UW-Madison Zoom - Meeting vs. Webinar

What is a meeting event?

Zoom meetings are ideal for hosting more interactive sessions where you’ll want to have lots of audience participation or break your session into smaller groups.

What is a concurrent meeting?

By default, individuals can host up to 2 meetings at the same time. The concurrent meeting add-on license allows you to host up to 20 concurrent meetings. Meetings need to be started by the original host and cannot be started by an alternative host. The host can leave the meeting and pass host privileges to another user if needed.

What is a webinar event?

Think of webinars like a virtual lecture hall or auditorium. Webinars are ideal for large audiences or events that are open to the public. Typically, webinar attendees do not interact with one another. Though Zoom provides options for you to get more social with your attendees, your average webinar has one or a few people speaking to an audience.

Participant Limits

Meeting and webinar full comparison

When to Use Meetings vs. Webinars

How can I host a meeting with more than 300 participants?

If you need to host a meeting with more than 300 participants, the owner of the event will need to request an add-on license. The following add-ons are available for request:

    Meeting 500
    Meeting 1000

How can I host a webinar?

You must have a webinar license assigned to the account hosting the event (NetID or service account) to create a webinar event - see below for steps on how to request this add-on license. The following webinar add-ons are available for request:

    Webinar 500
    Webinar 1000

Important: If you are making a request to assign this add-on to a service account, make sure you the service account has already been licensed for UW-Madison Zoom account.

How can I request an add-on license?

Learn how to request a Zoom add-on.

The information you provide will be vetted by Zoom leadership for approval.