Mentimeter

Mentimeter is Slido's main competitor in live audience engagement, with a similar feature set (live polls, Q&A, quizzes, word clouds, ranking questions) wrapped in a noticeably more design-forward UI. The free plan supports up to 50 participants per month, and hitting that cap locks you out for 30 days unless you upgrade.

Basic at $168/year ($13/mo equivalent) removes participant limits. Pro at $336/year ($28/mo equivalent) unlocks team features, branding control, and advanced integrations. Enterprise is custom.

All pricing is annual-only — Mentimeter is explicit that monthly billing isn't offered. Student and educator discounts run 30-40%, unusually generous for the category. For podcast use cases — live recordings with audience polls, virtual events with Q&A, interactive education episodes — Mentimeter offers more interaction format variety than Slido, particularly word clouds (which look great on stream and generate viral moments) and quiz formats with leaderboards.

Downsides versus Slido: less integration with enterprise video conferencing (Zoom/Teams/Webex aren't as deeply built in), smaller install base among podcasters specifically, and annual billing makes it harder to use for a single live event. Best for shows running regular live segments where consistent audience interaction tooling matters and the polish on word-cloud and quiz formats lands. The Pro tier at $336/year is the transition point from individual tool to team platform — that 2x price increase buys branding control, collaboration features, and advanced integrations that solo creators rarely need.