Compare Questro as a Wordly alternative for AI live captions, readable event-screen captions, and real-time translation from a browser workspace.
Wordly is a mature AI translation and captioning platform for meetings and events, built around translated audio, captions, transcripts, summaries, and platform integrations. Questro focuses on the live-room caption workflow: browser audio input, readable display links, mobile caption links, and script context inside the same workspace as the event timer, moderated Q&A, and teleprompter. That difference in scope is why most searches for Wordly alternatives are not really searches for a cheaper Wordly. They come from a team that has priced a full language-access platform, looked at what it would actually use on the day, and found the list is short: captions on the room screen, a translated line under them, and a link attendees can open on a phone. It cuts the other way too — if the program needs attendees listening in their own language through an earpiece, or a translated transcript circulated the next morning, that is a platform requirement and no amount of caption polish substitutes for it.
Wordly provides same-language and translated captions for meetings, conferences, and events, translated subtitles, and audio and caption output on every published plan, plus session transcripts on all plans and transcript translation, voice transcripts, and summaries on its higher tiers. Attendees join by QR code or link with no downloads and no account, and Wordly names Cvent, Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Webex, Encore, and other event platforms among its integrations. Questro provides AI live captions and real-time translated caption text on venue displays and attendee mobile caption links, with private operator setup in the event workspace; it does not produce translated audio, transcripts, summaries, or meeting-platform integrations. Wordly publishes "dozens of languages" and more than 3,000 language pairs; Questro listens in 18 source languages — nine fully supported and nine marked Beta in the source picker — with a target menu of 69 languages, and uses script upload for vocabulary boost, term lock, and fallback guard where Wordly uses glossaries and blocklists. Wordly details reflect its published product and pricing pages as of August 2026.
Questro AI Captions produces readable text and nothing else. There is no synthesized voice, no audio channel, no receiver to hand out at the door, and no plan to add one. If an attendee needs to listen in their own language rather than read, Questro cannot serve them and Wordly can, because audio output is on every plan Wordly publishes. What the text-only trade buys is reach: a caption display link is a web page, so the same session can feed the venue screen, a confidence monitor, a stream layout, and every phone in the room at once, with nothing rented and nothing installed. In a 600-seat hall that is a materially different logistics problem from distributing hardware. It also changes who can run it — a caption operator needs a browser and a microphone feed the machine can hear, which is work the AV crew already in the room can absorb rather than a separate booking.
General speech recognition handles ordinary sentences well. What it mangles is exactly the vocabulary an event cares about: the chief executive’s surname, the product codename, the three-letter acronym that means something different in every other industry. Left alone, a caption line that gets those wrong reads as broken even when the rest is perfect. Questro handles this with script upload: give it a script, speaker notes, an agenda, or a plain list of terms before the session and it extracts the names, brands, acronyms, and technical terms, then applies them to recognition and translation. The document does not have to be final, and for prepared remarks script alignment also acts as a fallback when the live audio is incomplete or delayed. Wordly solves the same problem from the other direction, with glossaries and blocklists it lists on all published plans and shared glossaries on higher tiers. Neither approach is a guarantee, and neither removes the rehearsal step.
Private setup and public captions are separate URLs, not two states of one window, which is what lets the display run on a venue machine your team does not own. The operator holds a private control link: pick the source and target languages, choose the microphone or audio interface, upload the script, start and stop recognition, and watch the remaining AI Captions minutes, none of which appears on the room screen. The display link is public — large source captions with the translated line, sized to read from the back row — and because it is a plain web page it opens on a venue laptop, a TV, a confidence monitor, or inside a stream layout. Attendees who cannot see the main screen open the same public link in a phone browser, with nothing to install. The same display-and-control split runs Timer, moderated Q&A, and Teleprompter in the same event.
Choose Wordly when translated audio is required as well as captions because attendees need to listen rather than read, when broad speaker-language coverage is central and speakers will use languages Questro does not listen in, when transcripts, translated transcripts, voice transcripts, or AI summaries are required after the session, when meeting and event platform integrations such as Cvent, Zoom, or Teams are part of the workflow, when the program runs enough hours a year that an annual hour package is the natural buying shape, or when procurement needs enterprise controls such as workspaces, SSO, or configurable data storage. Questro is not trying to replace Wordly's full translation platform.
Choose Questro when the main need is readable AI captions and translation display on the screens in the room, the event source speech is one of the 18 languages Questro listens in, attendees need venue-screen captions or a mobile caption link with nothing to install, captions should sit beside Timer, Q&A, and Teleprompter in one browser workspace, you are buying for a single event where a one-time $99 pass fits better than an annual commitment, or the person running captions is AV crew already in the room rather than a separate booking.
Switching starts with the event requirements. Decide whether attendees need to listen or to read, and if any of them need audio in their own language, stop and keep Wordly. Decide whether anyone needs a transcript or summary afterwards, because Questro produces neither. Confirm the source language is one of the 18 Questro listens in and pick the target caption language. Then create the event and AI Captions session in Questro, upload speaker notes, agenda text, or terminology lists for script context, test the microphone or audio interface in Chrome or Edge on the machine that will run the operator page, open the caption display link on the venue screen and check it from the back row, share the mobile caption link with attendees who need their own view, run a rehearsal with real speaker names, acronyms, and technical terms, and check the remaining AI Captions minutes in Settings against the length of the run of show.
AI captions are support, not a guarantee. For high-stakes legal, medical, diplomatic, or similar interpretation, use human review or a professional interpreter. On pricing, Questro publishes flat figures: Free includes 15 AI Captions minutes, Pro is $19 per month or $15 per month billed annually and includes 2 AI Captions hours per month, and the one-time $99 7-Day Event Pass includes 10 AI Captions hours plus Timer, Q&A, and Teleprompter for that event without renewing. Wordly sells annual hours instead, listing Starter at 10 hours, Pro at 25, Pro + at 50, Corporate at 100, Corporate + at 250, and Enterprise at 500+, with higher tiers adding shared glossaries, transcript translation, voice transcripts, summaries, and enterprise controls. It does not publish dollar figures, so a like-for-like price comparison is not possible from the outside. Check wordly.ai for current terms.