You can't improve what you don't measure.
We’re sure you’ve heard that one before, but this famous saying resonates more profoundly than ever in the digital era. After all, reports reveal that people and organizations generate nearly 330 million terabytes of data daily.
That’s a tremendous amount of information, so all you need to do is capture and interpret data using a reliable online survey tool.
But which one to choose?
It largely depends on the nature of your work. Some platforms are more suitable for small businesses, while others work well for larger organizations, academic research, nonprofits, or even individual users.
In this post, we’ll give you a comprehensive overview of the best online survey tools in different categories.
Let’s dive in!
Top survey tools for collecting client-related information and files
Best survey tools for small business owners
Best survey tools for academic research
Best tools for customer feedback surveys
Best survey tools for nonprofits
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We start off by introducing some of the best online survey tools for collecting information from clients. These tools work well for service-oriented businesses such as accounting firms or digital agencies.
Free trial: Yes
Price: From $35 to $215+ per month
Leading our list is Content Snare, a secure and scalable survey tool designed specifically for client-focused businesses such as accounting firms, legal practices, real estate agencies, and digital marketing teams. If you regularly gather structured data, documents, or in-depth content from clients, Content Snare helps you automate and streamline that process with bank-level security and built-in workflows.
Each time you send a request with Content Snare, the client receives a guided, step-by-step questionnaire that they can complete at their own pace. You can embed text, video, or attachments directly in the form to clarify instructions, and even start an in-form conversation to answer questions or provide support, cutting down dramatically on email clutter and miscommunication:
This makes Content Snare ideal for businesses that need to collect in-depth client feedback, structured responses, or files such as contracts, onboarding documents, or creative assets. It's especially effective for one-to-one interactions, where personalisation and clarity are key. Here’s how Liston Newton Advisory describes it:
Since implementing Content Snare, we've improved efficiency by 50% and reduced data errors by 70%.
Notable features:
Related: How illumin8 transformed client onboarding and advisory workflows with Content SnareÂ
Free trial: It has a limited free plan
Price: From $0 to $99+ per month
QuestionPro offers a library of pre-designed survey forms, making it easier to get started without the need to build surveys from scratch. This is a particularly valuable asset when you're exploring diverse niches or industries.
This online survey tool enables conditional logic, so you can create forms that adapt based on respondents' previous answers. That way, you can quickly guide clients through complex question paths.
Notable features:
Free trial: yes
Price: From $20 to $135 per month
Paperform is a versatile online survey tool that excels in creating visually appealing forms. It has a user-friendly interface, and you can customize forms to keep them on-brand (though the feature applies to Pro and Agency plans only).
This platform lets you build long online surveys with multiple pages and conditional logic for elements like questions, files, emails, content, summaries, and similar. Paperform also enables scoring, which means you can attribute values to each response to quantify results.
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Related: Data collection tools — everything you need to know
Many small businesses search for a balance between functionality and affordability. In this section, we shine a spotlight on survey tools that are both efficient and cost-effective.
Free trial: Yes
Price: Available upon request
Qualtrics is a cloud-based software with tools for survey creation, data collection, analysis, and reporting. It's a popular option among businesses that gather and evaluate data from their clients and employees.
Qualtrics gives you a comprehensive set of design features, so you can craft customized surveys with different question types — multiple-choice, open-ended questions, ranking, etc. It also offers logic branching, multimedia elements, versatile distribution channels, and robust analytics.
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Free trial: Yes
Price: From $0 to $350 per year
SurveyPlanet is another online survey tool that mainly focuses on employee and customer analytics, but you can also use it for healthcare-related projects or surveys in the public sector. It’s one of the cheaper online survey tools, which makes it the go-to option for many small businesses.
We particularly like its Enterprise features that give you deeper survey insights, including survey time predictors, live session counters, location maps, and bounce percentages.
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Free trial: Yes
Price: From $0 to $80 per month
Zoho has a big suite of business applications, and Zoho Survey is one of the most notable. This platform helps businesses gather feedback and data from their audience through customizable surveys, forms, and questionnaires.
You get full control over Zoho Survey in terms of form design — it’s easy to customize the look and feel of your surveys to align them with your branding. That’s because the system lets you change themes, colors, fonts, and images.
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Some users just need a free online survey tool without fancy functionalities. As it turns out, there are quite a few options at your disposal. Here are our favorites:
Free trial: It has a free plan
Price: $0 or $12 per month
The list of free online survey tools has to start with Google Forms. It’s one of the most popular platforms for two reasons — it comes from Google and it offers decent features for a free online survey tool.
The overall look of Google Forms is rather simple, which is OK for most individual users and even some businesses. But if you want advanced functions like saving progress or automated reminders, it’s probably not the best option for your organization.
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Free trial: There’s a very limited free plan
Price: From $25 to $100+ per month
Typeform is one of those free online survey tools that don’t reveal their true value until you subscribe to a paid plan. It allows you to build unlimited forms with its free version, but the monthly response limit is just 10.
