Using Kahoot for a pub quiz

Plenty of venues run a pub quiz on Kahoot. What works, what does not, and what the business pricing on Kahoot 360 actually costs a venue running one weekly.

Why people try it

Because it is there, everybody has seen one, and for a one-off it works. Kahoot is a genuinely good product with an enormous library, a brand people recognise, and a format that needs no explaining to a room.

For a Christmas do, a one-off fundraiser or a team social, running a quiz on Kahoot is a perfectly sensible decision and this page is not going to argue with it.

The problems appear when it becomes a weekly pub quiz, because it was not built for one.

Where it stops fitting a pub

Kahoot is built around speed. Its scoring rewards fast answers heavily and its rhythm is designed for a classroom or a training session, where everyone is present, quiet and paying attention. A pub is none of those things: a table confers, somebody is at the bar, and the host needs to hold a round while an order goes out.

It has no concept of a table. A pub quiz is teams sharing a score, and Kahoot ranks individuals, so a table of four either plays as four separate entries or nominates one person and the other three watch.

And there is nothing to print. A pub quiz wants a permanent code on each table; Kahoot wants a game PIN that changes every session and has to be read out or put on a screen.

The pricing is also worth reading carefully. Kahoot's business tiers, which is the licence a commercial venue needs, run from Pro Start at $19 a month for up to 50 participants to Pro Ultra at $79 a month for 5,000, billed annually. A busy pub quiz can pass 50 players quickly, and the participant count is per session rather than per team.

	PubTrivia	Kahoot
Teams sharing one score	Team mode ranks tables; one phone per table is enough.	Ranks individuals. A table of four is four entries or one player.
Permanent codes on tables	A printed code per table that never changes.	A game PIN generated per session.
Host controls the pace	You launch each question; the gap between them is yours.	Designed to run at pace; less suited to holding a round for the bar.
Scoring options	Flat or time-weighted, chosen per session.	Speed-weighted by design.
Question library	Five included packs, plus your own.	An enormous public library, a genuine advantage.
What it is built for	Pub and bar quiz nights.	Classrooms and workplace training. Kahoot 360 is explicitly a business and training product.
Commercial pricing	£30 or £100 a month, per venue, cancellable monthly.	Business tiers from $19/mo (50 participants) to $79/mo (5,000), billed annually.
Session history for a venue	Every night saved with its leaderboard and per-question answers.	Reporting exists, oriented to training outcomes rather than to a venue's takings.

Keep using Kahoot if it is not a weekly pub quiz

For an office social, a training session, a classroom or a one-off event, it is the right tool and the library alone justifies it.

It is also the right tool if what you want is the Kahoot format specifically, the speed, the music, the shape of it. That format is popular because it works.

Move if it has become a fixture

The moment a quiz becomes weekly, the things that do not fit start costing every week: teams that cannot share a score, a PIN that has to be redistributed every session, a pace that fights the bar, and a participant limit priced per session rather than per venue.

And check the licence. Using a free or education plan to run a commercial quiz night in a licensed venue is not what those plans are for, which is a conversation worth having before it is had for you.

Built for a table of four

Team mode, permanent table codes and a pace you set. The first session is free and needs no card.

Start free, no card needed