Wistia Review
Wistia – Powerful, Easy to use, and Affordable Video Hosting
Summary: Only just beaten by Sproutvideo in the Category, Wistia is a powerhouse video hosting program and its analytics features are the star, letting you track each individual viewer’s interactions with you. Some of the advanced features are only unlocked on the higher plans, but these are very reasonably priced.
You would choose Wistia for:
- Almost any video-hosting task you may think of
You might prefer another if:
- They have a specific feature you prefer – Wistia is really great!
| Best for low budgets | Best for analytics | Best for security and customization | Best for monetization | Without distinction | Notable for integrations | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vimeo Pro | Wistia | Sproutvideo | Vzaar | Viddler | Vidyard | |
| HTTPS Compatible | ||||||
| Customizable Player | ||||||
| Unbranded Player | ||||||
| In video Calls to Action | ||||||
| Website does not redirect to 3-rd party | ||||||
| Multiple player themes | x | |||||
| Email Capture | BEST | x | x | x | x | |
| Aggregate Analytics | x | x | x | x | x | BEST |
| Advanced Analytics, individual viewer metrics | BEST | x | x | |||
| Integrations with CRM and marketing automation | x | x | BEST | |||
| Video SEO | x | x | x | x | ||
| Password Protection | x | x | x | x | x | |
| IP Blocking | x | x | ||||
| Embedding Restrictions | x | x | BEST | x | x | x |
| Download Restictions | BEST | x | x | x | ||
| Codes to secure paid content | x | BEST | x | x | x | |
| Allows users to pay directly for premium content | x | x | BEST | |||
| Subscription Services | BEST | |||||
| Advertising | BEST | x | ||||
| Direct Payment (Tip Jar) | BEST | |||||
| Pricing (Basic) | $200/year | $25/month | $50/month | $20/month | $100/month | $79/month |
| 1024GB/year storage, unlimited plays | 100 Videos | 100GB bandwith, 200 GB storage | 250GB bandwith, 100 GB storage | 20 videos | ||
| Pricing (Professional) | - | $100/month | $200/month | $160/month | Custom | $249/month |
| - | 1000 videos | 400 GB bandwith, 800 GB storage | 1000 GB bandwith, 500 GB storage | 100 videos | ||
| Pricing (Enterprise) | - | $300/month | $400/month | $400/month | Custom | $499/month |
| Unlimited videos | 1600 GB Bandwith, 3200 GB Storage | 5 TB bandwith, 1000 GB storage | 300 videos |
Wistia is commended for In video Calls to Action (CTA) option — Best in Class. Also, it is made for easy and comfortable Email capturing which is good for Lead generating. Wistia is especially strong in analytics and customer engagement metrics. The Weaker side of this software is 1) Subscription services and 2) Advertising. Yet, obviously, Wistia has not been made for 3rd party platforms, so advertising was not something they planned from the start (possibly, will add later).
Integrations winner
With a bulk of 3rd party software integration options Wistia tops the category list, probably followed only by Vidyard. We have analysed 31 services over four Categories: 1) Content Management, 2) Email marketing, 3) Social Media and 4) CRM — Wistia integrates with 18 of them. 58% Integration Score is the best result in the Small business video hosting Category!
| Vimeo Pro | Wistia | Sproutvideo | Vzaar | Viddler | Vidyard | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| API | y | y | y | y | y | y |
| HTML5 | y | y | y | y | y | |
| Google Analytics | y | y | ||||
| Contact Form 123 | ||||||
| Zapier | y | |||||
| Wordpress | y | y | ||||
| Drupal | y | y | ||||
| Joomla | y | |||||
| Google Drive | y | |||||
| Evernote | ||||||
| Dropbox | y | |||||
| Mailchimp | y | y | y | y | ||
| Marketo | y | |||||
| Exact Target | y | |||||
| Eloqua | y | |||||
| Act-on | y | |||||
| ConstantContact | y | |||||
| Aweber | y | y | ||||
| y | ||||||
| y | ||||||
| Tumblr | y | |||||
| Youtube | y | y | ||||
| Hootsuite | y | |||||
| Salesforce | y | |||||
| Salesforce Chatter | y | |||||
| Salesforce Pardot | y | y | ||||
| Hubspot | y | y | ||||
| InfusionSoft | y | |||||
| Shopify | y | |||||
| Magento | y |
Nominations
Runner-up
Our all time favourite Wistia has lost its 1 vs. 1 battle to SproutVideo and therefore gets the ‘Silver’ of the category. In addition to this nomination, Wistia holds the gold as the Best for analytics. Overall, Wistia and Sproutvideo were very evenly matched and were really hard to choose between. Both have very affordable basic plans and expand as your business grows. Sproutvideo just got the win as it makes its advanced features available on the lower priced packages, as well as more extensive security features.
Battle wins
Battle wins: 4/5
Wistia has a fuller feature set and a lower price to activate them all as compared to other contenders. So, definitely, Features set is Wistia’s strong side. In addition to that, Wistia plays very nicely with other apps and has integration support for email marketing, content management, and ecommerce as well as social media. What is not there, is Language support (only available in English) and an ability to unlock Full power in the lower priced packages.
