Without surveying your customers or clients, how do you know you're making the right business decisions? Even if you have tons of market knowledge and years of experience, data can add an extra angle to help keep you grounded. This is why companies, researchers, and feedback-driven people turn to survey apps to tap into the insights and opinions of their target audiences.
But it's hard to choose the best-fitting survey app for you, especially considering the ocean of software at your disposal. This difficulty is compounded by the proximity to form builder apps, which aren't quite the same: those are more concerned with data collection of any kind, a good starting point for work orders, maintenance requests, or newsletter signups. Survey tools are a different beast.
So, out of more than 100 possibilities I considered, here are the nine best survey apps to incentivize your audience to speak up.
The 9 best survey apps
- SurveyMonkey for buying responses
- Typeform for beginners
- SurveyPlanet for visual logic branching
- BlockSurvey for privacy
- QuestionPro for advanced question types and scripting
- MakeForms for powerful analytics
- Fillout for AI-generated surveys
- SurveySparrow for chatbot-style surveys
- Responsly for enterprise
What makes the best survey tool?
How we evaluate and test apps
Our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of
how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.In a nutshell, great survey software is a combination of a form builder app with a simple analytics platform, including question types that help you gather quantitative and qualitative data. Here's what I looked for as I reviewed each survey tool:
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Question type variety. Surveying your audience is more than using simple input fields such as short, rating, or long answers. As a result, a solid online survey tool offers more in the form of NPS scales or ranking.
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Logic. To improve the versatility of surveys as a data collection tool, the best survey software has options to take respondents through branches depending on their answers. This improves the user experience and question relevance and gently pushes people to the finish line.
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Data analysis and exporting. This is one of the top differences between forms and surveys: the tools on this list have a set of screens that offer more advanced insights about answers, not just a classic response breakdown.
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Customization. Branding is important, so these survey tools offer a set of simple tools to customize colors, fonts, and other visual elements to convey that aesthetic experience accurately.
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Ease of use. I love to spend 10 hours figuring out a survey app, said no one ever.
I started with almost 150 survey platforms on my list—which included form builders, survey tools, customer experience suites, and low-code workflow optimization tools. I screened them for the top features I mentioned above to reach a shortlist of 25. From that point forward, I created surveys using all the tools available, went crazy with the design tools, and answered the questions just as if I were a regular user. Based on all that research and experience, these are the best survey tools out there.
The best online survey apps at a glance
|
Best for |
Standout features |
Pricing |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| SurveyMonkey |
Buying responses |
Pre-written questions, variety of sharing options |
Free plan available; paid plans from $25/month |
| Typeform |
Beginners |
Visual logic branching, generative AI feature |
Free plan available; paid plans from $29/month |
| SurveyPlanet |
Visual logic branching |
Tons of pre-made questions, creative design themes |
Free plan available; paid plans from $20/month |
| BlockSurvey |
Privacy |
End-to-end encryption with anonymous surveys |
Free plan available; paid plans from $29/month |
| QuestionPro |
Advanced question types and scripting |
Large range of question types, detailed analytics |
Free plan available; paid plans from $83/user/month |
| MakeForms |
Analytics views |
Business intelligence filtering |
Free plan available; paid plans from $29/month |
| Fillout |
AI survey generation |
AI-generated surveys with customizable layouts |
Free plan available; paid plans from $19/month |
| SurveySparrow |
Chatbot-style surveys |
Simulated chat, offline surveys |
Free plan available; paid from $19/month |
| Responsly |
Enterprise |
Industry-specific templates, generative AI feature |
Free plan available; paid plans from $49/month billed annually |
Best survey app for buying responses
SurveyMonkey (Web, Android, iOS)
SurveyMonkey pros:
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Question bank available
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Good mobile apps
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AI survey generator powered by OpenAI
SurveyMonkey cons:
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No visual logic map
Lots of questions but no audience to ask them to? If you're here because you want to tap into market research as a way to improve your offering for new customers, SurveyMonkey lets you buy responses to put that data into your hands. And beyond composing your survey on the web, you can do it entirely via the mobile apps, a unique aspect of this app when compared with others on the list.
