Three Popular Online Survey Tools – What They Give For Free
| by Michaela Mora |  |
Posted on March 30, 2010
In the last few years there has been an explosion of online survey tools, which has lowered the cost of data collection, and made it easier for many internal market research departments on the client side to deploy their own online surveys.
Nowadays, as reduced or non-existent market research budgets are the norm, clients are constantly looking for free survey online tools or very cheap solutions to get the job done. When I ask what tools they use, the answer is often SurveyMonkey or Zoomerang.
I used SurveyMonkey a while back when I was on the client side with no budget, but it had so many limitations, when I wanted to do more advanced surveys, that I had to search for another tool. I tried Zoomerang, but I found it to be expensive given the limited features it offered. Besides, I found the interface wasn't very intuitive. At another company, where I led the research team, the budget allowed me to use VantagePoint, which I then abandoned for Confirmit. The latter is a very advanced tool, but also quite expensive. So my quest continued and then a couple of years ago I stumbled upon SurveyGizmo, which really surprised me with a long list of features I wanted in an online survey tool at a very low cost.
There are many online survey tools that offer a free limited version so people can test the tool and have a feel for it. However, not all free versions are equal. Some give you more than others and you get the chance to really experience how useful the tool can be. This is the case of SurveyGizmo vs. SurveyMonkey. Even at the lowest subscription plan ($19/mo), SurveyGizmo offers many more features than SurveyMonkey.
Since people keep asking me what online survey tools they can use for free, I decided to share the free online tool review I made of the three online survey tools that seem to be most popular, on a set of features that would allow me to create from simple to slightly more advanced surveys.
| General Overview |  |
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| Number of surveys | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Number of questions | Unlimited | 10 | 12 |
| Number of responses | 250 | 100 | 100 |
| Multi-page surveys |  |
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| Account users | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Question types | 20 | 15 | 15 |
| Graphic survey templates | 15 | 15 | 17 |
| Real-time reporting | |
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| Data exporting | |
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| Never delete data | |
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| Supports all languages | |
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| Price | Free | Free | Free |
| Question Types | |
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| Textbox – Short text | |
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| Essay – Long text | |
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| Multiple text fields | |
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| Table of text fields | |
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| Checkbox | |
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| Table of checkboxes | |
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| Radio button | |
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| Table of radio buttons | |
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| Drop-down menu | |
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| Tables of dropdown menus | |
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| Ranking | |
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| Constant sum | |
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| Instructions/Text | |
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| Image | |
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| Video | |
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| Contact information form | |
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| Date format | |
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| Survey Formatting | |
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| Customizable font family | |
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| Customizable font size | |
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| Customizable font color | |
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| Customizable background colors | |
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| Add/Edit Options in Bulk | |
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Add an open textbox so users can add to their own choice
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Change orientation of labels and options
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| Change position of labels | |
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| Editable Next, Submit, and Close buttons text | |
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| Optional question numbering | |
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| Fully Customizable XHTML/CSS templates | |
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Auto-format as currency, percentage, or a whole number
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| Editable general error message | |
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| Use your own logo for survey branding | |
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Change length, height, and width of textbox or table
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| Editable survey width | |
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| Report Creation Options | |
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| Real-time online report | |
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Add only certain questions or all of them to the report
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| Graphing – Use a bar graph, pie chart or spreadsheet to view answers | |
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| Export Data to Excel, CSV | |
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| Browse All Responses Individually | |
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Can change titles and internal report values
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| Clear all responses | |
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| Survey Deployment | |
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| Send email using survey tool | |
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| Password protection | |
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| Set a cutoff date and time | |
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| Set maximum response count | |
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| Enable IP blocking | |
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| Redirect browser | |
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| Other Survey Options | |
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| Make questions required | |
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Randomize the answers to your question
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| Reorder Questions | |
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Set how many checkboxes someone can check
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Automatically put in a value already collected into the answer field
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| Upload images | |
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| Embed external images and media | |
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Min and Max options for numerical answers
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Prevent search engines from indexing survey
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| Thank You page | |
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| Add a “Close” button to Thank You page | |
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| Back Button Optional | |
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| Progress Bar Optional | |
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Add a unique survey identifier to each link
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JavaScript option embed surveys using JavaScript
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| Embed surveys using an iFrame | |
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| Create hidden variables | |
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Compliance with Section 508 guidelines of the Rehabilitation Act
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| Import Survey from Word | |
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| Export to Word | |
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| 3rd Party Integration | |
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| Open API access | |
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| Facebook integration | |
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| Twitter integration | |
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| MailChimp integration | |
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| Affiliate program | |
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| Support | |
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| Support via email | |
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| Support – FAQ, Tutorials | |
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There are many other tools that offer a free version, but I found them ever more limited that those shown here. As you can see SurveyGizmo has many more useful features in its free version, although a few are missing. An weak area is the survey deployment capabilities, where SurveyMonkey does better. For example I miss in SurveyGizmo's free version the ability to send survey invitations within the tool (you can do it with a paid subscription), but that can be fixed using MailChimp or any other email distribution system. If you use an external system, be aware that in order to send reminders, you have to download the data to check who answered the survey and then extract those from the reminder list. It is a bit of work, but doable. Neither SurveyMonkey or Zoomerang let you download the data without upgrading to a paid subscription.
