Slido Free Plan Limits Explained — and What to Do for a One-Off Event
“Is the Slido free plan enough for my event?” comes down to three numbers. The Basic (free) plan gives you unlimited Audience Q&A and is comfortable to use — but caps you at 100 participants per event, 3 polls and 1 quiz, and locks data export and question moderation behind paid tiers. For a small internal session that is plenty. The part most reviews skip is what happens when you outgrow it: Slido does not sell a monthly plan, so lifting those limits means either an annual subscription you will mostly leave idle, or a one-time event plan starting around $80. This article lays out exactly what the free plan includes, where each limit bites, what upgrading actually costs, and the pay-per-use option the free-vs-annual choice tends to hide.
- The hard caps are 100 participants per slido, 3 polls per event and 1 quiz per event — a single mid-sized workshop can hit all three
- Data export (CSV/Excel) and question moderation are not on the free plan; a "Powered by Slido" presence stays on screen
- Slido has no monthly billing: lifting the limits means an annual plan (reported from around $150/year for 200 participants) or a one-time event plan (around $80/$250/$700 per event, one slido up to 7 days)
- If you run one or two events a year, a flat pay-per-use tool like ZENIN CLOUD ($70 for 7 days, $10/day) avoids both the caps and the idle subscription
Slido free plan at a glance
What the Slido free (Basic) plan actually includes
Start with what the free plan does well, because the honest answer is: more than most "free plan limits" posts admit. Slido’s Basic plan is free forever and is built so you can run a real, if small, session without paying — its standout feature is unlimited Audience Q&A, where participants submit and upvote questions with no cap on how many come in (Wooclap).
- Unlimited Audience Q&A — no limit on questions submitted or upvoted, the single most useful thing on the free tier
- Up to 100 participants in one event
- 3 polls and 1 quiz per event (multiple-choice, open text, rating, ranking and more as poll types)
- Event analytics, passcode protection, 30+ present-mode themes, and an image/GIF library for polls (GetApp)
In other words, if your use case is a small team meeting or a classroom-sized session that leans on live questions, the free plan is not a crippled demo — it is a working tool. The limits that actually decide whether it fits a real event are three specific numbers, and they are worth understanding before you build your whole run of show on top of them.
The limits that bite: 100 participants, 3 polls, 1 quiz
Three caps separate "works for my event" from "stops me mid-session." The first is the participant limit of 100 per event — counted as the people who join a single slido. Cross it and additional attendees cannot join in; for an all-hands, a conference track or a sales kickoff, 100 is easy to exceed (Wooclap).
The second and third are about content: the free plan allows 3 polls and 1 quiz per event. A poll is one question, so a session that wants a warm-up multiple-choice, two topic polls and a closing rating has already used its three. The single quiz means you cannot run, say, a two-round game. These are per-event limits, not per-account, but they still shape how much interaction you can script.
Any one cap is survivable on its own. The problem is that a typical mid-sized workshop — 120 people, a few polls across the agenda, and a quiz — breaks all three at once. It is worth counting your planned questions against the limit of three before the day, not during it.
What's locked behind a paid plan: export, moderation, branding
Beyond the live caps, two things the free plan does not give you tend to matter most after the event and during it. Data export is a paid feature — on the free plan you cannot download your poll results and Q&A to CSV or Excel, so anything you want for a follow-up report has to be screenshotted while the session is open (GetApp).
Question moderation is also paid, appearing on the Professional tier. On the free plan, submitted questions go live without an approval step, so for a public webinar or a town hall where anonymous posts could turn awkward, you are relying on someone deleting items after they appear rather than approving them before. There is also a visible Slido presence in present mode that paid plans reduce.
Why moderation matters more than it sounds
Anonymous Q&A is the free plan’s best feature and its biggest exposure. Without pre-approval, one off-topic or abusive post lands on the shared screen in front of everyone before anyone can react. If your event is internal and friendly, that risk is small; if it is public or politically charged, the lack of free moderation is a real reason to budget for a paid tier — or a tool that filters posts automatically.
The catch nobody mentions: Slido has no monthly plan
Here is the part that reframes the whole free-vs-paid question. Slido does not offer monthly billing. Its standard paid plans are billed annually, and reported pricing starts around $150 per year for the entry Engage tier (lifting the cap to roughly 200 participants) and scales up toward enterprise (Vendr, Wooclap).
