An online survey is a unique way to talk to your customers, employees, or larger audiences—across continents, regardless of time zones. Digital surveys let you collect all kinds of data in a convenient, user-friendly format. Whether respondents are in a hurry for their next meeting or taking a moment to unwind, your survey will be waiting for their valuable insights and feedback, just a click away.
With the right online survey software, you can craft compelling questionnaires that have the power to capture opinions, foster connections, and start conversations. We'll explore the best survey tools out there that can help you understand customer satisfaction, gauge employee engagement, or offer personalized experiences.
What to Look for in an Online Survey Tool
With so many form software options out there, it's essential to focus on the features that align with your business goals, personal preferences, and experience. To narrow down your choices, consider the following aspects and make a mental note of every critical factor that applies to your use case:
🎨 Custom branding. Most companies would want their surveys to align with the rest of the branded content they create and share. Being able to customize the look, link, and settings of your forms will help you maintain a consistent image on the web. Select survey tools for businesses that allow you to add your logo, colors, fonts, and possibly change up the direct link to the form to reflect your brand.
📋Question types and logic. Survey builders typically come with an array of pre-designed question types for you to combine. Examples include yes-and-no questions, rankings, dropdowns, multiple choice, and matrix questions. If you need something specific and rather rare, like a click map, an image choice question, or advanced logic, it's best to check if your shortlisted survey tools support that option.
🤖 AI features. With some tools, you can incorporate an AI form builder to assist you in crafting questions or optimizing survey length for higher response rates. Alternatively, you can leverage the power of AI to help you interpret and read your collected data, and even generate custom reports based on the answers. Just keep in mind that forms software will usually have those features locked behind a paid plan.
🔒 Security. Surveys deal with data, and often, the answers carry personal or sensitive information. Make sure the software (and plan) you're thinking about complies with the necessary data protection regulations: GDPR, CPAA, PCI DSS, etc. Most modern survey tools do, but it never hurts to double-check, especially when you're in an industry like healthcare with strict privacy rules and HIPAA to follow.
🔗 Integration with other tools. The ability to integrate form builder software with the rest of your toolkit will greatly enhance its functionality. You can seamlessly transfer survey data to a CRM system, an email marketing platform, or an analytics solution. And the connection works both ways! For instance, we at FlippingBook turn PDF documents into interactive flipbooks with on-page surveys, and via integration, our users can monitor answers right in their survey tool of choice.
Top Online Survey Tools and Form Builders
An online survey tool is designed to help you create, distribute, and analyze forms, making it easier to collect and understand user feedback. No matter how complex your surveys need to be—from basic input fields to advanced question logic and automated reporting, there's a solution out there that fits your needs best.
- Typeform: for sleek, branded form design and interactive question types.
- SurveyMonkey: for teams of all sizes that want a reliable, feature-rich solution.
- Qualtrics: for minimal setup and standard web form templates.
- Google Forms: for simple data collection and export at no cost.
- Jotform: for mid-scale surveys with custom looks and functionality.
- SurveySparrow: for simulated chat surveys and AI insights.
- Microsoft Forms: for Microsoft 365 users and corporate teams.
- QuestionPro: for enterprises interested in market research.
- Hotjar: for website surveys and an outlook into user behavior.
#1 Typeform
Typeform stands out for its simple and elegant form design, both for the respondents and for you as a user, along with some powerful features packed in. You can create, share, and embed application and registration forms, run quizzes and NPS surveys, gather customer and employee feedback, and collect data for market research. Typeform lets you upload brand assets to customize the look of your forms, and supports smart logic jumps that adapt the question flow based on previous answers.
⭐ Top features: Extensive branding, numerous integrations, partial responses (even if someone doesn't complete the form, you'll still get some insights).
🤔 Considerations: All paid plans except for Enterprise come with a monthly response base, with a hard limit for the maximum number of answers you can collect.
💰 Pricing: From $25/month, free plan available.
#2 SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is one of the oldest solutions on the market that lets you create online polls, registration forms, and NPS or customer satisfaction surveys, as well as gather employee and event feedback. Higher plans will get you advanced data exports, machine learning algorithms to flag poor-quality responses, and A/B testing. But SurveyMonkey is also perfect for simple use cases and small teams: the limits for available questions and answers are generous, and advanced text analysis is included with the first paid plan.
⭐ Top features: Tools to facilitate teamwork, mobile apps for iOS and Android, pre-written survey templates, all languages supported.
🤔 Considerations: No AI assistant, limited customization and branding options.
💰 Pricing: From $35/user/month for team plans, free plan available.
#3 Delighted by Qualtrics
Delighted is a web form builder under Qualtrics, a well-known experience management platform. So if you already use Qualtrics for your other tasks, this tool would probably be the number one choice for survey creation. And for those not ready to commit to an enterprise-level platform, but still interested in customer experience analytics, Delighted is a great starting point. You'll have numerous survey templates on hand including NPS, CSAT and effort scores, and product market fit questionnaires.