As a professional market researcher I usually need very robust tools, so free online survey tools usually fall short on providing features needed to develop complex surveys. Noticed that none of these 3 free versions offer skip logic, but if you only need to deploy linear surveys without having to skip questions or reroute respondents, and don't want or can't spent a dime, I recommend you give SurveyGizmo a try. If you have some change to spare, I recommend you use one of SurveyGizmo paid subscription plans, which don't require a long term contract obligation and have many more features at a very low price.
To learn more about our consumer data service visit Consumer Shopping Behavior Insights. To request consumer shopping behavior data and insights don't hesitate to contact us.
I’ve used all of these since they launched, and my main pain point has always been tech glitches. Do they have enough servers? Will my survey slow or crash if I get a lot of traffic? Are there programming glitches that screw up the advanced features? Nobody perfect so far….
Comment by Anne Holland — April 1, 2010 @ 11:37 am
Anne,
It’s been a long time — I hope all is well with you! I agree, the perfect platform hasn’t hit the market yet. Naturally as the CTO & Founder of SurveyGizmo I hope that SurveyGizmo will emerge as the “perfect” platform in the end — and we are spending a lot of time and money trying to do so!
Just with people I think “perfect” isn’t generally possible. But quality and stability are another kettle of fish. They are achievable, perhaps hard to scale and maintain, but totally achievable.
Great article, Michaela. Thanks so much for the praise. I hope we continue to earn it!
Cheers,
Christian
CTO & Co-Founder, SurveyGizmo
Comment by Christian Vanek — April 1, 2010 @ 3:34 pm
Anne,
I have only experienced issues like that with VantangePoint, but not with any of these 3 tools. I think the concept of perfection is relative to what you value the most in a tool based on the types of research projects you manage. For some users, one of these tools might just be “perfect.”
Comment by Michaela Mora — April 1, 2010 @ 4:10 pm
Christian, Thanks for the feedback!
Comment by Michaela Mora — April 1, 2010 @ 4:12 pm
Great review! I’ve used each of the three as well and continue to gravitate to SurveyGizmo. One important feature for me is that SurveyGizmo allows me to use an independent panel company for panels.
The ability to do so brings a bit of a learning curve but it’s worth the effort.
Finally there’s a completely new version that’s just about to launch. It looks to smooth most of the minor annoyances that customers have have brought to their attention.
Andy Perkins
The Satisfaction Questionnaire Blog
Comment by Andy Perkins — April 11, 2010 @ 7:03 am
Why didn’t you compare Qualtrics? They are the best I’ve ever used. You should check them out. I have used all three.
Comment by Tim — May 11, 2010 @ 9:31 pm
Tim,
I have used Qualtrics and admit it is a good tool, but it is in another price category and I don’t think it is as known as these other three I reviewed in the post. Qualtric’s free trial version doesn’t seem to allow you to use it for free in the long run since it is limited to 2 surveys. I would not be comparing apples to apples in this particular review of free online survey tools. I still think that SurveyGizmo offers a very good value for the number of features it offers even in its paid versions.
Michaela
Comment by Michaela Mora — May 11, 2010 @ 10:57 pm
Hello,
IMHO the only FREE survey tool is actually Opina (http://clinker.klicap.es/projects/opina), because it’s Open Source!. So Opina offers all his functionality for free, since you can download and perform a custom standalone installation.
Antonio.
Comment by Antonio Manuel Muñiz — May 18, 2010 @ 3:23 am
Hola Antonio,
Opina might be free, but I think it is missing some key features that a user may be looking for based on this comparison http://blog.klicap.es/archives/200 which it seems you did based on my own review above.
Comment by Michaela Mora — May 18, 2010 @ 2:07 pm
Hello Michaela,
You’re right, our comparative is based you own review, indeed we had included a link to your review in our blog post.
We thought that would be interesting to include in this comparison Opina, although it missed some features (that in my opinion are no keys).
Antonio.
Comment by Antonio Manuel Muñiz — May 19, 2010 @ 11:37 am
@Andy Can you tell me which independent panel company you are using together with Surveygizmo?
Comment by Joris — May 28, 2010 @ 4:24 am
Andy,
There are different panel companies to choose from. For each project, there a different criteria to consider (i.e. cost, incidence, sample source, etc.) so there is not one company I use.
Comment by Michaela Mora — June 7, 2010 @ 8:13 am