, Q&A, word clouds, quizzes, and ranking questions, with usable mobile-first voting and a free tier sized for small events.
Pricing is per-host, in a much friendlier band than Slido: free for events up to 7 participants, then paid tiers from around $9–$33/month per host depending on participant count and features. The free tier is real but the participant cap is tight — anything beyond a 7-person team meeting pushes you onto a paid plan.
AhaSlides is the right pick if you've outgrown Slido's free tier, can't justify the paid tier per host, and your event shape is still polling-first. It's also a credible Slido replacement for cost-sensitive teams running internal meetings and small events.
Best fit: cost-conscious organisers running polling and Q&A at small-to-medium events.
4. ScoreJudge
ScoreJudge takes a different shape from the rest: it's not a Slido-lite. It's a dedicated live competition scoring tool. Instead of polls and Q&A, an organizer adds entries (contestants, dishes, demos, performances), defines scoring criteria, and shares a single voting link with the audience. Voters score each entry on the criteria — no account, no app install — and the leaderboard updates in real time, designed to be projected on the big screen during the event itself.
Two audience modes cover the common patterns:
- Audience Scoring — voters give each entry a numeric score on your criteria (e.g. "Taste 1–10", "Presentation 1–10"). Best when you want quantitative per-criterion feedback.
- Audience Ranking — voters drag entries into their preferred order, and points are distributed Eurovision-style (12 to the top, 10 to the second, and so on). Best for "best of" preference polls and watch parties.
Pricing is public and self-serve: a free plan supporting up to 25 unique voters per competition (no ads, no time limits, no per-presenter pricing), then $19/month Plus with up to 250 voters per competition, and $39/month Pro with no voter cap. There's also a Panel Judging mode for events with a small group of named expert judges — see the panel judging vs audience voting comparison for when to use which.
The honest gap versus Slido: no Q&A moderation, no word clouds, no multiple-choice polls, no Webex/Zoom integration. If your event is a conference, town hall, or training session, ScoreJudge isn't the right tool. For a talent show, hackathon final, cook-off, awards night, or any event where the judging is the show, that gap is exactly what gets removed from the product.
Best fit: organisers of live scored competitions — talent shows, hackathons, awards nights, cook-offs, watch parties, school events — who need a tool that produces a real leaderboard rather than a poll-style vote tally.
5. Kahoot
Kahoot is the gamified-quiz incumbent — a Norwegian company founded in 2012, widely used in classrooms and corporate training. It's not really a Slido alternative in the polling sense; it's a quiz-and-game-show platform where the audience competes individually against each other in timed multiple-choice rounds, with a leaderboard that updates between questions.
Pricing has been notoriously confusing — Kahoot positions a "personal use" free tier (technically only for personal contexts) and a series of paid Business and Education plans that start in the $17–$25/host/month range and climb to enterprise tiers. The free tier is functional for low-stakes classroom use but the business and event use cases push you onto paid plans quickly.
Kahoot is what you pick when you want a learning-game format — the audience plays a quiz, the engagement comes from the speed-and-fun mechanic, and the leaderboard ranks players (not entries being judged). It's the wrong tool for scoring entries against criteria; it's the right tool for trivia, learning quizzes, and energiser games.
Best fit: trainers, teachers, and event hosts running quiz-style learning games where the audience competes individually.
6. Spreadsheets + Google Forms (the DIY route)
The honest free option. A Google Form collects the audience's votes — one question per criterion, multiple choice or scale — and the results land in a spreadsheet that you average at the end of the night. For a one-off PTA bake-off, a five-act school talent show, or a small office award where you have no budget, it works and costs nothing.
The limitations show up the moment the event scales. No live leaderboard — the audience can't watch rankings move. No automatic aggregation across multiple criteria. No per-device duplicate prevention beyond Google's signed-in account check. No structured CSV export with criteria preserved. The organizer becomes the spreadsheet operator instead of running the event.
For most live competitions, the DIY route is what you use the first time. The second time, you reach for a tool — and the question is which one matches the event shape.
Best fit: organisers of a one-off, low-stakes scored event with under a dozen entries and no budget at all.
Comparison Table
| Tool | Starting paid price | Free tier | Live leaderboard | Entries + criteria scoring | Q&A and polls | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poll Everywhere | ~$30/presenter/month | 25 responses/poll | No | No | Yes | Education and corporate training |
| Mentimeter | €11.99/user/month | 2 slides/presentation | No | No | Yes | Visual polls, word clouds |
| AhaSlides | ~$9/host/month | 7 participants/event | No | No | Yes | Cheaper Slido replacement |
| ScoreJudge | $19/month | 25 voters/competition | Yes (real-time) | Yes (1–N criteria) | No | Live scored competitions |
| Kahoot | ~$17/host/month | Personal use only | Player-rank only | No | Quiz-style only | Learning games, quizzes |
| Spreadsheets + Forms | $0 | Always | No | Manual | Manual | One-off, no-budget contests |
| Slido (reference) | ~$15/host/month | Basic polls + Q&A | No | No | Yes | Conference Q&A, town halls, training |
Pricing accurate as of May 2026. Confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before committing — this category moves quickly.
