Survey software has revolutionized the way surveys are conducted. Before the invention of these programs, the only tools to perform surveys were pens, paper, and clipboards. Answers were collected by approaching people in public or calling them on the phone. Even worse, analyzing the results involved manually counting and categorizing the responses collected.
Fortunately, survey apps have transformed this tiresome task into a pleasure. They offer several types of templates and pre-written questions, collect responses from hundreds of people through the internet, and provide easy-to-analyze reports. In fact, these apps aren’t only beneficial for researchers. With online survey software, businesses can get customers’ feedback, and marketers can capture leads.
The market is filled with free and paid survey platforms, and Best Reviews is the perfect place to understand which one best fits your needs. Our reviews, comparisons, guides, FAQ, and blogs contain detailed information to help you decide.
People tend to run for the hills when they open a form and are bombarded with endless questions displayed in a boring list. That’s what is all about: creating engaging surveys to increase completion rates.
The survey software provides all the necessary resources for designing captivating forms people enjoy answering. Templates allow users to build interactive and visually pleasing surveys, while the sleek interface makes the creation process quick and simple.
But the forms themselves are far from basic. Skip logic makes data collection look like conversations, as the questions can be dependent on the previous answer. They also appear one at a time so the respondent doesn’t feel overwhelmed.
On top of all this, the software has a free version with most of the features available. However, since it’s limited to ten responses per month, it’s a good idea to check out the paid plans as they offer more responses and advanced features like file uploads and brand customization.
SurveySparrow is excellent for small businesses in many ways. For starters, its features allow owners to track business scores and perform sentiment analysis in order to create customer loyalty programs.
It’s also possible to build custom assessment reports for each employee to measure their performance. Finding the areas where workers need assistance is crucial to help them grow and increase productivity.
Another reason SurveySparrow caters to small businesses is that users can manage multiple accounts for different teams within the company under one parent account.
As standard, the platform offers varied question types (over 20), advanced skip logic settings, and several templates (over 900). Moreover, it’s possible to create multilingual surveys so respondents from around the globe can be interviewed.
Prices are fair when considering everything the platform offers, and choosing yearly billing reduces the monthly costs significantly. However, it’s still possible to perform basic surveys with the free forever plan. Finally, there isn’t a refund policy, but the 14-day free trial lets users test the paid plans before committing.
SurveyMonkey is a well-established online survey app brimming with survey creation resources. In fact, its huge library of templates and pre-written sample questions is just the tip of the iceberg with this service.
From adding questions and designing a survey’s layout to analyzing results and data insights, SurveyMonkey has tools that make building and evaluating surveys faster and easier. It even has an AI tool that helps create surveys based on users’ goals as well as estimating the performance and completion rates.
What’s more, the service can be used at no cost, as a free forever version is available. However, this plan has limited resources, so the paid feature-rich subscriptions may be more appealing. Starting at $25 per user per month, teams can work collaboratively to create brand-customized surveys in many different formats. Moreover, other essential features like multilingual surveys and advanced branching only come with a paid subscription.
LimeSurvey is an open source survey platform that allows users with coding skills to create and customize questionnaires, surveys, and polls, from start to finish.
Everything can be tailored to your liking – but that’s not even the software’s main selling point. What truly puts LimeSurvey in the limelight is that users can create unlimited surveys, easily translate them with a built-in Google translate tool, and display them in over 80 languages.
The icing on the cake is that such useful features are available even in the free plan. Still, for as little as $29 per month (billed annually), it’s worth going for the paid plan to take advantage of unlimited users, larger cloud storage space, and an increased number of submissions.
They say the best things in life are free. Jotform's creators may have had this in mind when founding the company in 2006, as the platform provides superb free features for building powerful surveys.
Beyond this, Jotform has excellent tools for creating contact and lead generation forms, gathering customer feedback, and turning the data collected into visually pleasing reports.
The platform offers drag-and-drop form-building tools, numerous question types, and over 10,000 form templates, making the creation process a breeze.
But what sets Jotform apart from the competition is that users paying nothing have access to the same features as those paying, including branding customization and skip logic conditions. The limitations to the free plan are mainly quantitative, regarding the number of form counts, submissions, views, and others. These numbers can be increased with a paid subscription, billed annually, starting at $34 per month.
The best survey software depends entirely on each user’s specific needs. For example, those who wish to run surveys after every interaction with customers need to look for platforms that don’t limit the number of survey responses. Alternatively, people conducting surveys after fixed periods may benefit from platforms that send surveys automatically according to pre-set frequencies.
Users focusing on market research may want the option to target specific groups of respondents. On the other hand, companies surveying only their employees won’t require this extra feature. Instead, they need templates, pre-written questions related to employees’ feedback, and the option to get anonymous responses.
It’s also essential to check the service’s integration support. Users performing customer experience surveys need access to CRM platforms, whereas companies conducting employee-focused surveys may benefit from integrations with HR management platforms.
What’s more, every survey platform should provide advanced branching options, such as skip logic and question piping, and insightful reports so users can easily dissect the collected data.
Bringing us back to the basics, it’s always important to consider the pricing, customer service, ease of use, mobile device support, security, and privacy when looking for any type of software. The best way to see if these meet your requirements is to test platforms using free versions, which most providers offer.
Conducting surveys offline using pen and paper is time-consuming and more likely to provide inaccurate results. For instance, handwritten forms often take longer to complete and are harder to interpret than typed responses.
Also, fewer people can be reached as they have to answer surveys in person or by phone. Even if a high response rate is achieved, manually analyzing and comparing results is an inefficient use of time and can only be done after all surveys are complete.
Online survey platforms provide a solution to all these issues. Creating goal-driven surveys takes no time, as there’s a wide range of customizable templates and pre-written questions to choose from. Also, automatically skipping irrelevant questions and pages according to the respondent’s previous answer is only possible with online surveys.
These platforms take advantage of modern technology in other ways too. It’s possible to embed a web link into a website, post it on social media, or share it via email, expanding the surveys’ reach infinitely. What’s more, the results are updated in real time, so they can be examined as soon as respondents start to take the surveys.
Finally, the data collected is presented in reports with different types of insights and trends, which are downloadable in PDF, CSV, SPSS, and other formats.
Although many survey platforms have free versions, there are usually drawbacks. The number of resources provided tends to be limited. More advanced features like skip logic and brand customization are most likely available only in paid plans.
Still, free versions may be enough for businesses, students, or researchers who only need to run small surveys every now and then. Also, they’re perfect for users to test the software, learn how to use it, and see whether it’s worth the money to unlock the extra benefits.
Moreover, many survey platforms provide discounts for students, academic researchers, NGOs, and others. So, it’s always valid to check whether there are ways to enjoy all features while paying less.
Running surveys is a great way of understanding people’s behaviors, preferences, and interests. But to get the right answers, you need to ask the right questions. Therefore, it’s essential to follow some best practices when creating surveys online:
The Best Reviews team researches and tests all products first-hand. We've been reviewing products and services since 2012 and are proud to only publish human-created content.
Share your thoughts, ask questions, and connect with other users. Your feedback helps our community make better decisions.
©2012-2025 Best Reviews, a clovio brand –
All rights
reserved
