Riverside vs ICONS Live: which should a real estate agent use?

Riverside vs ICONS Live comes down to who does the editing. Riverside has a free plan and paid plans from $24 a month on annual billing (October 2026 prices), with its own editor and live streaming, so it suits agents who produce the show themselves. ICONS Live is free for agents and records for shows the ICONS team then edits.

Riverside and ICONS Live side by side

Riverside and ICONS Live both record each guest on their own device, but they differ on price, editing and how you get access. The Riverside column below was read off its pricing page and help center on October 9, 2026; the ICONS Live column reflects the ICONS Live studio page.

	Riverside	ICONS Live
Price	Free; Pro $24/mo, Grow $34/mo, Webinar $79/mo billed annually; $29, $39, $99 billed monthly; Business custom	Free
Free plan	Yes: 2 hours of multi-track recording (one-off), up to 720p, 44.1 kHz, Riverside watermark	The tool itself is free
Billing	Monthly or annual; 14-day free trial on Pro, Grow and Webinar	No billing
How you get it	Sign up on riverside.com	Ask for access through the form on the ICONS Live page
Separate tracks per person	Yes, recorded locally, “unaffected by internet connection”	Yes, recorded on each person’s device
Audio and video quality	Pro: 48 kHz audio, up to 4K video	Uncompressed 48 kHz WAV; video targets 8 Mbps, about 1080p
People per recording	Up to 100 participants per session (help center)	Up to 6 on camera, plus a watch-only audience link
Editing	Text-based editor on paid plans	No editor; editing happens afterwards
Transcripts	Unlimited on Pro; more than 90 languages listed	Per speaker, TXT, SRT and VTT; English only
Live streaming	Grow and higher: 1080p, multistream	No
Phone app	iOS and Android apps	Browser only

What does Riverside cost?

Riverside’s free plan costs nothing; Pro, the first paid tier, is $24 a month billed annually or $29 billed monthly (October 2026 prices). Prices below are from the Riverside pricing page, checked on the morning of October 9, 2026.

• Free: $0. The plan includes 2 hours of multi-track recording as a one-off, video up to 720p, 44.1 kHz audio, a Riverside watermark, Magic Clips and unlimited single-track recording and editing.
• Pro: $24 a month billed annually ($288 a year) or $29 billed monthly. The plan adds up to 4K video, 48 kHz audio, unlimited text-based editing, unlimited transcriptions and 15 hours of separate-track downloads.
• Grow: $34 a month billed annually ($408 a year) or $39 billed monthly. Grow adds 1080p live streaming to multiple destinations.
• Webinar: $79 a month billed annually or $99 billed monthly.
• Business: custom pricing through sales.

Two details matter for an agent’s budget. The hour cap applies to separate-track downloads, not to recording; Riverside’s FAQ says “Recording itself is unlimited.” The pricing page is also not fully consistent: the Pro card says 15 hours of separate-track downloads, while the comparison table shows 5 hours a month. Check the number on the page before you pick a plan, because live streaming counts toward those hours too, per Riverside’s help page on download hours.

Is ICONS Live really free?

ICONS Live is free for agents to use, with no plan to choose and nothing to buy. Ask for access through the ICONS Live page’s form, and the ICONS team sets you up. The same studio records the ICONS network’s shows and its production clients’ episodes, and it is the recording tool inside ICONS DIY.

That access route is the real difference from Riverside. With Riverside, you sign up, record and edit yourself. With ICONS Live, the ICONS team creates either a single session or a standing room for a regular show, sends each person their own invite link, and takes the files into its own review, episode and graphics tools afterwards.

Which records better audio and video?

Riverside and ICONS Live both record each person locally, so a guest’s dropped wifi shows up in the live call but not in the saved files. Riverside says it captures “up to 4K video and uncompressed audio in separate tracks, unaffected by internet connection.”

On paper, the files look like this:

• Audio: Riverside lists 48 kHz on Pro and 44.1 kHz on the free plan. Every speaker on ICONS Live becomes an uncompressed 48 kHz WAV.
• Video: Riverside lists up to 4K on Pro and 720p on free. ICONS Live targets 8 Mbps per person, about 1080p, where the camera and computer allow.
• Uploads: ICONS Live uploads in 4-second pieces during the call and resends missing pieces after a crash or reload on the same device and browser.
• When you stop: ICONS Live puts everyone’s files on one timeline, sets loudness at -16 LUFS and renders a combined video.

