Live Q&A struggles: A flood of questions or a room full of crickets? Let’s help you navigate both extremes! Could it be the wrong Q&A tools, irrelevant topics and questions, or poor presentation skills? Let’s fix these problems together.
There are so many challenges, for both you and your audience, when it comes to keeping everyone on the same page.
- Struggling to set up a smooth Q&A for your live event? This guide on Hosting Fee live Q&A sessions will show you the ropes, ensuring a comfortable experience for both you and your audience.
- Feeling tongue-tied? Our guide below offers tips to ask insightful questions in a Q&A session, with few examples as below:
- How to ask questions
- 150 Funny Questions To Ask for Guaranteed Laughs and Fun
- How to Ask Open Ended Questions | 80+ Examples in 2024
- Questions that make you think
- 85+ Interesting Topics For Discussion (Online and Offline)
- Hosting Live Q&A Session | 10 Tips To Make A Massive Success
- If you’re struggling to choose the best Q&A platforms fitting your needs, check out these top 5 of the best Q&A apps, which could give you a hand when your audience has theirs in the air.
Let’s read…
Table of Contents
Overview
Best Q&A App for Interactive Presentation? | AhaSlides |
Best Q&A App for Education? | Slido |
Purpose of Online question and answer tool? | To Gather Feedback |
Synonym of Q&A? | Live Chat |
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#1 – AhaSlides | Best Q&A Apps
AhaSlides is considered one of the best free Q&A platforms which equips presenters with everything they need to facilitate lively events. You can use AhaSlides for almost everywhere, during work meetings, training, lessons, webinars…
Hosting Live Question and Answer session with AhaSlides makes it easy for participants to interact with the slides, and to create and manage the presentation flow better.
AhaSlides question and answer app can be easily setup, with lots of cool themes available, flexible customisation and background music.
AhaSlide stands out to be one of the best free audience interaction tools, to empower participants to ask questions, speak up, and participate in the discussion. This is a real game-changer when it comes to keeping track of all questions and conveniently addressing them.
Every step is simple and free, from the sign-up to creating and hosting your Q&A session. Participants can join any presentation to ask questions (even anonymously) simply by using a short link or scanning a QR code with their phones.
Being not only the top Q&A software in the market, with AhaSlides, you can try other exciting features like online quiz creator, online poll maker, live word cloud generator and spinner wheel, to energise your crowd!
Here are 6 reasons why AhaSlides is one of the best Q&A apps…
Question moderation
Approve or dismiss questions before showing them on the presenter’s screen.
Profanity filter
Hide inappropriate words in questions submitted by your audience.
Question upvoting
Let participants upvote others’ questions. Find the most liked questions in the top questions category.
Send questions whenever
Allow participants to ask questions at any time, so they don’t forget them.
Audio embed (paid plans)
Add audio to a slide to have background music on your device and participants’ phones.
Anonymity
Participants can send their questions without the fear of being judged or when they don’t want to reveal their names.
Other Free Features
- Full background customisation
- Customisable heading and description
- Mark questions as answered
- Sort questions how you want
- Clear responses
- Presenter notes
- Export questions for later
Cons of AhaSlides
Lack of some display options – AhaSlides displays everything in a fixed layout, with the only customisable option being the alignment of the heading. Users can also pin questions, but there’s no way to zoom in on a particular question or make it full-screen.
Pricing
Free | ✅ Up to 7 participants Unlimited Q&A |
Monthly plans | From $14.95/month |
Annual plans | From $4.95/month |
One-time plans | From $2.95 |
Overall
Q&A features | Free plan value | Paid plan value | Ease of use | Overall |
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 18/20 |
#2 – Slido
Slido is a great Q&A and polling platform for meetings, virtual seminars and training sessions. It sparks conversations between presenters and their audience and lets them express their opinions.
Slido makes online presentations more engaging, fun and exciting by providing many interactive tools. Features including polling, Q&A and quizzes make it easy for users to have a virtual conversation with their audiences.
