Best Survey Tools in 2024 (Free & Paid)
Sending out surveys is one of the easiest ways to collect data and collect actionable insights—whether you want to better understand your customers, conduct user research to guide your product strategy, or launch marketing campaigns.
However, choosing the right platform to create your own survey can be tricky.
Some survey tools help you design interactive, engaging surveys, while others are better suited for providing in-depth analytics. However, choosing the right survey platform can be tricky, as some may be overly complex to set up, while others could be missing critical features you need.
It’s a struggle to find the best survey tools that balance function with aesthetics and provide a user-friendly interface.
That’s why we’ve tested multiple survey platforms on the market and handpicked our top recommendations for four crucial use cases.
Now, let’s find the ideal survey solution for you.
11 Best Survey Tools
- Opinion Stage
- Formaloo
- User Interviews
- Cetniment
- SurveySensum
- Survicate
- Zonka Feedback
- Qualtrics
- SurveyMonkey
- Google Forms
- Microsoft Forms
How We Tested the Best Survey Apps
If you Google “best survey tools,” you’ll find a long list of tools claiming to be the best solution for designing surveys. Testing each tool—or even checking out their specs—can take weeks.
That’s why we did all the hard work for you and tested dozens of online survey software to shortlist our top picks.
We evaluated each tool using a checklist of essential factors. This list will help you determine what a survey maker offers.
What Makes the Best Survey Platform?
Let’s break down each factor we used to review the best survey tools:
- Question types: Think of the kind of surveys you want to create. Then, look at the type of questions available in a survey app to check whether it aligns with your use case. For example, if you want to create customer surveys, look for question formats like rating scales, open-ended, and matrix.
- Customizable design: A user-friendly interface and pre-made templates make it a breeze to create and send surveys. You can also evaluate advanced customization options to add your own branding, include media, and make your surveys more visually appealing.
- Survey logic: Advanced features like conditional logic, answer piping, and branching allow you to deliver dynamic survey experiences. You can personalize any part of the survey and ensure end-users see only relevant questions based on their responses. This can maximize engagement and improve response rates.
- Distribution and accessibility: Can you share surveys via email, social channels, or your website? Check all distribution channels available in a survey maker. You should also test whether your surveys are available on mobile (and multiple screen sizes) and compatible with screen readers or not.
- Data analytics: Analyzing data is a critical step in getting meaningful insights from a survey. Make sure you evaluate every tool’s reporting capabilities and explore options like data filtering, segmentation, real-time alerts, and more. You can also look for export options to download survey data for deeper analysis.
- Integrations: Surveys don’t work in a vacuum. You can get more out of your surveys and create data-driven strategies by integrating your survey platform with other tools in your tech stack, like CRM, email automation, and content operations.
This handy checklist made it easy for us to test so many options on the market and narrow down your choice to these best survey apps.
Best Survey Tools for Marketers
Opinion Stage
Opinion Stage is purpose-built to create conversational and engaging surveys. The tool helps you ditch static surveys and instead create interactive surveys to maximize completion rates.
Whether you’re conducting user research or collecting insights for a new campaign, Opinion Stage’s intuitive editor can help you design and roll out a beautiful survey in minutes.
Get started with a selection of pre-made templates, or use AI to guide your survey creation process. After you’ve created the foundation of your survey, you can also optimize the journey for higher response rates by adding visual and interactive elements.
For example, you can use the Skip Logic feature to show only the most relevant questions based on users’ responses. With Answer Piping, it’s easy to personalize the survey experience with their names and other details.
Once the survey is closed, you get complete insight into user behavior with metrics like time spent, engagement rate, drop-off rate, and more.
Plus, the analytics dashboard also visualizes the responses received on your survey. This makes it easier to understand all the data and make strategic decisions. You can also export this results report, making it easier to use the insights from each survey.
💲 Pricing: Free plan, paid plans start at $25/month
⭐ Customer ratings
- G2: 4.8/5 stars (80+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.9/5 stars (20+ reviews)
Pros
✅ Built-in lead capture form to collect relevant details and directly sync with integrated tools like Mailchimp or HubSpot
✅ Create a customized opening and closing section relevant to your survey’s theme
✅ AI survey maker and 100+ templates to help you get started
✅ Add custom CSS and white label your forms
Looking for the right survey tool?
Sign Up FreeFormaloo
Formaloo is designed specifically to help marketing and HR teams create surveys for various use cases. The tool offers a drag-and-drop editor with customization options like skip logic and answer piping.
More than design, Formaloo focuses on reporting and analytics. You can access survey responses in real time and track partial submissions as well. The tool also offers an AI report generator to get a summary of insights from survey results.
