Which Poll Everywhere alternative fits a class: caps, joining and sign-in compared
Choosing a Poll Everywhere alternative comes down to three documented points: the free-plan cap, how participants join, and who must sign in. Poll Everywhere's Intro plan is free up to 40 responses per poll, Mentimeter's free plan allows 50 participants per month, and Slido lists code, link or QR code joins. Sign-in checks differ too: a group restriction at Poll Everywhere, Enterprise login at Mentimeter, e-mail verification on Professional or higher at Slido.
Written by BuyPollVotes editorial desk | Last checked
Free cheap remote students polling: where each free tier stops
Free, cheap and remote are three separate asks of any Poll Everywhere alternative, and students meet all three at once. Free comes first, and two free tiers are documented. Poll Everywhere's FAQ says its Intro plan is free and that the limit is audience size, up to 40 responses per poll. Mentimeter's help centre says its free plan lets you present as many presentations as you like each month until a total of 50 participants is reached. Cheap starts where a poll tool's free caps end, and this page prints no amount for any higher plan.
Students on a video call need a way in from whatever device they own. Mentimeter's live polling page says participants join from any device using a code or link, and everyone sees the results in real time, whether they sit in the room or join remotely. Poll Everywhere's how-it-works page says the audience responds on phones or laptops through a custom web address, with no app downloads required. Slido's community help says its participants need to download nothing either.
Group size decides which cap bites first. Thirty-five students fit under 40 responses per poll, while sixty students fit under neither 40 nor 50. But the two caps are worth telling apart: Poll Everywhere counts responses inside one poll, and Mentimeter counts participants across the month.
Join codes, links and QR codes compared
Poll Everywhere, Mentimeter and Slido each list a join code among their ways in. On Poll Everywhere the participant goes to pe.app, enters the presenter's join code and hits Join, as the vendor's FAQ puts it. Mentimeter's live polling page describes the same move with a choice of routes: participants join from any device using a code or link.
Slido adds a QR code. Its community help says participants can join via a Slido code, a joining link or a QR code that you share with them, and that there is no need to download anything. In a poll everywhere vs slido comparison the download question comes out level, since Poll Everywhere's how-it-works page says no app downloads are required either.
Poll Everywhere gives each presenter a custom web address built on the presenter's name, and Slido has the host share the code, link or QR code. A code or a link gets a participant into the poll; who is allowed to answer is a separate setting.
Sign-in checks by tool and plan
Each of the three tools documents its own way to tie a response to a signed-in or verified person, and each sits at a different level. Two of the checks are tied to a named plan: Mentimeter ties its required login to Enterprise, and Slido ties e-mail verification to Professional or higher. Poll Everywhere's support page calls its restriction a setting and makes group membership the test.
From the student's side, a restricted Poll Everywhere poll adds one thing to do before answering: sign in. Mentimeter's Enterprise login adds the organisation's own single sign-on before answering, and Slido's e-mail verification adds an e-mail check.
A group, an organisation and an individual e-mail address are three different tests of who is answering. The vendor material this comparison uses does not rank the three, and neither does this page.
- Poll Everywhere: its support page says responses can be limited to signed-in members of selected groups, and restricted participants must sign in before they can respond.
- Mentimeter: its help centre says required login through the organisation's single sign-on is Enterprise-only, verifies that participants belong to the organisation and prevents double-voting.
- Slido: its community help says hosts on a Professional or higher plan can restrict participant access by verifying each user through e-mail.
Clicker-based polling and the rivals Poll Everywhere names
The University of North Carolina's Educational Technologies page describes Poll Everywhere as a web-based polling system where clickers are not required. That description is the university's own wording, and it answers the clicker question directly.
Poll Everywhere's own comparison page for higher education audience response says it stacks up against popular alternatives such as Top Hat, Kahoot! and iClick. A Poll Everywhere alternative named by the vendor itself is a starting name, and the pages this comparison uses give no limits or join methods for Top Hat or iClick, so the table leaves both out.
