What's a Good Webinar Registration-to-Attendance Rate in 2026?

A good webinar registration-to-attendance rate in 2026 is between 44% and 50% of registrants actually showing up live. That range comes from Livestorm's 2026 Webinar Benchmark Report, which analyzed 33,786 webinar sessions and more than 7 million registrations run on its platform in 2025, and put the average show-up rate at 47.7%.

Multiple Independent Reports Land in the Same Range

The Livestorm number isn't an outlier. Contrast's 2026 analysis of over 1 million registrants found a cross-industry median attendance rate of 41.6% and a mean of 46.2%, pulled higher by high-intent event formats. Univid's 2026 report, tracking more than 325,000 attendees, found a similar 47%-49% show-up rate. A joint GoTo and Bizzabo Webinar Attendance Optimization Report, published in March 2026, put the current benchmark range at 44% to 57%. Four separately run studies converging on roughly the same 40-50% band is a reasonable sign the number reflects a real, stable pattern rather than one platform's quirks.

What Pushes Attendance Well Above Baseline

Incentive structure moves the needle more than almost anything else measured. Webinars that offered a confirmed-attendee exclusive — something only available to people who actually showed up live, like an early benchmark report or an industry certification — reached a median attendance rate of 61.7% in Livestorm's data, the highest category-specific result recorded in the report's seven-year history.

• Standard registration, no incentive: 44%-50% typical show-up rate
• Confirmed-attendee exclusive incentive: 61.7% median show-up rate
• Cross-industry median across 1M+ registrants (Contrast): 41.6%

Registrations and Live Attendance Aren't the Same Success Metric

A common mistake is optimizing a webinar campaign purely for registration volume. Because show-up rate stays fairly consistent within a given promotion type and audience, doubling registrations by loosening targeting or widening the promotion typically pulls in lower-intent signups — which drags the show-up rate down rather than simply doubling the live audience.

This is why comparing your own show-up rate against a single published benchmark number can be misleading without checking how that benchmark's registrant list was built. A benchmark drawn mostly from gated, high-intent content offers will naturally run higher than one built from broad paid-social promotion, so the more useful comparison is against your own program's history and promotion mix rather than an external number in isolation.

Bottom Line

Plan for roughly 45% live attendance from any given registration list in 2026, treat a rate meaningfully below 40% as a signal to look at your promotion targeting rather than your reminder emails, and consider a confirmed-attendee-only incentive if lifting show-up rate matters more than lifting raw registration count. Whichever benchmark you plan against, track it over your last several webinars rather than a single event, since one heavily promoted or poorly timed session can swing an individual show-up rate well outside the typical range without reflecting a real change in your audience.

Sources: Livestorm's 2026 Webinar Benchmark Report (33,786 sessions, 7M+ registrations); cross-checked against Contrast's 2026 webinar benchmarks (1M+ registrants), Univid's 2026 webinar statistics report (325,000+ attendees), and the GoTo/Bizzabo Webinar Attendance Optimization Report (March 2026).