You can use building blocks to creatively visualize your survey data. For example, you can present your survey data on a Kanban board, table, chart, and other formats.
💲 Pricing: Free plan, paid plans start at $12/month
⭐ Customer ratings
- G2: 4.6/5 stars (140+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.8/5 stars (180+ reviews)
Pros
✅ Supports multiple integrations for tools used by HR and marketing professionals
✅ Allows you to set up a dedicated subdomain for sharing surveys with your branded URLs
✅ Set up a team workspace with multiple roles and permissions to work collaboratively
Cons
❌ Mobile app isn’t as intuitive and stable as expected
❌ Requires a longer learning curve since the tool includes multiple features beyond making surveys; not ideal for beginners
Best Online Survey Tools for Panel Research
User Interviews
User Interviews is a versatile tool for conducting user research with a panel of participants. It’s built for recruiting and managing research participants and also serves as an online survey tool.
You can create screener surveys to find the right candidates for your research projects. Choose from different question types and set up skip logic to personalize the survey journey. You can also add video questions, requesting participants to record an async video message for a question.
The tool offers a drag-and-drop builder with an option to create answer choices for multiple questions simultaneously. This can fast-track the survey creation process.
💲 Pricing: Starts at $49/session
⭐ Customer ratings
- G2: 4.7/5 stars (800+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.4/5 stars (25+ reviews)
Pros
✅ Screener surveys to pick the right participants for panel research
✅ Collect video responses and automatically filter out results based on set characteristics
✅ Combine relevant questions in a single grid
Cons
❌ Not ideal for survey use cases beyond panel research, like customer feedback
❌ Doesn’t offer an analytics dashboard to document survey results
Centiment
Centiment is a panel research tool for creating surveys for a group of respondents. Its editor allows you to design engaging surveys and create a custom theme to match your branding.
The tool also offers advanced features like input validation to ensure responses align with your expectations.
You can share a survey directly with your audience panel or recruit a group of participants from Centiment’s database. It’s also possible to embed a survey on your website as a pop-up, an inline box, or a full-page embed.
💲 Pricing: Paid plans start at $69/month
⭐ Customer ratings
- G2: 4.9/5 stars (100+ reviews)
- Capterra: 5/5 stars (<10 reviews)
Pros
✅ Options to add images and videos to your surveys
✅ Create and embed lead forms at relevant touchpoints to capture prospect information
✅ Upload your own contacts to share surveys with your chosen audience
Cons
❌ Offers a lower response limit when compared to other survey apps
❌ Doesn’t offer detailed analytics on user interaction and behavior for a survey
Best Survey Tools for Large Enterprises
SurveySensum
SurveySensum is a user-friendly, AI-enabled customer experience management tool that allows you to create and launch different types of surveys, such as NPS, CSAT, and CES.
Beyond a CX tool, SurveySensum also has comprehensive services, including implementation support and expert consultation that helps you extract insights, identify key drivers, and prioritize impactful actions.
Along with its intuitive interface, SurveySensum offers ready-to-use templates, white labeling options, and advanced features like cross-tab analysis, text, and sentiment analysis.
💲 Pricing: Starts at $99/month
⭐ Customer ratings
- G2: 4.6/5 (25+ reviews)
- Capterra: 5/5 stars (<5 reviews)
Pros
✅ Offers real-time, customizable dashboards and reports for better data visualization
✅ Enables you to close the loop with a real-time ticketing system
✅ Automates the process of text and sentiment analysis with AI-enabled text analytics software
Cons
❌ Although it lacks certain integrations, the team is responsive and can develop custom integrations on request
Survicate
Survicate is an AI-powered platform that centralizes feedback from various sources and turns it into actionable insights.
It allows you to gather user insights through email, website, in-product, and mobile app surveys, as well as connect other feedback sources, such as reviews, support chats, interviews, and more.
Thanks to its AI features, Survicate lets you create and launch surveys quickly simply by specifying the kind of data you need.
All your feedback is centralized in the Insights Hub, where it’s categorized and analyzed automatically with AI, providing you with meaningful data without any manual work.
💲 Pricing: Free trial, free plan, paid plans start at $99/month
⭐ Customer ratings
- G2: 4.6/5 stars (170+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 stars (29 reviews)
Pros
✅ User-friendly, intuitive interface
✅ Comes with a wide range of native integrations with third-party tools
✅ AI Research Assistant provides insights based on real user feedback
Cons
❌ The free plan comes with a limited number of survey responses
Zonka Feedback
Zonka Feedback is a powerful platform that collects customer feedback from all your channels and turns it into actionable insights.