The University of Liverpool's guide to making polling tools a safe environment places Poll Everywhere alongside Kahoot, Mentimeter and Socrative and says each has a variety of settings and customisable options. That line supports the word variety and nothing more; which settings exist is for each vendor's help pages to say.
Polling from slides you already have
Poll Everywhere's FAQ says its Live App lets you present polls from any presentation software: Google Slides, Keynote, Canva, Prezi, PowerPoint, or anything else. For a teacher with a finished deck, that is the line that speaks to restructuring materials, because the polls run from the software the deck already lives in.
Nothing comparable is stated for Mentimeter or Slido in the help pages this comparison uses, so the table marks the cell as not stated instead of guessing. The same goes for question types: whether a tool offers a, b, c or d answer choices is a question for that vendor's help centre, because no page here settles it.
Questions the vendor pages leave open
Four questions stay open for a teacher choosing among these tools. Mentimeter's live polling page describes results that everyone sees in real time, and nothing else in this comparison says whether results can be hidden from participants. Poll Everywhere's FAQ gives up to 40 responses per poll as the limit and stops there, so what happens at the limit is unanswered. Question types (the a, b, c or d format) are not listed for any of the three tools in the pages used here. Plan amounts for a poll tool are the fourth gap, and they stay blank on purpose.
Microsoft Forms and SurveyMonkey are not in the table: neither vendor's help page is part of this comparison, so nothing here claims what either does. A Poll Everywhere vs Microsoft Forms table needs Microsoft's own documentation, and filling its cells from memory is what this page refuses to do.
User reviews are a separate gap. Poll Everywhere reviews, like reviews of Mentimeter or Slido, report experience, and this page reports what the vendors and two universities document instead.
Who decides when a count is thrown out
A tool's settings decide who can respond, and a person decides what a finished result is worth. The settings are the ones already named: audience caps, join codes and links, sign-in restrictions, single sign-on and e-mail verification.
Disqualification belongs to the person. The lines read from the vendors describe caps, join methods and sign-in checks, and none of them describes disqualifying anyone, so the instructor or organiser who ran a poll decides whether its result stands.
Fake responses are the objection the vendor lines leave unanswered. They say how participants join and how a host can require sign-in, single sign-on or e-mail verification; they do not say how a padded count gets caught, so this page makes no claim about detection in either direction. The documented check is narrower: where sign-in is required, participants must sign in before they can respond.
| Check | Poll Everywhere | Mentimeter | Slido |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free-plan limit | Intro plan: up to 40 responses per poll | Free plan: a total of 50 participants per month | Not stated |
| How participants join | Presenter's join code, or a custom web address; no app download | Code or link, from any device | Code, joining link or QR code; no download |
| Sign-in option | Responses restricted to signed-in members of selected groups | Required login through single sign-on, Enterprise only | E-mail verification, Professional or higher plans |
| When results show | Not stated | In real time, to everyone, in the room or remote | Not stated |
| Presentation software | Live App runs polls from Google Slides, Keynote, Canva, Prezi, PowerPoint or other software | Not stated | Not stated |
Common questions
Clicker-Based Polling Alternatives?
Poll Everywhere is a web-based polling system where clickers are not required, according to the University of North Carolina's Educational Technologies page. Poll Everywhere's own comparison page names Top Hat, Kahoot! and iClick among the alternatives it stacks up against, and the pages this comparison uses give no limits or join methods for them, so the comparison stops at the names.
Does anyone have experience with these polling softwares, or another one that is decent but not too pricey?
Personal verdicts on these tools fall outside this comparison, which reports limits and join methods from vendor and university pages. For a poll tool that is not too pricey, the documented starting points are Poll Everywhere's free Intro plan and Mentimeter's free plan, each with a stated cap, and no amount is printed here for any higher plan.
Free polling application that won't let you see classmates' answers?
Mentimeter's live polling page describes results that everyone sees in real time, which is the opposite of hiding classmates' answers. Poll Everywhere's support page on audience restrictions covers who can respond: restricted participants must sign in first. No page in this comparison says whether any of the three tools can hide results from participants, so that setting needs confirming in the vendor's own help centre before a class relies on it.
Do you have any recommendations for free tools that are accessible for both instructors and students?