Why ScoreJudge Works for Scored Events
The polling tools all share a hidden assumption: your event has one question at a time and the audience picks from a list of options. Take that assumption away — the event has multiple entries being scored on multiple criteria with a real leaderboard — and the polling category gets clumsy fast. You can stuff each criterion into its own Slido poll, but you lose the per-entry aggregation and the audience experience becomes "fill out a survey", not "watch a competition unfold".
ScoreJudge was built for the scored shape. The organizer adds entries directly (no per-poll setup), criteria are defined once in the wizard, voters get a single shared link (no account, no app), and the leaderboard updates the moment a ballot is submitted — designed to be projected on the venue screen during the event so the audience watches their favourite climb in real time. There's no Q&A, no word cloud, no multiple-choice poll. The trade-off is honest: for a conference Q&A, ScoreJudge is the wrong shape and Slido is the right one. For a talent show, the polling tools are the wrong shape and ScoreJudge is the right one.
The other quiet advantage: free tier sized for real events. Most polling tools' free plans force you onto paid the moment you hit ~25 responses or 7 participants. ScoreJudge's free plan covers up to 25 unique voters per competition with no ad branding, no time limit, and full CSV export — enough for most school events, small company events, and community competitions to run end-to-end without paying.
For a deeper walkthrough of the audience voting experience, see the step-by-step audience voting guide or the talent show how-to. For the panel-judging side of ScoreJudge, see how multi-judge scoring works and the panel vs audience comparison.
The Bottom Line
If your event is built around polling and Q&A — a conference, a town hall, a training session, a classroom — Slido is a deliberate, mature choice, and its closest direct competitors (Poll Everywhere, Mentimeter, AhaSlides) are the right shortlist. The category is the right shape; the choice between them comes down to price band, integration needs, and visual style preference.
If your event is built around scored competition — a talent show, a hackathon, a cook-off, an awards night, a watch party — the polling tools are the wrong shape and price isn't the main reason. ScoreJudge is the dedicated live-scoring option in this market, and you can run a real competition on the free plan before you spend a dollar. If you need both Q&A and competition at the same event (a conference with a demo competition in the evening), run Slido and ScoreJudge in parallel — neither requires the audience to install anything, and the two tools coexist fine.
Looking for narrower context? See the audience voting landing page for the in-product walkthrough, the Eurovision voting page for ranked watch parties, or the Judgify alternatives guide if your shortlist also includes submission-and-award-management platforms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ScoreJudge a true Slido alternative?
Only for scored events — talent shows, demos, cook-offs, awards. For conference Q&A, multiple-choice polls, or word clouds, Slido and Poll Everywhere remain the right tools. The two categories solve different problems and they coexist fine — many event organisers run Slido for the day-time Q&A and ScoreJudge for the evening competition.
What's the cheapest Slido alternative?
AhaSlides is the cheapest direct polling-style alternative — its free tier covers small events and its paid plans start lower than Slido's. For scored events specifically, ScoreJudge's free plan supports up to 25 unique voters per competition with no time limit or ad branding, and the Plus plan is $19/month — much less than Slido's per-host pricing if you only need a few events per year.
Does Slido have a free version?
Yes — Slido's free Basic plan covers a small number of polls per event and basic Q&A. It's a real plan, not a trial, but the limits are tight enough that most genuinely productive use lands on the paid Engage or Professional tiers (priced per host, monthly). For a single low-stakes event with under 100 attendees, the free plan is usually enough.
Which Slido alternative is best for talent shows and competitions?
ScoreJudge. Talent shows, hackathons, and cook-offs need scoring entries against criteria with a live leaderboard — Slido's data model is one-question-multiple-options, which forces you to either run one poll per criterion (clumsy) or compress everything into a single multiple choice and lose the granularity. ScoreJudge's Audience Scoring and Audience Ranking modes handle this natively.
Can I run audience voting and panel judging on the same tool?
On Slido, no — there's no concept of named expert judges with private links. On ScoreJudge, yes — the standard pattern is to create two competitions for the same event: one in Panel Judging mode (named judges, private links) and one in Audience Scoring or Audience Ranking mode (one shared link). Award separate Judges' Choice and People's Choice prizes from the same set of entries.
Which alternative is closest to Slido in features and scope?
AhaSlides and Poll Everywhere are the closest direct matches — both cover the same polling, Q&A, and word-cloud territory. Mentimeter is also close but design-led rather than enterprise-led. For Slido's specific niche of corporate event Q&A with Webex/Zoom integration, Poll Everywhere and AhaSlides are the most credible head-to-head competitors.
Does ScoreJudge work for conferences and town halls like Slido does?
No — and that's the cleanest functional gap between the two products. Slido is built for asking the audience questions during a presentation (Q&A, polls, word clouds, quizzes). ScoreJudge is built for scoring entries during a competition. For a typical conference, Slido is the right tool; for a typical award night, ScoreJudge is. For mixed events with both, run them in parallel — neither requires the audience to install anything.
How quickly can I switch from Slido to ScoreJudge for a competition?
Minutes. Create a competition, paste in your entries, pick Audience Scoring or Audience Ranking, and share the link as a QR code from the stage — no data migration is needed and there's no judge or voter account creation. If you're already running Slido for the day-time programme, leave it running and add ScoreJudge for the competition segment of the event.
Try ScoreJudge Today
No installation, no judge accounts, no per-event fee. The free plan is enough to run a real competition — set one up in under five minutes and see the leaderboard light up the room.