For a typical agent interview watched on a phone, 1080p is plenty. If you plan to crop vertical clips from a wide shot, Riverside’s 4K gives you more room to crop. What a wifi drop does to a recording made from the call itself is explained in why remote interviews sound bad, and the camera, lighting and mic side of looking good on either tool is in how to look and sound good on a video podcast.

How do they compare on editing and AI tools?

Riverside includes editing tools and ICONS Live does not. Riverside’s Pro plan lists unlimited text-based editing, Magic Clips and show notes, AI B-roll, eye contact correction, and removal of silences and filler words.

ICONS Live stops before the edit. It hands over separate WAV and MP4 files per speaker, a transcript per speaker and drafts to work from:

• five title ideas, a summary and four to seven takeaways;
• keywords and timestamped chapters;
• LinkedIn and X posts;
• a ranked list of 20 to 60 second clip moments with a hook for each.

Those are drafts and timestamps, not finished clips. An editor still cuts the video.

So the question is who edits. If you or an assistant will edit, Riverside keeps everything in one place. If the ICONS team edits your show, the separate files are what they work from, and ICONS Live has no editor because the edit happens on their side.

How do they compare on limits?

Riverside’s limits are mostly about hours and plan tier, while ICONS Live’s are about headcount and features. Riverside’s help center says its studio can record up to 100 participants in a session. ICONS Live allows up to 6 people on camera, and extra viewers join through a watch-only link that is not recorded.

Other limits to know:

• Riverside: the free plan’s 2 multi-track hours are a one-off, and paid plans cap separate-track downloads per month. Its help center says unused hours do not roll over.
• ICONS Live: transcripts are English only, there is no phone or desktop app, and invite links expire after 30 days. Recordings are processed one at a time, so busy periods may take longer.

Where Riverside does more

Riverside does more as a self-serve, all-in-one studio. For an agent who wants to own every step, these are real advantages:

• A built-in editor. Text-based editing means you edit the transcript and the video follows. There is no file handover.
• Live streaming. Grow and higher stream in 1080p to destinations including YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Twitch, Instagram and TikTok, plus custom RTMP.
• More people and more languages. Riverside records up to 100 participants and transcribes in more than 90 languages, per its help center. That suits a panel show or a bilingual market.
• 4K video. Pro records up to 4K, which helps when you crop vertical clips.
• Apps. Riverside lists iOS and Android apps for recording on a phone.
• Open sign-up. Anyone can start on the free plan today, with no request form.

What ICONS Live does that Riverside doesn’t

ICONS Live’s advantages sit in the handover rather than the studio, which is what you want when someone else produces the show:

• It costs nothing, and you don’t pick a plan or watch download-hour caps.
• Uncompressed WAV per person at 48 kHz, lined up and levelled to -16 LUFS before an editor opens the files.
• Upload recovery. Missing pieces resend after a crash or reload on the same device.
• A standing room for a weekly show. The link never changes, and every session is filed as its own recording named by date.
• Straight into production. The finished video can go to ICONS Review for client sign-off, become a draft episode in ICONS Podcast hosting, or open in the graphics editor with the episode details filled in.

Riverside or ICONS Live: which should you choose?

Choose Riverside if you will edit and publish the show yourself, and ICONS Live if the ICONS team produces it. Here is how it plays out for three kinds of agent:

• Solo agent starting out, doing it yourself: start on Riverside’s free plan. When the watermark and the one-off 2 hours run out, move up to Pro.
• Anyone with a producer on the team, or an ICONS-produced show: ICONS Live. The producer gets clean per-speaker files, and nobody pays for recording seats.
• Agent who already pays for Riverside and edits in it: stay on Riverside. Switching only makes sense if you hand the editing to ICONS, in which case recording moves to ICONS Live as part of that.

If Riverside isn’t the self-serve tool you had in mind, the same trade-off with Zencastr’s free plan is in Zencastr vs ICONS Live, and all six tools sit on one table in the podcast recording software round-up.

Whichever you choose, tell guests before you record. Several US states require consent from everyone on the call, not just the host; that’s a general note, not legal advice, so read the real estate podcast compliance guide and check with your broker. For the microphone and camera side of the setup, the real estate podcast equipment guide covers what to buy at each budget. If you’d rather record and have someone else handle the rest, that is what Icons’ production service is for.