Poll Everywhere's Intro plan and Mentimeter's free plan are the two free tiers documented here, and both let students join from their own devices. Instructors work within the caps: up to 40 responses per poll on Intro, a total of 50 participants per month on Mentimeter's free plan. Slido lists code, link and QR code joins, but its free-plan limit is not in the help pages this comparison uses.
What teaching resources similar to these have you utilized that you would suggest?
Two university pages sit beside the vendors' own: the University of North Carolina's Educational Technologies page on Poll Everywhere and the University of Liverpool's guide to making polling tools a safe environment. The North Carolina page describes Poll Everywhere as web-based with no clickers required. The Liverpool guide says Poll Everywhere, Kahoot, Mentimeter and Socrative each have a variety of settings and customisable options.
Free or really cheap remote polling to students?
Mentimeter's live polling page says participants join from any device using a code or link, in the room or remotely. Its free plan allows a total of 50 participants per month, according to the help centre. Poll Everywhere's how-it-works page says audiences respond on phones or laptops with no app downloads, and its Intro plan is free up to 40 responses per poll. No amount for a higher poll plan is printed here; what the documents show is what a higher tier adds, such as Mentimeter's Enterprise login and Slido's e-mail verification.
Is there software or a service available to poll students on multiple-choice answers without restructuring materials?
Poll Everywhere's FAQ says its Live App presents polls from Google Slides, Keynote, Canva, Prezi, PowerPoint or any other presentation software, so a class deck can stay where it was built. Whether a tool offers a, b, c or d answer choices is not stated in the vendor pages this comparison uses, and the vendor's help centre has the last word on question types.
Is a cap on free polling just the norm, or inconvenient?
Both free tiers documented here carry a stated cap: Poll Everywhere's FAQ gives up to 40 responses per poll, and Mentimeter's help centre gives a total of 50 participants per month. A cap of 40 responses per poll fits a seminar and stops short of a large lecture. Whether that is inconvenient depends on the group, and the FAQ line gives the limit without saying what happens after it.
Where these facts come from
- polleverywhere.com. polleverywhere.com/product/faq.
- help.mentimeter.com. help.mentimeter.com/en/articles/1258367-what-is-included-in-the-free-account.
- support.polleverywhere.com. support.polleverywhere.com/pe2/setting-audience-restrictions.
- help.mentimeter.com. help.mentimeter.com/en/articles/10774022-choosing-participant-identity-settings-for-your-use-case.
- community.slido.com. community.slido.com/community-q-a-7/how-can-i-make-sure-people-only-vote-once-4185.
This comparison cannot name a winner: the vendor pages it uses state poll limits, join methods and sign-in options, and they leave out prices, question types and whether results can be hidden. Microsoft Forms and SurveyMonkey are not covered, and no user reviews are quoted. Caps and sign-in checks decide who can respond; the organiser decides whether a result counts.
X prohibits coordinating with or compensating others to inflate engagement metrics, and it names Polls among the features covered. The Pet Industry Business Awards name the consequence in their own contest: a business may be investigated, lose votes or be disqualified on reasonable evidence of purchased votes. No seller can stop an organiser from doing that.
Slido says it is alerted when an event gets an unusually high number of votes in a very short time, and Crowdsignal says its built-in measures detect patterns of potentially abusive voting. Ordinary participation arrives spread across the voting window, from different people at different moments. Nothing on this site is a method for getting a vote past a check, and a vote that a tool blocks does not count.
Organiser rules differ: the RSPCA Pet of the Year Awards allow extra votes through donations on their official mechanism, while OpenTable Australia treats a vote cast in exchange for money or a reward as null and void. Both are contest rules, not statutes, and whether payment is lawful where you live is a question for a lawyer. Orders are refused for any contest whose rules ban paid votes, and for political ballots.
Votes ordered for a poll that never appear on its count are refunded after the poll closes. A refund never covers an organiser's decision: Localsearch may void all votes for a disqualified nominee, and Mentimeter says a user whose access it cancels under its Acceptable Use Policy is owed no refund or compensation. No result is promised.