Build, send and analyse surveys that people actually finish, ranked on question types, logic, reporting and what you get before you pay.
Hands-on tested No pay-to-play scores Updated September 25, 2026
SurveyThe most complete survey builder on the list, with the widest question set and reporting that holds up once the answers come in.
SurveyTurns a questionnaire into a conversation, one question at a time, which noticeably lifts completion on longer surveys.
Outgrow
Built for interactive content rather than research, so quizzes, calculators and polls that collect a lead at the end.
Survicate
Aimed at product and CX teams who want surveys triggered inside the app and the answers pushed into the tools they already use.
Google Forms
Mailchimp
| # | Product | Score | Best for | Free plan | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Survey |
9.7/10 | Best Overall Survey Tool | Yes, limited | $30.00 | Visit Site |
| 2 | Survey |
9.3/10 | Best for Conversational Surveys | Yes, forever free | $39.00 | Visit Site |
| 3 | Outgrow | 9.0/10 | Best for Lead Generation | No, trial only | $22.00 | Visit Site |
| 4 | Survicate | 8.8/10 | Best for Product Feedback | No, 10-day trial | $89.00 | Visit Site |
| 5 | Google Forms | 8.6/10 | Best Free Option | Yes, unlimited | $14.00 | Visit Site |
| 6 | Mailchimp | 8.4/10 | Best for Email Audiences | Yes, limited | $20.00 | Visit Site |
A survey tool is judged on two things: how quickly you can build something people will finish, and how much sense the results make afterwards. We built the same three surveys in every tool on this list, a short customer satisfaction poll, a longer research questionnaire with branching, and an embedded website form, then compared question types, logic, reporting and what each one costs once the free tier runs out.
Scores are not pay to play. We build the same surveys in each tool, send them, and compare the results. Affiliate relationships never change a ranking.
Start with response volume, not features. Almost every tool on this list can ask a multiple choice question. What separates them is what happens at scale: SurveyMonkey's entry paid plan includes 15,000 responses a year, SurveySparrow's Basic gives 2,500, and Survicate counts both responses and data points separately. Estimate your annual responses first and the shortlist gets much shorter.
Skip logic sends a respondent past questions that do not apply to them, and it is the single biggest factor in completion rate on anything longer than five questions. SurveyMonkey, SurveySparrow and Jotform all include it on paid plans. Google Forms has a simpler version that branches on section, which covers a screening question but not much more.
A link you email is not the same product as a widget that appears inside your app. Survicate and SurveySparrow are built around in-product and in-email surveys, which is why they cost more per response. Outgrow is a different animal again: it makes calculators, quizzes and interactive content aimed at generating leads rather than gathering opinions, so compare it against a landing page builder as much as against a survey tool.
Google Forms is genuinely free and unlimited, which no commercial tool matches, and for an internal poll or an event signup it is usually the right answer. The commercial free tiers are demos: SurveyMonkey Basic caps you at 10 questions per survey, Jotform Starter at 5 forms and 100 submissions a month, and Mailchimp's free tier is an email plan that happens to include forms. Treat them as a way to test the builder, not as a plan to run on.
If your analysis happens in a spreadsheet or a BI tool, check the export before you commit. Most paid plans give CSV and XLSX; crosstabs, weighting and statistical significance testing are higher tier features on SurveyMonkey and absent from the cheaper tools entirely.
These two sit at the top of our survey ranking and they win on opposite grounds. SurveyMonkey is the stronger analyst: more question types, better reporting, and crosstabs and significance testing that SurveySparrow does not try to match. SurveySparrow is the stronger interviewer: it asks one question at a time in a chat style format, and on anything longer than a handful of questions that noticeably lifts the number of people who reach the end.
Price is closer than it looks. SurveySparrow opens at $19 a month billed yearly, half of SurveyMonkey’s $39, but that Basic tier only carries 2,500 responses a year. Matching SurveyMonkey’s 15,000 means SurveySparrow Starter at $39, which is the same money. Compare the tiers that hold your actual volume, not the headline numbers.
The free plans differ in kind. SurveySparrow has a genuine forever free plan. SurveyMonkey Basic is free too but caps every survey at 10 questions, which makes it a way to try the builder rather than a plan to run on.
| SurveyMonkey Our pick | SurveySparrow | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 9.7/10 · Outstanding | 9.3/10 · Excellent |
| Rank | #1 in Survey Tools | #2 in Survey Tools |
| Price | $30.00 | $39.00 |
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| Get Deal | Get Deal |
SurveyMonkey. It has the widest set of question types, the most capable reporting at its price, and 15,000 responses a year on its entry paid plan. It is also the tool most respondents have seen before, which matters more for completion rate than it sounds.
For internal polls, event signups and simple feedback, yes, and it is free with no response limit. It falls short when you need branching beyond a screening question, branded surveys, or reporting more advanced than a bar chart.
A form builder like Jotform is optimised for collecting structured data, payments and signatures. A survey tool is optimised for asking questions well and analysing the answers across respondents. There is real overlap, so pick based on whether you care more about the submission or the analysis.
Usually yes. Removing the provider's branding is a paid feature on SurveyMonkey, SurveySparrow and Jotform. Google Forms shows no vendor branding on the free tier, which is one of its genuine advantages.
We built the same three surveys in each tool, a short satisfaction poll, a longer questionnaire with branching, and an embedded website form, then compared build time, question types, logic, reporting and exports. Prices were read from each vendor's own pricing page on the day of writing.
SurveyThe most complete survey builder on the list, with the widest question set and reporting that holds up once the answers come in.