Understanding Zoom Webinars Plus and Events metering attendance

Both Zoom Events and Zoom Webinars Plus offer powerful tools for metering attendance and understanding participant engagement. These features are invaluable for organizers looking to gather insights on participant behavior, assess the effectiveness of their events, and improve future sessions. By leveraging the detailed analytics and reporting tools provided by Zoom, organizers can ensure their events meet the needs of their audience and achieve their objectives.

Requirements for understanding metering attendance for Zoom Events and Zoom Webinars Plus

Table of Contents

Metering behavior by event type

Note: Speakers and other special roles (including panelists, alternative hosts, interpreters, moderators, and similar roles) count toward the event’s capacity. However, even if the event has reached its capacity limit, users with these special roles are still allowed to join the event.

 
Event typeMetering triggerAdditional information

Single-session (Lite)

When an attendee joins the waiting room or live session.

  • No lobby is available.
  • Recording access is not available inside the event.

Single-session (Full)

When an attendee joins the waiting room or live session.

  • A lobby is available before, during, and after the session, but it is not metered.

  • Recording playback in the lobby is metered separately based on clicks on Watch recording.

Recurring sessions

When an attendee joins the waiting room or live session. If the same attendee joins two different sessions, they will be metered twice.

  • A lobby is available before, during, and after the session, but it is not metered.

  • Recording playback in the lobby is metered separately based on clicks on Watch recording.

  • Each session occurrence is metered individually, up to the license capacity. Metering is not accumulated across all occurrences.

    Example: If your license allows 500 attendees and your recurring session has 3 event instances, each event can include up to 500 attendees. In this case, if 300 people join the first event instance and 400 join the second, each event instance is measured separately against the 500 attendee limit. The attendee counts are not combined across all occurrences.

Multi-session events

When an attendee joins the waiting room, live session, or lobby. If the same attendee joins two different sessions, they will be metered twice.

  • A lobby is available before, during, and after the sessions.

  • Lobby participation is metered—being in the lobby counts toward capacity.

  • Recording playback in the lobby is implicitly metered.

Recurring multi-session events

When an attendee joins the waiting room, live session, or lobby. If the same attendee joins two different sessions, they will be metered twice.

  • A lobby is available before, during, and after the sessions.

  • Lobby participation is metered—being in the lobby counts toward capacity.

  • Recording playback in the lobby is implicitly metered.

Video CMS

When a viewer watches a video for more than 5 seconds.

Learn more about how metering works for Zoom Webinars Plus and Events Video CMS.

Paid event

Metering is based on actual attendance, same as for free events.

 

Hybrid/In-person event

Metered based on virtual attendees.

 

 

 

Pay-Per-Attendee and Unlimited plans metering behavior

Pay-Per-Attendee metering follows the same logic as Unlimited plans metering. The following outlines how Pay-Per-Attendee seats are consumed across different event scenarios.

General rules

How to check actual license capacity usage

Web portal

  1. Sign in to Zoom web portal.
  2. In the left navigation menu, scroll down and click Analytics & Reports.
  3. Select Webinars Plus & Events.

Events portal

  1. Sign in to Zoom Events.
  2. Choose between these two based on event type: