Wistia vs. Vimeo: Which is better for my business?

Wistia and Vimeo are both video hosting platforms that come with a ton of video content creation tools, live streaming, video analytics, and video marketing tools. If you just want to get ad-free videos embedded on your website, you really can’t go wrong with either option.

But if you’re looking to take things further, Wistia is built explicitly for businesses with marketing in mind. With Wistia, you’ll be able to drive more traffic to your site, convert more customers, and measure the impact of your video marketing strategy.

This head-to-head comparison will focus on how Wistia and Vimeo are similar and different. Learn more about these video marketing platforms and what features and benefits are best for your business.

Why Wistia delivers more marketing ROI

Plain and simple, Wistia is built for marketers. We’re focused on helping small and medium-sized businesses thrive with video. Here’s a quick list of how Wistia excels in helping your business:

Drive more traffic to your website

First off, both Vimeo and Wistia have a video gallery feature: Vimeo Showcase and Wistia Channels. Both platforms ensure those galleries are optimized for visibility in Google Search.

The main difference is that Vimeo Showcases always rank for a web page on vimeo.com. On the other hand, Wistia Channels ensure your website ranks wherever you embed your Channel. And, Wistia ensures every video in that Channel also ranks in video search as well.

“With Wistia we have more control over our data. The content is hosted only on our site, not in multiple places like you see with YouTube or Vimeo.”

Convert viewers to customers

When your business uses videos in marketing, it’s often more important to ensure the quality of views, not just the quantity.

A/B testing videos

Wistia allows you to A/B test variations of your videos, collect test data, and then choose the winning version that performs best. You can measure play rate and play count, see overall audience engagement. And, split-test thumbnails, edits, and interactive elements (like CTAs and Turnstile forms) for any two videos in your account.

Video analytics tools

Vimeo shows you how many people have watched your video. Wistia goes beyond that by showing you who those people are, how many videos each viewer has watched, and precisely where each person dropped off. With Wistia Heatmaps, you can see which parts of your video were watched, rewatched, or skipped.

Marketing automation platform integrations

All of the viewing data in Wistia connects right to your other favorite marketing tools, like our HubSpot integration. With our integrations, you can use video data to score leads. That way, your sales team reaches out to every prospect with more personalized context every time.

With our integrations, you can also sync any form submissions made directly on your video with our Turnstile email collector. Combined with calls to action (CTAs) on your videos, you’re sure to help potential customers take the next step.

Measure the impact of video

And finally, let’s discuss measuring video performance. Wistia integrates first-party data collection with all the tools you’re currently using in your marketing tech stack, including Google Analytics! You can see how visitors are discovering your videos and when these videos are contributing to conversions. That way, you can calculate the ROI of your video efforts!

How the Video Hosting Platforms Compare

Now, here’s a comparison of some key similarities between the two video hosting platforms. Let’s compare Vimeo vs Wistia!

Pricing plans

Both video hosting platforms offer a free plan and several paid plans depending on your company’s marketing goals and needs. While both platforms offer similarly priced plans, Vimeo does offer a couple more account tier options!

Custom embed options

Each hosting platform offers video player customization options, including uploading a logo watermark. Many companies use Wistia and Vimeo to embed videos on their websites and benefit from the advanced tools and analytics these platforms provide.

Customer Support

Both platforms offer customer support, but we’re not afraid to say we’ve got the best in the biz! We also have an extensive learning center to teach you all things video production and video marketing from our industry experts and resources.

User Reviews

Each of these companies has great reviews online… but Wistia has the leg up! Don’t believe us? Check out our reviews on G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra, or just search for your favorite review site!

Which is better, Vimeo or Wistia?

If you want to get started with the basics of video marketing, both Vimeo and Wistia have you covered. Vimeo is a great platform for many use cases and it’s also generally cheaper. But if you’re serious about using video to grow your business, then Wistia is the platform for you!

If you want a video hosting platform that can help your business with these marketing goals:

• Drive traffic to your website, not theirs (Vimeo)
• Convert viewers into customers with CTAs and forms
• Measure the impact of your videos with advanced marketing tools

Well, then, we’d love for you to try us out! Get started with a Wistia free plan today and discover how we can help you bring your video marketing strategy to the next level.