Apart from that, you can add many variables and use question branching. Typeform lets you build forms from scratch, but you can also use its AI form generator — all it takes is to explain what your survey is about.
Notable features:
Related: The best Typeform alternative in 2023
Free trial: There’s a limited free plan
Price: From $20 to $65 per month
Jotform gives you slightly better free options than Typeform. You can receive up to 100 monthly submissions and create up to 100 fields per form. It’s also possible to collect 10 payments each month with Jotform’s free plan.
If you opt for one of its paid packages, Jotform will let you customize online surveys by adding your own branding elements. In addition, this platform has a library with thousands of ready-made templates for all kinds of purposes.
Notable features:
Related: How to save and continue with JotForm
Conducting comprehensive studies also requires specialized data gathering software. This section will focus on platforms that can meet the demands of academic research.
Free trial: Yes
Price: From $30 to $75 per month
LimeSurvey is one of the best online survey tools for academic institutions like universities or research institutes. It works in over 80 languages, making it a suitable solution for international teams of researchers.
The platform includes all kinds of question and answer types, from simple text inputs to rankings and numerical inputs. In addition, it allows you to add multiple selections with commentaries as well as quick translations via Google Translate. These and many other features make LimeSurvey a very good option for students and scholars.
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Free trial: Yes
Price: From $25 to $99 per month
Sogolytics helps you collect information and interpret it quickly, which is important for academic research. That’s because the system performs graphical evaluations of data inputs, and you can even transfer them to PowerPoint, Excel, or Microsoft Word.
Apart from data visualization, Sogolytics auto-saves responses. It’s a rare (but valuable) feature among online survey platforms.
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Free trial: Yes
Price: From $30 to $80 per month (plus custom Enterprise plan)
Most people use SurveyMonkey to gather insights or perform market research, but it can also help academic institutions improve their services. According to their website, famous institutions like Harvard and the University of Notre Dame rely on SurveyMonkey in their work.
That’s because this platform helps researchers analyze curriculums, student behavior, staff engagement, and many other parameters. That way, universities can improve their services based on data-driven insights.
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If you’re running a business, you probably want to understand and improve customer experiences. The platforms we’ll discuss below can help you refine your products or services based on real-world insights.
Free trial: Yes
Price: From $53 to $117 per month (and beyond)
Survicate assists you in getting a 360-degree overview of your customers. From Net Promoter Score (NTS) to customer satisfaction analysis, you can use it to get to know your audience inside out. Survicate features a simple drag-and-drop creator, so you can build forms in minutes.
What’s best, you can approach your customers through various channels — websites, emails, in-product forms, and mobile apps. Survicate also integrates with a range of important apps, including Google Analytics, Hubspot, ActiveCampaign, and Drip.
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Free trial: Demo available
Price: $300+ per month
CustomerSure is one of the leading online survey tools for companies that want to truly understand customer experiences. This platform works best for sales agents and managers willing to measure the impact of their campaigns across different touchpoints.
However, bear in mind that CustomerSure is one of the most expensive tools for conducting customer surveys, so it’s probably not suitable for smaller or even mid-sized companies.
Notable features:
Free trial: Yes
Price: Available upon request
If you have a customer-focused website or mobile app, you can analyze the target audience with UserReport. This platform enables you to fix issues or collect precious business ideas by directly asking your customers. The best thing is that you can do it in 60 different languages.
UserReport also features a powerful survey widget that delivers a clear overview of customer demographics. That way, you can learn about their age, location, marital status, and so much more.
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From fundraising events to community outreach programs, nonprofits require tailored solutions to gather feedback. Let’s see some of the best online survey software solutions that enable nonprofit organizations to successfully collect data and measure their impact.
Free trial: There’s a limited free plan
Price: From $15 to $45 per month
CrowdSignal is a simple but feature-rich survey software. You can create as many surveys as you like, while the respondents can answer questions directly from their email inboxes.
This tool has a lot of advanced functions — we particularly like survey restrictions that prevent users from duplicating their responses. CrowdSignal also encourages collaboration since you can easily control permissions and give your colleagues access to survey responses and analytics.
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Free trial: There’s a limited free plan
Price: From $30 to $55 per month
SmartSurvey is an all-encompassing survey platform, but it has a branch designed specifically for not-for-profit organizations. For instance, you can use one of its five templates to measure member satisfaction or gain donor feedback.
Each template has a general overview that displays the number of questions included and the estimated completion time, which is a nice addition to traditional survey forms.
Notable features:
Free trial: Yes
Price: From $55 to $275+ per month
Alchemer is an online survey platform that enables you to create, distribute, and analyze data. It’s not designed for nonprofits in particular, but they can use it to distribute surveys to all types of stakeholders such as donors or beneficiaries.
For instance, Alchemer can assist you in conducting surveys that focus on the needs of the communities you serve. It can also help you collect stakeholder feedback or evaluate individual events or programs.
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Dražen Vujović is a journalist and content writer. More importantly, he is a father of two and a long-distance runner.
