Can I code this? A Live Polling and Q&A Tool for Presentations
A live poll updating in real time on everyone's screen is a genuinely achievable WebSocket build, sharing this register's Slido build spec. Reliable delivery to thousands of simultaneous attendees is the harder depth.
Borderline
Effort: a weekendRunning cost: $5–$10/mo
Why CanICodeThis says Borderline
A poll broadcasting live vote counts over WebSockets is a well-documented real-time pattern
A live Q&A queue where attendees submit and upvote questions shares this register's feedback-board pattern
For a small meeting or classroom, this is genuinely a weekend project
The parts that'll cause problems
Reliable delivery to a large conference audience (thousands of connections) is a different scale of infrastructure than a small meeting
Presentation-software integration (embedding live results in slides) is real, separate integration
Moderation at scale to filter inappropriate questions needs real workflow
How I'd build this
frontend
Next.js
hosting
Vercel
MVP scope
A live poll with real-time results via WebSockets
A Q&A queue with upvoting
No account needed to join as an attendee
Postpone to v2
Large-conference-scale reliability
Slide-software integration
Moderation tools at scale
What it actually costs to build
AI agent — with a subscription (Claude Pro/Max, Cursor, etc.)
$0 marginal
AI agent — pay-per-use API, no subscription
$43–$86 one-time
Hosting, once it's running
$5–$10/mo
Domain name, if you want your own
~$12/yr
Existing tools solving a similar problem typically run $14.99–$20/mo — see how they compare below.
The build prompt
Build me a live polling and Q&A tool, genuinely achievable for a small meeting:
1. A host creates a poll or opens Q&A.
2. Attendees join via a link with no account required.
3. Results and questions update in real time over WebSockets.
4. Basic upvoting on questions, the same join-table pattern as this register's feedback-board build.
Built for small-meeting scale. Out of scope: reliable real-time delivery to a large conference audience (thousands of simultaneous connections), a genuinely different scale of infrastructure than a small meeting, and slide-software integration (embedding live results inside PowerPoint), a real, separate integration.