If you're unsure what to ask, there are two routes you can take:
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Browse the question bank to find the perfect wording and add it into your survey.
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Start from scratch with AI, generating the lineup with OpenAI's models.
No matter which one you choose, it's always easy to customize the content and flow of your questions, so you're never really locked in at any point.
The next step is sharing it. If you have an existing audience, you can send out the survey via email, WhatsApp, text, or social media. And, as I mentioned above, you can also buy responses in bulk. The prices vary depending on how many people you want to survey, but you'll get a guaranteed number of responses after a few hours.
As they start coming in, you can see the total number of responses and completed responses and dig deeper into the data with a pie chart that shows the number of responses to each individual question. This level of analytics is rare on mobile, but SurveyMonkey has figured out a way to let you drill down into the details, even on a small screen.
When you
connect SurveyMonkey to your other apps with Zapier, you can automate key parts of the survey process. You can send personalized thank-you notes to respondents, create to-do list items based on survey responses, and more—all with no extra manual work. Learn more abouthow to automate SurveyMonkey, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.SurveyMonkey price: Free plan available for 10 questions per survey, 3 collectors, and 60-day response save limit; paid plans from $25/month on an annual commitment
Best survey app for beginners
Typeform (Web)
Typeform pros:
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Generative AI feature
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Visual logic branching
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Built-in marketing capabilities
Typeform cons:
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Limited analytics customization options within the app
Typeform is such a polished app, super easy on the eyes and on your brain. It includes a deep library of some of the best-looking themes I've found, as well as the ability to send emails to survey respondents or embed surveys on a website. Typeform also does a good job of visualizing question branches, making it much easier to spot all your logic.
Whenever you add logic branches that affect how the user flows from one question to another, a flow chart is automatically updated to reflect the various paths available. You can easily drag flows from one question to another, zoom in and out of the chart to view questions and answers, and quickly make sure users aren't hitting dead ends or getting stuck in loops.
On top of this, Typeform lets you easily search Unsplash—a repository of royalty-free images—or a library of icons for the perfect visuals without ever leaving Typeform. It also lets you preview how these visual elements will look as you build your survey, in the same window, so you can play with the placement of each image in relation to each question. You can even preview how they'll render on a mobile device.
Last but certainly not least, Typeform has integrated AI into the survey-building process. Now, before you even browse through their templates, you can give Typeform a summary of what your survey is about and any specific questions you want to ask. From there, it creates the survey with those questions and some generic answers.
Overall, I found Typeform to be a great all-around, intuitive platform. It's easy enough to get started with for beginners, but its additional capabilities as far as customization, building embeddable chatbots, or crafting complex logic paths make it a worthy option for more experienced survey builders.
And when you create
automated Typeform workflows with Zapier, you can take your surveys a step further. You can use survey responses to create new email subscribers, add items to your to-do list, and more—no code required. Here are some examples, or you can learn more abouthow to automate Typeform.Typeform price: Free plan available for up to 10 responses/month and 1 user; paid plans from $29/month
Best survey app for visual logic branching
SurveyPlanet (Web)
SurveyPlanet pros:
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Tons of pre-made questions
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Creative design themes
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Visual logic branching
SurveyPlanet cons:
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No Zapier integration
Know you need to create a survey, but not sure how to get started? SurveyPlanet is an excellent place to start. It offers over 90 survey templates with pre-written questions that you can use as-is or tweak to better fit your needs. The sample questions were a huge help in making the survey creation process go faster, since I could just pluck what I needed.
As you build your survey, you can view a live copy as you edit—right in the same window. The editing panel is a thin column on the left side of the screen and, as you add your survey title, choose from nine question types (from multiple choice to an image-based question), and input questions, the right side of the screen will display and populate your survey in real time.
SurveyPlanet makes editing fast in other ways, too. By default, for each question you enter, you'll see one text field below it to type in a response. But if you choose Multiple choice, Rating, or Form as your question type, you'll automatically see additional text fields appear as you begin typing the first response option. This lets you quickly add responses to each question without having to click the + button or press Enter on your keyboard.
