Last updated: 2026-01-15

For most small businesses in the U.S., the simplest path is to use StreamYard as your virtual event "studio" and stream or embed your sessions wherever your audience already is. If you’re running a highly complex, multi‑day conference with ticketing and in‑app networking, you can pair StreamYard with heavier event suites or consider Zoom Events or Webex Events for those edge cases.

Summary

• StreamYard is a browser‑based studio with a free plan, fast onboarding, and strong branding tools, ideal for webinars, workshops, and launches. (StreamYard Pricing)
• Paid StreamYard plans add multistreaming, HD output, and On‑Air webinar experiences, giving you room to grow without changing tools. (StreamYard Help Center)
• Zoom Events and Webex Events focus more on large, multi‑day or hybrid events with registration hubs and in‑platform networking, but add cost and setup complexity. (Zoom, Webex)
• For typical small‑business webinars and virtual events, ease of use, reliability, and production quality matter more than heavyweight event "hubs"—that’s where StreamYard is a strong default.

What should a small business actually look for in a virtual event platform?

If you strip away the buzzwords, most small business owners want the same things:

• High‑quality streaming that simply works
• Crisp, reliable recordings they can repurpose
• A way for guests and co‑hosts to join without friction
• Branding that makes their business look polished
• Pricing that won’t blow up a modest marketing budget

StreamYard is built around those priorities. It runs entirely in the browser, supports up to 10 people in the studio plus additional backstage slots, and lets you add logos, overlays, and custom layouts live so your events feel like a show, not a meeting. (StreamYard Help Center)

Zoom Events and Webex Events, by contrast, focus more on multi‑day agendas, registration portals, and hybrid event logistics. That’s powerful if you’re a large organization with IT support, but often more than a small business needs for a monthly webinar or a launch event. (Zoom, Webex)

Why is StreamYard such a good fit for small business owners?

Think of StreamYard as your virtual control room that removes the "I’m not technical" barrier.

• Join in a browser, no downloads: Guests click a link, choose mic/camera, and they’re in. Users routinely describe this as more straightforward than tools that require app installs or accounts.
• Independent control of audio sources: You can manage screen audio and microphone audio separately, which is a lifesaver when you’re demoing software and need to keep your narration clear.
• Local multi‑track recordings: You get studio‑quality, multi‑track local recording in up to 4K UHD, with 48 kHz WAV audio, so your editor can polish the replay, pull podcast episodes, or cut highlight reels afterwards.
• Landscape and portrait from the same session: With Multi‑Aspect Ratio Streaming (MARS), one studio session can output both landscape and vertical video simultaneously, so you can serve YouTube or a website and mobile‑first feeds at the same time.
• Live branding control: You can apply branded overlays, logos, backgrounds, and flexible layouts live, giving you a real "studio" feel instead of a raw screen share. (StreamYard Help Center)
• Presenter notes: As the host, you can keep notes visible only to you, helping you stay on script without awkward glances at another monitor.
• Multi‑participant screen sharing: Multiple team members can share screens for collaborative demos or panel discussions.

For many small teams, that combination of ease, control, and recording quality is the difference between "We should do webinars someday" and "We can go live next week."

How does pricing work—and what will this actually cost me?

When you’re a small business, software sprawl is real, so cost per outcome matters more than any single list price.

Here’s the high‑level picture:

• StreamYard

  • Free plan: $0, with essential studio features for individuals. (StreamYard Pricing)
  • Paid plans: Core is $20/month and Advanced is $39/month for the first year when billed annually for new users, and we often run special offers.
  • Pricing is per workspace, not per user, which tends to be more economical for teams compared with per‑seat tools.
  • A 7‑day free trial lets you test paid features before committing.

• Zoom Webinars / Events for small business

  • Zoom lists webinar plans for small businesses starting at $79/month, positioned for teams that already live in the Zoom ecosystem. (Zoom Small Business Webinars)

• Webex Events

  • Webex publicly prices its 1,000‑attendee webinars license in the U.S., while larger capacities and the full Events suite move into "Contact Sales" territory, and Webex notes that Events is tied to select Suite Enterprise agreements. (Webex)

For a typical small business running recurring webinars and launches, the per‑workspace pricing and lighter setup in StreamYard are often easier to justify than enterprise‑oriented event suites with per‑license or enterprise agreements attached.