This platform offers an easy way to collect questions, prioritise discussion topics and host all-hands meetings or any other format of Q&A. Slido is user-friendly; it only takes a few simple steps for both presenters and participants to set up and use. A small lack of visualisation options follows its simplicity, but everything it has in store for the users is pretty enough for online interaction.
Here are 6 reasons why Slido is one of the best Q&A apps…
Fullscreen highlights
Show highlighted questions in fullscreen.
Search bar
Search questions by keywords to save time.
Archive
Archive answered questions to clear the screen and see them afterwards.
Question editing
Allow presenters to edit questions in the admin panel before showing them on their screens.
Question upvoting
Let participants upvote others’ questions. The most liked ones are in the popular category.
Question review (paid plans)
Review, approve or dismiss questions before presenting them on the screen.
Other Free Features
- 40 default themes
- Anonymous questions
- Mark questions as answered
- Sort questions how you want
- Data export
Cons of Slido
- Lack of visual flexibility – Slido only provides background customisation for paid plans. There are no heading, description and layout customisations and Slido display no more than 6 questions on the screen.
- Lack of some useful features – There are no presenter notes on Q&A slides, profanity filter to block unwanted words and no chat for participants to leave messages.
Is Slido really anonymous?
Slido is a popular audience interaction platform used for presentations, conferences, and events. While Slido does offer anonymous features, it’s important to note that the level of anonymity may depend on the specific settings and configuration chosen by the event organizer.
Pricing
Free | ✅ Up to 100 participants Unlimited Q&A |
Monthly plans available? | ❌ |
Annual plans | From $8/month |
One-time plans | From $69 |
Overall
Q&A features | Free plan value | Paid plan value | Ease of use | Overall |
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 16/20 |
#3 – Mentimeter
Mentimeter is an audience platform to use in a presentation, speech or lesson. It’s easy to use, vividly designed and often used to add interactive activities with notable features like Q&A, polling and surveys. The platform enables users to have more fun and practical sessions with their audiences and create better connections.
Its live Q and A feature works in real-time, making it easy to collect questions, interact with participants and gain insights afterwards. The audience can join with their smartphones to connect to the presentation, ask questions, play quizzes or join other brainstorming activities.
Educational institutes widely use Mentimeter and it also offers many plans, features and tools for enterprises to use in their meetings, virtual seminars or training sessions. Despite a slight lack of display flexibility, Mentimeter is still a go-to for many professionals, trainers and employers.
Here are 6 reasons why Mentimeter is one of the best Q&A apps…
Send questions whenever
Allow participants to ask questions at any time, so they don’t forget them.
Question moderation
Approve or dismiss questions before showing them on the presenter’s screen.
Stop questions
Presenters may stop questions during the Q&A sessions.
2-screen preview (Beta)
Preview presenter’s and participants’ screens at the same time.
Profanity filter
Hide inappropriate words in questions submitted by participants.
Advanced layouts (Beta)
Customise Q&A slide layouts how you like.
Other Free Features
- Heading & meta description customisation
- Allow audience to see each other’s questions
- Show results on all slides
- Sort questions how you want
- Add slide images
- Presenter notes
- Audience comments
Cons of Mentimeter
Lack of display options – There are only 2 question categories on the presenter’s screen – questions and answered, but confusingly, 2 different categories on participants’ screens – top questions and recent. Presenters can only display 1 question at one time on their screens, and they can’t pin, highlight or zoom in on the questions.
Pricing
Free | ✅ Unlimited participants Up to 2 questions |
Monthly plans available? | ❌ |
Annual plans | From $11.99/month |
One-time plans | From $370 |
Overall
Q&A features | Free plan value | Paid plan value | Ease of use | Overall |
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 15/20 |
#4 – Vevox
Vevox is considered one of the most dynamic anonymous questions websites. It’s a highly rated polling and Q&A platform with multiple features and integrations to bridge the gap between presenters and their audiences.
This helpful tool helps users collect data and get instant feedback and engagement. It’s quick and easy to use, suitable for businesses and educational institutions. Besides audience Q&A, Vevox offers many exciting features such as surveys, quizzes and word clouds.