One of my favorite features to use was the logic branching. Most survey apps will lay out logic in a sentence format—for example, "if Q1 is THIS, then go to THAT." While you still have to configure the logic this way, you can view the question branching as a map of sorts, so you can see the threads between various questions. As a visual person, this was a huge help.
SurveyPlanet price: Free for unlimited surveys, questions, and responses; from $20/month for a Pro plan with question branching and result exports.
Best survey app for privacy
BlockSurvey (Web)
BlockSurvey pros:
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Varied question types, with some unique ones available
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Deep logic features, covering skipping, visibility, and answer-based
BlockSurvey cons:
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User interface could be better
With increasing concerns about data privacy and security, gathering info to improve your products and services may feel like a hot potato ready to sear your hands if you make a tiny mistake. In this context, BlockSurvey is like putting on a pair of oven mitts: it offers end-to-end encryption to keep everyone's data safe.
Other apps on this list set up their encryption by securing the data while traveling between servers and while it's stored. Since BlockSurvey is built on Web3 technology—the same that powers blockchain companies and tokens like Bitcoin or Ethereum—there's an element of privacy-by-design that gives it an edge.
It's the only one to offer anonymous surveys. These can add a layer of trust to the form, inviting people to share what they think freely, without fear of consequences. And when people are honest when answering surveys, you may get data that isn't as biased, instead closer to what's actually happening in reality. When you activate this mode, the form will get an "Anonymous Seal," disabling any input fields used for personally-identifiable data.
The user interface is busier when compared with others, but that doesn't break the experience. The screen is divided into three columns: on the left, the list of questions. In the center, the customization for the selected question. And on the right, the preview of how the question will look to the survey taker. Be sure to scroll down the middle tab, as that's where most of the advanced settings live.
But BlockSurvey isn't just a privacy one-trick pony. I was surprised to find advanced question types here, such as the Gabor-Granger's pricing method. Both the responses and the analytics tabs are deep, with data filtering, cross tab, and comparisons—with a cool AI data analysis option coming soon. (There's AI in other areas already: you can use it to write questions from scratch.)
BlockSurvey price: Free plan available for up to 3 surveys and 10 responses; paid plans from $29/month
Best survey app for advanced question types and scripting
QuestionPro (Web)
QuestionPro pros:
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A large range of question types
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Plenty of design customization, including an accessible theme
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Detailed analytics
QuestionPro cons:
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Very expensive
When it comes to question branching, QuestionPro goes above and beyond. On top of offering basic survey logic, it also supports
custom scripting, which allows for even greater flexibility, if you have a bit of coding know-how.For example, you could create a script that creates a pool of questions and then randomly selects a few of those questions to show to different people. This can be helpful if you want to do A/B testing or to reduce survey bias. Survey fatigue, for example, occurs when respondents get tired of answering questions the longer a survey goes on, and so the answers to later questions might be more rushed than earlier questions. Randomizing survey question order can help reduce this kind of bias from being focused on specific questions.
QuestionPro's custom scripting starts on the Team Edition paid tier, so it might be out of reach unless you're working for a decent-sized company, but even if you're an individual, there are basic logic tools on the free tier, and even more advanced branching logic on the $85/month Advanced tier.
Another great aspect of this app is the amount of question types available. They have your usual options, like multiple choice or 1-10 rating, but you can also take advantage of card sorting, which allows the survey taker to sort options in a question. There's even a stopwatch question (available on mobile) that allows you to start the watch, perform some kind of task, and stop it.
Lastly, even on the free plan, QuestionPro offers a lot of design customization. You can pick background colors and fonts, and you can get even more nitty-gritty with the display settings and custom themes. There's also an accessible theme that makes the layout easier to understand and excludes certain questions that may be hard to understand or make out.
And by
connecting QuestionPro to the other apps in your tech stack, you can do things like automatically get notified about new responses or add respondents to your CRM. Here are a few examples.QuestionPro price: Free 200 responses per survey for 1 user, with 30 available question types; paid plans from $83/user/month
Best survey app for analytics views
MakeForms (Web)
MakeForms pros:
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Highest number of data privacy and security certifications
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Share links to multiple forms via customizable form portals
MakeForms cons:
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Weak AI features, as most are still in beta
When you have too much data and don't know what to do with it, you don't need to upgrade to a beefy analytics tool yet. Instead, pick up MakeForms and use the available reports and analytics to get a good view of the data quickly.