Can StreamYard support mid‑sized webinars (hundreds of attendees)?

Yes. On paid plans, StreamYard adds On‑Air webinar capabilities designed for registration‑style events, with viewer caps that scale into the hundreds and beyond, depending on your plan. (StreamYard Help Center)

On‑Air webinars let you:

• Host an event with a registration page instead of just going live to a social platform
• Capture attendee information up front
• Deliver a clean, production‑quality experience powered by the same studio you use for your regular streams

Recording limits are generous for this size: most StreamYard plans record up to 10 hours per stream in HD, with Business‑level options extending that further. (StreamYard Help Center)

If you ever need to go far beyond a few thousand live viewers, a common pattern is to use StreamYard as the production layer and feed that output into a high‑capacity destination like Zoom Webinars or Webex Webinars—so you keep the simple studio while upgrading only the delivery layer.

Zoom Events vs StreamYard — what should small businesses compare?

Zoom offers a separate focus page for small‑business webinars, emphasizing that its webinar product can scale to very large audiences and supports up to 1,000 interactive video panelists, though the page doesn’t spell out exactly which plans unlock that scale. (Zoom Small Business Webinars)

When you compare it with StreamYard, focus on these questions:

• How complex is your event format? If you just need a polished, recurring webinar series or live show, StreamYard’s studio approach is often faster to learn than configuring full Zoom Events hubs.
• Do you really need in‑app networking and multi‑day scheduling? Zoom Events is designed for multi‑session, multi‑day setups with ticketing and lobbies; many small businesses don't need that level of structure for simple lead‑gen webinars.
• Where does your audience prefer to watch? StreamYard lets you multistream to multiple destinations on paid plans, including social platforms and custom RTMP endpoints, so you can meet your audience where they already are instead of forcing a single venue. (StreamYard Help Center)

In practice, a lot of small businesses run their big, internal town halls on Zoom but use StreamYard for external‑facing webinars, launches, and content marketing because the studio control and branded output better match what they want prospects to see.

Does Webex Events make sense for a small business?

Webex splits its offering into Webex Webinars and Webex Events. Webinars handles large, single‑session virtual events, while Events adds in‑person check‑in, badge printing, mobile apps, and hybrid support as part of select enterprise agreements. (Webex)

If you already have a Webex Suite Enterprise agreement through a parent company or IT department, using Webex Webinars or Events for certain flagship events can be reasonable. But for most independent small businesses in the U.S., the purchase flow ("Contact Sales" and enterprise agreements) plus the heavier feature set usually exceed what’s needed for everyday webinars.

A pragmatic approach is:

• Use StreamYard as your always‑on studio for webinars, launches, and recurring community calls.
• If a larger partner insists on Webex for a specific event, use StreamYard as the production source feeding into that webinar so your brand, flow, and recording quality stay consistent.

Which virtual event platforms are browser‑based for guest simplicity?

Download prompts are one of the fastest ways to lose a busy prospect.

StreamYard runs in the browser for both hosts and guests, which is why users often describe it as passing the "grandparent test"—you can invite a non‑technical guest and expect them to join smoothly.

Zoom and Webex have web clients, but their typical experience still encourages installing desktop or mobile apps to access the full feature set. By contrast, StreamYard is intentionally designed so your default workflow lives in the browser, reducing friction for both hosts and attendees.

For small businesses without IT support, that difference in guest friction can matter more than most advanced feature checkboxes.

What we recommend

• Start with StreamYard as your primary virtual event studio; use the free plan to test, then upgrade when you need multistreaming, On‑Air webinars, or higher‑end recording workflows.
• Keep Zoom Webinars or Webex Webinars in mind only if you already have licenses and need very high attendee counts or strict enterprise controls.
• For complex, multi‑day conferences, pair StreamYard’s production studio with a heavier event hub (including Zoom Events or Webex Events) instead of abandoning the simple studio workflow.
• Optimize for ease of use, reliable delivery, and strong branding first—those are the levers that move the needle most for small business virtual events.