Vevox integrates with many other apps, bringing more convenience to its users. Its simple, elegant design could be another plus point for Vevox in the eyes of trainers, professionals or employers when considering which platform to use.
Compared to other platforms, the features Vevox provides are not that varied, although the live polling and Q&A features are still in development. Many of its Q&A features aren’t available on the free plan, but of course, there are some basic, necessary ones to use. In virtual meetings, participants can join and send questions easily with their phones by using an ID or scanning the QR code, just like many other platforms.
Here are 6 reasons why Vevox is one of the best Q&A apps…
Message board
Let participants send live messages to each other during the presentation.
Theme customisation
Presenters can customise themes even in presenter view. Users with free plans can only choose themes from the library.
Question upvoting
Let participants upvote others’ questions. The most liked questions are in the most liked category.
Slide customisation (paid plans)
Presenters can customise the background, heading and description of the Q&A slide.
Question sorting
Questions are in 2 categories – most liked and most recent.
Question moderation (paid plans)
Approve or dismiss questions before showing them on the presenter’s screen.
Other Features
Report export (paid plans)
Cons of Vevox
- Lack of features – No presenter notes or participant view mode to test the session before presenting. Also a lot of features are missing from the free plan.
- Lack of display options – There are only 2 question categories and presenters can’t pin, highlight or zoom in on the questions.
Pricing
Free | ✅ Up to 500 participants Unlimited Q&A |
Monthly plans available? | ❌ |
Annual plans | From $45/month |
One-time plans available? | ❌ |
Overall
Q&A Features | Free Plan Value | Paid Plan Value | Ease of Use | Overall |
⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 14/20 |
#5 – Pigeonhole Live
Launched in 2010, Pigeonhole Live fosters interaction between presenters and participants in online meetings. It’s not only one of the best Q&A apps but also an audience interaction tool using live Q&A, polls, chat, surveys and more to enable excellent communication.
Pigeonhole Live’s features can facilitate many different session formats with specific demands. It opens conversations in conferences, town halls, workshops, webinars, and businesses of all sizes.
Something unique about Pigeonhole Live is that it doesn’t work in the classic presentation format like the 4 platforms above. You work in ‘sessions’, that can be turned off and on by the event hosts. In an event, there can be admin and other moderators with different roles to better manage the Q&A sessions.
Here are 6 reasons why Pigeonhole Live is one of the best Q&A apps…
Send questions in advance
Allow participants to send questions before the Q&A even starts.
Project questions
Display the questions that presenters are addressing on the screens.
Question upvoting (paid plans)
Let participants upvote others’ questions. The most liked questions are in the top voted category.
Written answer
Presenters can respond with text answers..
View customisation (paid plans)
Customise theme, colours, logos and more for the Q&A sessions.
Participants’ comments
Participants can add comments below questions to share their opinions and ask follow-up questions.
Other Free Features
- Data export
- Allow anonymous questions
- Archive questions
- Announcements
- Star/mark questions as answered
- Customise the agenda display on the audience web app
- Test mode
Cons of Pigeonhole Live
- Not too user-friendly – Although the website is simple, there are too many steps and modes, which is quite hard to figure out for first time users.
- Lack of layout customisation.
Pricing
Free | ✅ Up to 500 participants 1 Q&A session |
Monthly plans available? | ❌ |
Annual plans | From $100/month |
One-time plans | From $268 |
Overall
Q&A features | Free plan value | Paid plan value | Ease of use | Overall |
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 12/20 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Website where you can ask questions anonymously?
There are several websites where you can ask questions anonymously, including Quora, Reddit, Ask.fm, Curious Cat and Whisper.
Is there a tool to check presenters for free?
If you’re looking for a tool to check the availability of presenters for free, there isn’t a specific tool dedicated solely to that purpose. Therefore, you should use a professional social media platform, like LinkedIn to connect with the right presenters!
What is the free Q&A app for events?
AhaSlides is a free interactive presentation software for hosting live Q&A sessions in events, meetings, classrooms, and many more.