The analytics screen starts by offering the basics of the category, with the full list of responses and individual answer view. It gets more interesting with the filtering available on the header columns, so you can easily reorganize and select results just by typing or choosing an option. But what puts it at the top of the category is the business intelligence view, offering a wide range of filtering options in each column, so you can easily hide, show, or sort responses as you comb through the data.
On top of this, there's a dedicated tab in the dashboard for the AI Data Pilot. Choose the survey you want to analyze, and run the Data Pilot: it'll expose trends and add AI-powered insights to help you look into your data, offering more angles than traditional reports can. Unfortunately, this feature is still in beta, and you may need to ask your questions multiple times before you start getting a response.
There are a few advanced tools here, such as the API field that lets you run actions on your systems based on answers. While this could be only for automation use cases, you can set up signals for other platforms based on who is responding, just in case you want a specific department to reach out to someone who answers a question in a certain way.
Another factor that puts it at the top of the hill are its seven data security and privacy certifications—from the stringent HIPAA to the Canadian PIPEDA. It also weeds out fake and illegitimate attempts to reply to surveys with mobile and email verification, so you can make sure that your responses always contain accurate data, not spam.
To be sure your survey data plays well with the rest of your tech stack, you can automate
MakeForms with Zapier, connecting it to thousands of other apps. Try some of these pre-built workflows to get started.MakeForms price: Free plan available for 5 fields per form, 25 submissions per form, and 1 user; paid plans from $29/month
Best survey app for AI survey generation
Fillout (Web)
Fillout pros:
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Generative AI feature
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Intuitive interface
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Generous free plan
Fillout cons:
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Not as much design customization as other apps
While Fillout has a large bank of templates, you can also get started by simply using a prompt to generate your survey. Choose the blank form option to start, click the icon with the purple stars in the builder, and give it a short explanation of what you want.
Fillout isn't the only app on this list that has this AI capability, but I found it to be the most accurate. For example, I asked all the apps on the list to generate a survey with five questions that were all multiple choice, and Fillout was the only app to completely follow those instructions (other apps threw in different question types). But, of course, you won't be limited to just multiple choice—Fillout has plenty of question types, including checkbox, picture choice, and ranking.
Fillout also comes with a variety of integrations with notable apps like Google Sheets, Airtable, and Notion, and there are APIs for Mailchimp and Slack. Setting up the Google Sheets integration was easy, and when it was time to take a look at the results of my surveys, I had three pages of data to refer to. There's a Results page that lists each submission in a Google Sheet and is editable on the app. Then, you have a Summary page where you can see all the visual data, including customizable charts. Lastly, there's an Analytics page where you can see different metrics: things like finished submissions, starts, and completion rates.
As far as picking out a theme, you're given the option to do so before creating your survey. I saw six theme options which were all very minimalistic but still modern—and you can generate one with AI if you're not happy with these. You can also customize the layout of your questions to take up less space or be presented in one or two columns.
And when you
use Fillout with Zapier, you get access to thousands of integrations. Here are some examples to get you started, or you can learn more abouthow to automate Fillout with Zapier.Fillout price: Free for unlimited forms and 1,000 responses/month; paid plans from $19/month
Best survey app for chatbot-style surveys
SurveySparrow (Web)
SurveySparrow pros:
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Chatbot-style surveys included in the free plan
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Simulated chat
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Offline surveys
SurveySparrow cons:
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Need to distribute the survey yourself
SurveySparrow is one of the few services I found that not only offered chatbot-style surveys, but even included them on the free tier. When creating a survey, you can choose from a few templates and see how they would play out in a simulated chat. This approach lets you craft surveys that feel less formal and might be more likely to get answers from your audience.
Better yet, while the surveys are styled like a chatbot, they're more robust than, say, Facebook Messenger. You can create custom buttons, scales, or multiple-choice answers, in addition to open-ended text responses. This gives it more flexibility than an app like Surveybot, although you'll need to distribute the survey yourself through links, QR codes, or embeds on your own website. But you also have the option of making your surveys available offline, which could be useful if, for example, you want customers to complete a quick questionnaire on a kiosk as they're checking out.