Slido does sell one-time event plans for exactly this situation — a single conference or annual meeting without a year-round commitment. A one-time plan covers one slido lasting up to 7 continuous days, with reported pricing around $80 per event (Engage), $250 (Professional) and $700 (Premium), scaling by participant capacity (Slido Community).
So the real choice for an occasional organizer is not "free or $17 a month." It is "live within the free caps, pay for a whole year you will mostly not use, or pay a one-time event fee." That is a fine deal if you run a single large conference a year. It is an awkward one if you run three medium events and each needs a little more than the free plan allows.
When the free plan is enough — and when to pay
The free plan is the right answer more often than upgrade-focused reviews suggest. Use it as-is when your session is small and Q&A-led. Start pricing a paid option only when a specific limit will actually stop you on the day.
Stay on free when
- Your audience is under 100 and unlikely to grow
- You need three or fewer polls and at most one quiz
- Live Q&A is the main interaction and you do not need a formal export afterwards
- The event is internal, so unmoderated anonymous questions are low-risk
Pay (or switch) when
- You expect more than 100 participants, or cannot predict the number
- Your run of show needs more than three polls or more than one quiz
- You must export results for a post-event report
- You need to approve questions before they hit the screen at a public event
If you land in the "pay" column but only run events occasionally, the annual subscription is the wrong shape — you would be buying twelve months to cover a handful of days. That is the gap a pay-per-use tool fills, and it is worth comparing total cost before you commit. Our full write-up on the trade-off lives at Slido alternatives for a single event.
What to do for a one-off event: a pay-per-use alternative
If your honest usage is "a few events a year, each a bit bigger than the free plan allows," the cleanest fix is to pay only for the days you run. ZENIN CLOUD is priced that way: $70 for 7 days ($10/day), pay per use, with no contract and no plan-based participant cap — hundreds to thousands can join by scanning a QR code, no app or login required. See the current terms on the pricing page.
On the three limits that bite on Slido’s free tier, the model is different by design: no participant cap tied to a plan, unlimited polls rather than three, and CSV export on every plan so your results are not trapped in a screenshot. Abusive or off-topic posts are handled by an AI classifier that blocks them automatically, which is the moderation layer Slido reserves for its paid Professional tier.
This is a fit question, not a verdict. If you present weekly and want Slido’s integrations with Webex, Teams and PowerPoint, an annual plan amortizes well and the ecosystem is strong. But for the specific case of a one-off event that needs a little more than the free plan — and does not justify a year-long subscription — paying for seven days rather than twelve months is the shape that matches the usage. If you came here from the Mentimeter side of the decision, the same logic is laid out in Mentimeter free plan limits explained.
Will the free plan actually cover your event?
If two or more of these are true, the free plan will stop you mid-event — price a paid tier or a pay-per-use tool first.
Frequently asked questions
How many participants does the Slido free plan allow?
Up to 100 participants per event (per slido). Once 100 people have joined a single event, additional attendees cannot join in on the free Basic plan. Lifting the cap requires a paid plan — the entry Engage tier raises it to roughly 200 participants, and higher tiers scale into the thousands.
How many polls and quizzes can I run on the free plan?
The free Basic plan allows 3 polls and 1 quiz per event. A poll is a single question, so a session with a warm-up poll, two topic polls and a closing rating has already used its three. Audience Q&A, by contrast, is unlimited on the free plan.
Can I export my results on the Slido free plan?
No. Data export (to CSV or Excel) is a paid feature. On the free plan you can see results live during the session but cannot download them afterwards, so if you need the data for a follow-up report you have to screenshot it while the event is open or upgrade to a paid plan.
Does Slido offer a monthly plan or a single-event option?
Slido does not offer monthly billing. Standard paid plans are billed annually (reported from around $150/year for the Engage tier). For a single occasion, Slido sells one-time event plans that cover one slido lasting up to 7 continuous days, reported at roughly $80, $250 and $700 per event depending on participant capacity.
Is the Slido free plan good enough for a one-off event?
It depends on size and needs. For an internal session under 100 people that leans on live Q&A and needs no export, the free plan is genuinely enough. For a larger or public event — or one where you need more than three polls, moderation, or exported results — you will need to pay. Because Slido has no monthly plan, occasional organizers often find a pay-per-use tool (used only on event days) cheaper than an annual subscription.
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