Whatever audience you need to reach out to and whatever the objectives behind your research, getting reliable and timely data insights from that audience is crucial. Picking the best platform for your needs, whether online survey software, form builders, or free and paid questionnaire tools, will ensure you are able to make the smartest decisions to best meet your audience’s needs.

The best survey software makes it simple to create surveys and collect and analyse data so you can quickly take positive action, and we believe SmartSurvey should be able to meet any of your needs. However, for a comparison of survey software, to see how we compare with other survey tools, both free and paid, here is a breakdown of what to expect when using our own or one of the other popular online survey providers.

SmartSurvey

SmartSurvey’s powerful and easy to use software enables you to create unlimited online surveys, forms and questionnaires, so you can quickly collect and analyse the data needed to give you the insights to make smarter decisions.

From customisable survey templates, extensive question types, smart logic, multiple distribution options and data analysis and reporting tools, to our most advanced features available on our highest paid plans. SmartSurvey, has the tools to create simple and advanced surveys, right through to the enterprise grade solutions needed to drive more complex experience programmes.

With our range of survey plans starting with our basic free survey maker, which is free forever, to our Professional, Business and Enterprise paid plans, SmartSurvey offers a platform with appeal for everyone, no matter what your business size or industry that you work in. And with the ability to create unlimited surveys on all our plans and benefit from unlimited questions and responses on our paid plans, SmartSurvey also provides great value for money.

But it doesn’t stop there. You can be confident that your security and data protection needs are fully covered with us too. From our ISO27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus accreditations, to our compliance with GDPR and the Data Protection Act.

You can be rest assured that our UK based company has the right processes and behaviours in place across systems and personnel, to provide you with the highest levels of data security assurances, which includes hosting on UK based servers.

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SurveyMonkey

One of the best-known online survey tools, Survey Monkey offers a comprehensive questionnaire building solution with metric analysis tools. It enables anyone without any coding skills to create complex question sets and then process the responses easily and efficiently.

With Survey Monkey users can sign up for free and create a survey within minutes. However, you can’t access any data you’ve collected in CSV or Excel XLS until you’ve signed up for a paid plan option. And unlike with SmartSurvey, you don’t get unlimited responses on any of their plans.

A number of pricing tiers are available ranging from Advantage through to Premier and Enterprise, with additional team plan options available under each of these. Each plan offers extra features up to Enterprise, which offers extra security and compliance features, as well as admin management and migration as required.

SurveyMonkey comparison

Qualtrics

Pitching itself at the highest end of the market, Qualtrics is mostly focused on business users in larger organisations that need technology to help them close experience gaps.

An example is their Qualtrics XM Platform, that can be used to act on experience data, which Qualtrics’ refer to as X-data. This can be used by teams, departments, and entire organizations to manage the four core experiences of business – customer, product, employee and brand.

Qualtrics promotes its software as an enabler to being able to ask the right questions, listen to what people need and respond with the right actions, every time. It is with AI-driven tools such as ExpertReview where it is really adding value and pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved with traditional surveys.

Qualtrics comparison

QuestionPro

Targeted mainly towards small and medium-sized businesses, QuestionPro is a web-based survey provider that users can employ to create surveys, polls and quizzes, of which its polls option is particularly popular.

QuestionPro’s survey software includes a full suite of tools for creating surveys, sending email invitations and analysing survey data.

Positioning itself as the one-stop solution for managing feedback via the web, QuestionPro offers a basic Essentials package, providing everything required to carry out a basic research project. More advanced features are available with their Advanced price plan. QuestionPro also offers another Team edition package with more advanced features, integrations and collaboration tools.

QuestionPro comparison

Alchemer (was SurveyGizmo)

Aimed at an audience ranging from individuals and small businesses to medium-sized businesses and larger institutions, Alchemer’s online survey software is designed to help businesses operationalise their feedback.

Interesting features include Alchemer’s Logic Editor, which allows users to customise their survey for each respondent, which can help reduce survey fatigue. In addition, Alchemer includes a number of pre-configured solutions, to smooth the data collection of more niche activities, ranging from risk assessment and NPS feedback to the tracking of HR-related requests.

Although it is free to sign up for a trial, to use Alchemer’s survey tools on an ongoing basis users need to choose from one of its packages, starting with its most basic Collaborator price plan through to its Professional, Full Access and Enterprise packages offering more advanced features and capabilities.

Alchemer comparison

Typeform

Typeform helps users create forms, surveys and quizzes.

Known for its distinctive interface, where users are only presented with one question at a time, Typeform positions itself as the software people enjoy creating surveys and answering questions with.

With the ability to attach photos and videos to survey questions, Typeform puts great emphasis on user interaction, believing this to be the best way to achieve engagement and the highest response rates. And users can also sync their survey responses with tools like Google Sheets to efficiently organize and analyse their data.

Besides offering a free trial to test the software, Typeform provides users with three price plans from its Basic package, through to its Plus and Business plans.

Typeform comparison

Snap Surveys

With Snap Surveys, users can create online and offline surveys, audits, assessments, forms, quizzes and more.

The Snap Survey software offers a suite of integrated software programs covering questionnaire design, publication, data collection, analysis and reporting, which can be used across all modes of survey research. And through the company’s core product, Snap Professional, specialist modules can be added to extend the solution’s capabilities to kiosks, tablets, smartphones, paper surveys for scanning and telephone interviewing.

Following a free trial to test out the Snap Survey software, users can sign up for one of the price plan packages: Research, Team, Corporate or Enterprise.

Snap Surveys comparison

Google Forms

For a one-off user that simply needs an online form to quickly ask their customers for feedback, such as during the hosting of a one-off event, a free personal Google forms account may provide an attractive option.

With a convenient drag and drop interface, it is quick and easy to create surveys, then analyse and share that data with any other google products you may be using.

However, if you are a more regular survey creator or have more advanced survey needs, you might be better off signing up for a paid plan with SmartSurvey or another survey provider. This is because there are major limitations in many areas including the range of question types on offer, the available data analysis tools, and support.

Google does, however, offer a number of paid plans with a few more options and capabilities to explore.

Google Forms comparison

We hope you’ve found this summary of popular online survey providers helpful. Visit any of the individual comparison pages linked above to find out in greater detail how our survey tools compare, or visit our features or pricing pages for a breakdown of each of our plan types.