Even if you don't want to use chatbot-style surveys, SurveySparrow offers a robust array of traditional surveys with attractive designs. I especially enjoyed how aesthetically pleasing and inviting the answer icons were—they use smiley faces and thunderbolts in place of text and numbers. Another small feature I appreciated was that I could always see a preview of my surveys as they would look once published, even as I was making changes—I didn't need to publish or save the survey first and click to go to another window.
By
connecting SurveySparrow to Zapier, you can do things like get notifications for new responses, automatically add respondents to your email marketing app, or send event feedback surveys to all attendees. Here are some examples to get you started.SurveySparrow price: Free for 3 surveys with 10 questions and 50 responses a month each; then
$19/month for Basic with 5,000 responses per month.Best survey app for enterprise
Responsly (Web)
Responsly pros:
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A variety of templates
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Generative AI feature
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Multiple ways to share surveys via website or app
Responsly cons:
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Relatively expensive
While Responsly would be perfectly suitable for anyone needing to quickly sign up and whip up a survey, I think bigger businesses will find this app useful because of the industry-specific templates. For example, there's a hotel feedback survey, a restaurant satisfaction survey, and even a salon evaluation survey. But there are also plenty of more generalized templates for customer feedback, competitor research, event satisfaction—the list goes on.
If you'd rather not look through all the templates, you also have the option of using generative AI to create a survey. Similar to a few other apps on this list, you can simply provide a prompt and let the app do the rest.
When it comes to customizing the look of the surveys, you have nearly 20 simple but trendy themes to choose from, with the option of making your own or tweaking the colors with hex codes. You can also customize how you share your surveys. Instead of just being limited to sharing via link or email, you can embed your survey in your app or website in a number of ways: you can make it appear as a widget on the side of a webpage, in the corner, or even embed the full form. I tried out the last option—Responsly provides you with a code, so all you have to do is copy and paste, and the form generated perfectly for me.
Similar to Typeform, the branch logic is much more visual than most apps, which I think provides a more intuitive experience—especially helpful when dealing with multiple, complex conditions in a survey. This is part of what I loved most about this app—it's so simple to use, from signing up to creating, sharing, and analyzing the surveys. Responsly packs a lot of useful features, but it doesn't sacrifice the user experience.
You can make Responsly work even better for your business when you
pair it with Zapier. Here are some pre-made workflows to get you started, but you can connect Responsly with any app in your tech stack.Responsly price: Free for 3 forms, unlimited questions per form, and 10 responses/month; from $61/month (or $49/month billed annually) for more features and higher limits
What about form builders and data collection tools?
I want to stress again that the platforms I chose are all survey-oriented. If this isn't exactly what you're looking for, take a look at Zapier's lists of the best form builders and data collection tools:
- Best online form builder apps, focusing on form builders to collect any kind of data—and send it wherever you need it quickly.
- Best WordPress form plugins for streamlined solutions for WordPress websites.
- Best data collection tools for collecting data in the field—a much more specific use case.
And if you're looking for a $0 solution, here's a list of the
best free form and survey builders.Survey everyone with survey tools
With the right survey tool for the job, gathering feedback will be much easier. All the platforms on this list offer at least a free trial to let you tour the main features. If you can, take your time experimenting with it, replicating the main use cases you're likely to face in the near future. Don't be afraid to try several: there's so much survey- and form-building software out there that I'm sure you can find a perfect fit.
Just in case you're here because you've outgrown these tools and are looking for something more powerful, consider taking a look at experience management platforms like
Qualtrics or end-to-end marketing platforms likeAdobe Marketing Cloud.Related reading:
- Automatically answer form responses with AI
- SurveyMonkey vs. Google Forms: Which should you use?
- How to conduct your own market research survey
- Poll vs. survey: Differences and how to run each
- How to get people to take a survey
Originally published in June 2016 by Matthew Guay, this post has also had contributions from Emily Esposito, Hannah Herman, Eric Ravenscraft, and Kristina Lauren. The most recent update was in October 2024.