⭐ Top features: Scheduled email survey delivery and email reminders, the same strong set of reporting features in any plan, integration with 35+ popular tools.
🤔 Considerations: Even the highest paid plan has a rather small 500-response tier.
💰 Pricing: From $17/month, free plan available.
#4 Google Forms
Google Forms is arguably the best free form builder out there, well-liked for its simplicity. It might not be as visually appealing and complex as other online survey tools, but it definitely does the job. Anyone who has a Google account can try it out: just select from multiple question types, organize them, change up the look of the form, and share it online. You can also break up your form into sections and adjust its logic and flow based on the answers.
⭐ Top features: Fast, familiar, intuitive; automated data export to Google Sheets.
🤔 Considerations: You're limited to simple questions and the standard survey look.
💰 Pricing: Free.
#5 Jotform
Among online form creators, Jotform stands out with more than 10,000 templates and hundreds of different themes, so you can get really creative with the look and feel of your survey. But that's not all the tool offers: if you dig deeper into advanced features, you'll find that you can set up a custom domain for your forms, get them signed legally, and apply deep conditional logic. Jotform also has widgets that let you embed PDFs, get date reservations, and accept payments.
⭐ Top features: A wide variety of design customization tools, widgets, and extensions.
🤔 Considerations: Lots of limits to accommodate: even if you're just creating simple forms, you could easily bump up against one in your plan.
💰 Pricing: From $39/month, free plan available.
#6 SurveySparrow
SurveySparrow is a form generator that goes beyond traditional surveys with conversational, chatbot-style ones. With this option, your respondents, be it website visitors or clients following the form link, will see the questions play out in a chat setting. Another interesting feature is AI-based analytics: the assistant will help you understand what metrics have the most impact on customer experience, automatically sort incoming feedback, and visualize the data from any angle.
⭐ Top features: AI insights, chatbot-style surveys, offline forms.
🤔 Considerations: A steeper learning curve compared to other tools.
💰 Pricing: From $39/month, free trial available.
#7 Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms are a part of the Microsoft software suite, so if that's the package you use at work or for business communications, you should definitely give the tool a go. It's not as advanced as dedicated form creator software, but regular improvements keep it on par with the rest. Some recent features include live data sync with Excel, Microsoft Copilot AI for prompting questions, and extended sharing options. Overall, the tool is great for simple online forms, particularly internal communication surveys.
⭐ Top features: Beginner-friendly, MS Excel data visualization, AI assistant.
🤔 Considerations: Limited design options and question types.
💰 Pricing: Free.
#8 QuestionPro
If you're specifically looking for market survey tools, QuestionPro has a really strong research edition for choice-based and consumer research. It offers enterprise-grade data security, a heap of integrations, advanced collaboration features, and 10+ logic methods to customize the survey flow. You can also find high-quality respondents right within the platform to conduct global market research. Smaller businesses and individuals looking to make a simple quiz can give the free version a try.
⭐ Top features: Lots of question types, detailed analytics, powerful research suite.
🤔 Considerations: Steep prices for small and mid-sized businesses.
💰 Pricing: From $99/user/month, free plan available.
#9 Hotjar
Hotjar rounds off our list of top survey tools with forms designed to collect website visitor feedback. You can add surveys to different pages, content pieces, and user journey stages to see what matters most to your audience—or share forms as links, too. If you need a helping hand, use an AI assistant to come up with questions and generate summary reports. Other Hotjar products include heatmaps and session recordings for more insights into behavior analytics.
⭐ Top features: AI-powered surveys and reporting, question logic and branching.
🤔 Considerations: Limited customization and branding; not for traditional surveys.
💰 Pricing: From $48/month, free plan available.
Bonus: How to Share Your Surveys for More Engagement
Even the best form builder doesn't guarantee high response rates: it's how you share your survey that matters. You have to find the right time and place to present it, making sure it looks great on any device and seamlessly blends in with the user journey. To boost engagement, consider offering an incentive, like a chance to win a gift card or an extra discount for your services. Sometimes, a little extra motivation is all it takes!
Another effective strategy is to incorporate surveys into your digital documents—like brochures, magazines, newsletters, and employee handbooks. If you use online flipbooks instead of plain PDFs, your form will be surrounded by interactive content and lots of context that encourages participation. For example, in a product catalog, you could include a survey asking customers about their favorite products, or collect employee feedback at the end of an onboarding manual.
FlippingBook, our flipbook maker, supports seamless forms integration with Typeform, Microsoft Forms, and Google Forms. All you'd need to share your online survey is a PDF document and a form link from your preferred tool—and once you combine them together, you can send the flipbook as a link via email or messengers, post it on social media, or add to your website as an embed. Click on the ‘Take survey' button below to see what it might look like:
When people see your survey as part of a larger conversation, they're more likely to take the time and share their thoughts. We hope our list of the best online form builders helps you make the right choice, and then it's time to get creative and make surveys an integral part of your digital storytelling!
