NameWheel vs AhaSlides Spinner Wheel: A Presentation Tool or a Standalone Wheel?

These two are not really rivals; they are different kinds of tool that both happen to spin a wheel. AhaSlides is an interactive presentation platform, and its spinner wheel is one slide type among polls, quizzes, word clouds and Q&A. NameWheel is a standalone wheel with tools around it. The right choice depends on whether the wheel is part of a presentation or the whole point. We build NameWheel; every AhaSlides fact below comes from its own pages and documentation, linked.

Side by Side

Sources, read on 29 October 2026: AhaSlides spinner wheel, AhaSlides pricing (shown to us in euros) and the spinner wheel documentation; NameWheel features and pricing.

Getting Names on the Wheel

This is the real difference between the two. In AhaSlides, the audience joins your presentation on their phones with a code, and the spinner can fill itself with the names of everyone who has joined. Nobody has to type a class list. The documentation adds one practical warning: the wheel takes the names of people who joined before the slide opened, so open the spinner once everyone is in. You can also type or paste entries yourself, and the docs describe turning word cloud answers into wheel entries.

NameWheel starts from a list. You type or paste names, one per line, from a spreadsheet, a class roster or a chat export, and the wheel is ready. There is nothing for the audience to join, which is faster when you already have the list and the only thing that matters is the pick. A list can also arrive in a link, so a teacher can bookmark one wheel per class.

Limits and Prices

The AhaSlides free plan allows 50 participants per month, and per presentation; the paid plans lift that. A teacher with two classes of 25 who uses phone sign in reaches that limit quickly. On AhaSlides' published plan table, Essential costs €7.25 a month billed yearly with 100 participants per presentation, and Pro costs €15.25 a month with 2,500. It also offers education pricing for teachers, students and nonprofits. All plans include the spinner wheel and the integrations.

NameWheel has no participant concept, so there is no limit to reach: the wheel takes whatever list you give it. PRO, at $9.99 a month, $49 a year or $99 once, adds weighted entries, photos, your logo, Bracket mode, Google Sheets live sync and unlimited certified spin videos. If you need AhaSlides for its polls and quizzes anyway, its spinner comes with that subscription; if the wheel is all you need, paying for a presentation platform to get one is hard to justify.

When the Result Is Questioned

In a lesson or a meeting, nobody audits a spinner. In a prize draw, someone eventually asks how the winner was chosen. AhaSlides' spinner documentation covers adding entries, weighting and display, and does not describe a published record of a spin that others can check.

NameWheel's certified draws exist for that moment. The entry list is fingerprinted, our server commits to a secret before the spin, your browser adds its own random value, and the finished record is signed and published at a link anyone can recheck. With PRO, a video of the spin sits on the same page. For a raffle at a staff party or a giveaway on social media, that link answers the question before it is asked.

Using Both Together

Plenty of presenters use both. AhaSlides runs the session: the poll, the quiz, the Q&A. When it is time for a draw that people will remember, such as a prize at the end of a training day, open NameWheel in a second tab, paste the names, and run a certified draw so the result has a link you can share afterwards. For a remote meeting, the meeting name picker turns a Google Meet or Microsoft Teams attendance list into a wheel in one paste.

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