One of the easiest ways to make a meeting or get-together more engaging is to give everyone in the room a way to participate. Kahoot! does just that. It’s an online service that lets you create and host quiz-style games and other interactive content, which the site calls “Kahoots!” (In this review, we instead use “quiz,” “game,” and “interactive content” for clarity.) Whether you’re hosting an employee onboarding seminar or a classroom of spaced-out ninth graders on the last day of school, you can use Kahoot! to drive interaction with a quiz, poll, or request for feedback. It’s remarkably easy to use, giving anyone a chance to add a bit of spark to their get-togethers. Kahoot! is a PCMag Editors’ Choice winner.
What Is Kahoot!?
Kahoot! is an online service for making, hosting, and playing quiz-style games. There’s a mobile app, too, which doubles as a remote control that players use to play a game with a group. For example, you could make a quiz to play at a baby shower and have all the attendees participate simultaneously using their mobile phones to enter their answers to each question. There are three key areas where people use Kahoot!: education, training and engagement, and just for fun.
You can play with people physically in the same room or remotely using a video calling app and its screen-sharing function. There’s a quick overview of how that works later. You can also find quizzes that other people have created and uploaded for anyone to enjoy. These range from quizzes made by language-learning app companies to National Geographic to individual schoolteachers.
How Much Does Kahoot! Cost?
Kahoot! offers several plan types, depending on how you intend to use the tool. They break down into three categories: education, business, and personal.
Education
The education arm, Kahoot! for Schools, has a free tier of service, and paid plans costs between $36-$108 per teacher per year. You cannot pay month-to-month for education accounts. Paid accounts unlock some features you might want in making quizzes. Students participate free. The free level of service gives you basic features for making and hosting games.
A Pro version ($36 per year) unlocks a few question types and game options—for example, you can make a question that has multiple possible answers. Pro also adds the ability to collaborate with colleagues.
Premium teacher members ($72 per year) get access to all the question types, distance learning tools, and the ability to host large quiz games with up to 2,000 players, intended for schoolwide events. Premium members also get personalized learning, meaning the app will make custom quizzes for students based on questions they got wrong in the past.
Finally, Premium+ ($108 per year) has everything in Premium plus the ability to add lesson plans, import slides from presentations, priority support, and a few other perks.
Business
Business plans range from $120-$708 per host per year, with options to pay month-by-month only for the Standard account. The host is the person who creates the quiz or game content.
The Standard account ($15 per month or $120 annually) is good for up to 20 players per game and one host. A Pro membership ($300 per host per year) is good for up to 50 players per game. This level also unlocks templates, polls, puzzles, and a few other features.
Kahoot! 360 Plus ($468 per host per year) is good for hosting up to 100 players per quiz and adds the ability to host interactive presentations. It also unlocks more features, such as the ability for answers to be open-ended. Kahoot! 360 Pro ($708 per host per year) allows for 2,000 players at a time and includes features for tracking learning across an organization, custom branding, and more.
Personal
With Kahoot! for personal use, there’s a free account plus paid options from $6-$18 per month, with discounts if you pay annually.
With a free account, you can have up to 10 players, and you get all the core tools for creating quizzes, as long as the answers are multiple choice and there’s only one correct answer. You also get a flashcard-style study mode
A Home account ($6 per month or $60 annually) supports up to 20 players per game and unlocks additional options for quizzes. A Family account ($9 per month or $90 annually) includes everything in Home plus learning apps for kids and a few features that are currently unreleased. Premier ($18 per month or $180 per year) has everything in Home; supports up to 50 players; and unlocks the full range of options for creating quizzes, including the ability for players to type an answer to a question.
Making Quizzes and Games
The interface for making custom quizzes is extremely easy to use. The interface will seem familiar if you’ve used standard presentation software in the past, like Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, or Apple Keynote.
Creating a quiz is straightforward. When you start to make a new quiz, the app asks if you want to work from scratch or use a template. Once you’re inside the quiz maker, you add questions one slide at a time. A text field at the top holds your question, though it’s limited to 120 characters. In the center you can place either a custom image or add a stock image from a connected library of royalty-free options. At the bottom, you choose what type of answer is possible, whether multiple choice or something else, and indicate the correct response when applicable. You can also adjust how much time respondents have to answer and the point value for the question.
Similar to a presentation app, each question you create appears on a left side rail in thumbnail view. If you have a free Kahoot! account, you’re able to see which features are locked until you upgrade, as they are all noted with an icon.
As a creator, you can save your quizzes, organize them into groups, view reports showing how many people completed them, and more.
Exploring Content
In addition to letting you create custom quizzes, you can explore content on Kahoot! to play for fun or use in a class. On the education side, the site gives you filters for finding interactive content based on subject matter, content type, grade level, and language.
Among the branded content are several well-recognized names, such as National Geographic, Britannica, Disney, and Marvel. Additionally, educators from around the world have also made some of their Kahoot! content available on the site.
If you’re an educator thinking about using some of the preexisting content from Kahoot!, you can quickly see what it contains in a preview that shows each question, the possible answers, and the correct answer. That way, you can verify that the content is accurate and appropriate for your group. In testing, for example, I found a short quiz on legal versus illegal drugs that seemed to be for a general audience, until there was a question about a drug enforcement agency that doesn’t exist in the U.S. That quiz was clearly developed for another region.
Playing a Kahoot!
Kahoot! has a few simulations on its site that let you see in advance how to play a Kahoot! On the screen, you see a mobile device at left and the main screen in the center. If you are playing in a room with other people, you have a common screen for viewing the questions and the mobile devices are remote controls where people enter their answers.
To start, the host launches their quiz on a computer or laptop but can optionally project it to a screen for better viewing. Remote groups can instead use video chat apps such as Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet, and the host can share their content using the screen-sharing feature.
To start, each player must have their own device. They do not need to create a Kahoot! account to play, however. They can continue as guests. When the host begins, the first screen shows a PIN that every player must enter into their interface, which allows everyone to join the same game. If you’ve ever played a game by Jackbox Games (Quiplash, Fibbage, and others), the process of setting up is similar.
Once everyone has joined, the host can begin by showing the first question. Participants read the questions and, for multiple choice questions, choose the image on their screen that matches the correct answer. You proceed similarly through all the questions. Some questions may have different ways to answer, such as putting options into a correct order or typing a response.
One minor annoyance is that the host must manually move the quiz from one question to the next. It would be nice to have an option to automatically move to the next screen after a few seconds.
Additional Features for Businesses
In addition to using Kahoot! to liven up meetings or to host training sessions, there’s more that businesses can do with the service than simply make quizzes.
For example, business users get templates for interactive surveys, brainstorm meetings, interactive presentations, employee feedback polls, and others. If you have an existing slideshow presentation, you can upload your deck and make it interactive by sprinkling questions throughout. Not every slide has to have a question. You can ask for feedback at the end of a meeting, for example, or ask participants to share their knowledge, vote on the direction the meeting should take, and more.
Easily Add Engagement
Kahoot! can help out with many types of business, education, and personal events. It’s incredibly easy to use and can make gatherings interactive. Free accounts are more than sufficient if you just want to use Kahoot! once in a while, and the paid accounts offer enough variety in pricing to keep them accessible. Another plus is that participants don’t have to create accounts in order to play. Kahoot! is an excellent tool for anyone to have in their toolbox, and it’s a PCMag Editors’ Choice for online education apps.
