Create survey online: The 6 best providers in comparison

Online surveys are ideal for finding out the opinion of a large target group quickly and easily. With the right provider, you can create tailored online surveys for a little money. The challenge: The number of providers is gigantic, and so are the different rates. And since the success of your survey starts with the selection of the right tool, we would like to introduce six survey tools to you here.

What do you actually want to find out?

Which provider is right for you when creating free online surveys depends on what you actually want to find out. Sure: If you just want to know on which date your colleagues have time for the Christmas party, it’s enough to create a HeyForm survey. If, on the other hand, you want to know how your customers rate your new product, the questionnaire needs to be more specific.

Online surveys are very valuable tools to learn more about what your target audience wants. But you will only get the right answers that will help you if you ask the right questions. Before you register with a provider, you should first consider what you want to find out in the first place.

1. Doodle

Let’s start with one of the simplest but at the same time most popular tools: Doodle. Doodle is mainly used to create polls for appointments. This is especially useful for upcoming meetings. With Doodle, you can find out very clearly when your colleagues and employees have time to organize the meeting. It is therefore not suitable for customer surveys. On the other hand, the basic functions of the tool are free of charge. The Pro version of Doodle is available for 30 dollars per month, depending on the range of functions.

• Good for internal and external polls.
• Not suitable for customer surveys.

2. HeyForm

A good option for questionnaires is HeyForm. It is intuitive to use and thus well suited for beginners. It is also possible to customize it to your corporate design. Various question types as well as open and closed questions are available for the surveys.

The basic feature of HeyForm is free but limited in its functions. The other packages are Standard, Pro and Ultimate tailored priced at $19.99, $39.99, and $79.99 respectively.

Alternatively, flat rate offers are available, which are interesting for you if you want to create several online surveys.

• Open and closed questions possible.
• Corporate design possible.
• Basic version free of charge, but limited in functions.

3. LimeSurvey

What makes LimeSurvey so interesting is the option to host the open-source survey software yourself. A very extensive user management allows you to define in great detail which user can edit which survey. As a beginner, however, you can easily be overwhelmed by the possibilities.

LimeSurvey offers a very wide range of possibilities if you want to create surveys online. A total of 28 question types are available, which you can combine in what-you-see-is-what-you-get mode. An interesting feature is a multilingualism: you can create surveys in more than 80 languages and run them in parallel in multiple languages.

The cost structure of LimeSurvey is divided into two offerings: LimeSurvey Pro and LimeSurvey CE if you want to host the software yourself. With LimeSurvey Pro, the creation of questionnaires and 25 responses per month are free. The package with 1,000 responses per month is available for $40. If this is not enough, there are also the packages Expert and Enterprise.

If you host LimeSurvey yourself, the first month is free. After that, you can choose between different subscriptions, ranging from $50 for three months to $120 euros for a year.

• 28 different question types
• Multilingualism with more than 80 languages
• Limited functions free of charge

4. Empirio

The Empirio platform is particularly interesting for students because it specializes in scientific research and is completely free. The highlight: In addition to creating a survey, Empirio also directly offers a connected community for finding participants. Here, students can support each other with participation. In addition, Empirio emphasizes simple and intuitive operation, although this focus means that features such as a customizable design of the survey with CSS are missing. The survey is analyzed in Excel, CSV (SPSS), and PDF formats.

• Specialized in scientific research
• Connected community to find participants
• Especially interesting for students
• Completely free of charge

5. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey offers very extensive functions to create and evaluate even complex questionnaires. The creation process is simple and can be completed in just a few minutes. This tool also shines with the fact that you can adapt surveys to your corporate design by integrating your own logo and font. You can then embed the completed survey into your website or even send it via email.

However, SurveyMonkey is not cheap. In the free version, only basic functions are available: You can only create up to ten questions per survey. To access the full range of functions, you have to book one of the rather high-priced packages. The monthly subscription costs $50 per month. Alternatively, you can take out an annual subscription, which costs $542 or $1,250, depending on the range of functions.

• Extensive functions
• Corporate design possible
• Free version with few basic functions

6. Crowdsignal

Crowdsignal is one of the most well-known tools for online surveys. Crowdsignal is easy to use, yet you can create very extensive surveys with it. Moreover, many different designs can be selected and additional media content can be integrated. The survey results can then be easily exported and analyzed as Excel, PDF, Google Doc, and XML files.

The basic version of Crowdsignal is free of charge. But if you want to add more features, you can purchase either the Pro version for $17 per month or the Corporate version for $75 per month.

• Former name Pollydaddy
• Easy to use, extensive features
• Results can be exported easily
• Basic version free of charge

Conclusion

With the presented tools you can easily create surveys. Now, of course, the only question for you is how complex your survey should be. With these six tools, you have a wide selection so that there should be exactly the right tool for you.