It enables you to gather customer insights through email, SMS, website, in-app, and kiosk surveys, while also connecting additional feedback sources such as reviews, NPS, and support interactions.
Zonka Feedback’s intuitive survey builder allows you to quickly create and distribute surveys, offering real-time feedback analysis to help you make informed decisions.
All feedback is managed through the centralized Insights Dashboard, where it’s categorized and analyzed, providing clear and meaningful insights to improve customer experiences.
💲 Pricing: Free trial, free plan, paid plans start at $49/month
⭐ Customer ratings
- G2: 4.8/5 stars (300+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 stars (100+ reviews)
Pros
✅ Easy-to-use interface with powerful analytics
✅ Wide range of native integrations, including CRM and help desk tools
✅ Real-time insights and feedback tracking
Cons
❌ The free plan includes a limited number of responses
Qualtrics
Qualtrics is an advanced tool for monitoring and enhancing the customer experience. Its survey tool allows you to design surveys with branching, API quotas, and email triggers.
The tool also offers a unique feature called ExpertReview to provide design recommendations for improving response rates. Plus, once your survey results are in, you get detailed statistical and text analysis to extract relevant insights.
💲 Pricing: Custom quotes
⭐ Customer ratings
- G2: 4.4/5 stars (530+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 stars (240+ reviews)
Pros
✅ Versatile analytics dashboard with multiple data visualization options
✅ Multiple distribution channels, like text messages, email triggers, URLs, and more
✅ Geolocation-based targeting enables you to focus your survey on specific locations
Cons
❌ Not beginner-friendly; offers advanced features that require a long learning curve
❌ Free account only accepts 500 responses and three active surveys
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is another survey maker ideal for large teams. This advanced tool offers several design capabilities and choices to create a detailed questionnaire in multiple languages.
You can create a brand kit and a shared library of brand assets, like themes, templates, images, and more. Besides its survey creation features, SurveyMonkey brings you contextual analysis of survey results with its built-in text and statistical intelligence capability.
Another reason why it’s ideal for enterprise teams is because of activity logs. You can track every person’s activity and filter the log individually to analyze changes.
💲 Pricing: Starts at $75/month
⭐ Customer ratings
- G2: 4.4/5 stars (22,800+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 stars (9900+ reviews)
Pros
✅ Offers click map questions allowing you to collect feedback on an image
✅ Create crosstab reports to compare responses for multiple questions and find significant differences
✅ Uses machine learning to scan results and remove poor-quality responses
Cons
❌ No lead form option
❌ Complex interface that may require some time to learn
Best Completely Free Survey Tools
Google Forms
Google Forms is a go-to survey tool for many since it’s part of Google Workspace. It’s a user-friendly tool for creating basic surveys with minimal branding.
You can choose from multiple question types and add sections to highlight different segments in your survey.
Google Forms can also validate responses to minimize discrepancies. Plus, you can get more out of your surveys by integrating your forms with other GSuite tools like Sheets and Docs.
💲 Pricing: Free
⭐ Customer ratings
- G2: NA
- Capterra: NA
Pros
✅ Get real-time data for responses received for a survey
✅ Set up conditional logic to show questions based on responses
✅ Get started with a template based on your use case
Cons
❌ Doesn’t let you apply a custom theme based on your brand
❌ No AI capability to support your survey creation efforts
Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms is another free survey maker that can create interactive surveys. You can create a custom theme with a background image/video and your brand colors. The tool also offers branching capabilities to personalize questions and redirect users to a relevant part of the survey.
You’ll also get AI-powered recommendations to add more questions or include relevant answer choices. Plus, you can translate your questionnaire to any of the supported languages.
💲 Pricing: Free plan, paid plans start at $6/month
⭐ Customer ratings
- G2: 4.4/5 stars (350+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 stars (120+ reviews)
Pros
✅ Use AI suggestions to make your survey more comprehensive
✅ Multiple sharing options, like URLs, embeds, QR codes, and more
✅ Create a custom theme in line with your branding
Cons
❌ Lacks integration with essential tools for analyzing or documenting survey results
❌ Doesn’t offer data on how users are interacting with your surveys
Choosing the Best Survey Tool
Surveys are a powerful tool for collecting audience insights on any topic – whether you’re looking to map user expectations, monitor employee satisfaction, or gather data for your business. But finding the right survey platform for your needs can be a challenge.
If you want to replace static surveys with something more interactive and engaging, then Opinion Stage is a good choice. You can create surveys in minutes with a user-friendly interface and advanced features, like an AI survey maker, smart logic, and powerful customization options.
You can easily do it yourself, no need for a developer
Make a Survey