7 Top-Rated Survey Software

Shephalii Kapoor profile picture
By Shephalii Kapoor

Published
13 min read

Survey software helps users create, distribute, and analyze online surveys.

Are you a customer or marketing manager who depends on surveys to enhance customer experience and improve your offerings? Do you often find yourself juggling multiple tasks, such as designing interactive surveys, gathering survey responses, and analyzing survey data—all while dealing with low response rates and survey design issues? If so, you can lean into an online survey platform to effectively solve those problems.

Survey software enables marketing professionals to create and share online forms, polls, and surveys. The software also allows them to analyze the results of these surveys with the help of charts, graphs, and reports and export data for deeper analysis. 

By comparing the top most survey solutions available on the market, you can find the tool that best matches your team’s requirements and is financially an ideal fit for your business needs. We highlight the seven best survey software for business professionals, in alphabetical order, based on verified software reviews. Read more.

1. Formidable Forms: WordPress plug-in for surveys and polls

Formidable Forms is a WordPress form builder plugin with a drag-and-drop editor to create surveys and polls. The software allows you to build and add surveys to WordPress sites. As a Formidable Forms user, you can create interactive surveys with open-ended/close-ended, Likert scale, rating, multiple choice, and demographic questions. You can also use the tool to limit the total number of survey responses and prevent multiple submissions from the same users.

Product features of interest:

  • Survey summary: Empower respondents to review their responses before final submission. The summary field, also known as review before submit, ensures the accuracy of responses and can be added to a multi-paged form/survey. The feature is available in the Formidable basic plan and higher versions.

  • Conversational forms: Create an engaging experience for your respondents by using the conversational forms plugin that is available with Formidable Forms Pro License. The plugin helps you guide users through surveys by displaying one question at a time. It uses conditional logic that displays different fields to different users based on their previous answers.

  • Survey data analysis: Collect survey results and use graphs, reports, and charts to analyze data. These can help you track patterns, relationships, and areas of improvement based on customer service or other similar surveys. Some of the examples of graphs in Formidable Forms include pie charts, donut graphs, histograms, line charts, and geo heatmaps. 

Customer support options: Email, help desk, knowledge base

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$39.50 per year

Device compatibility

Screenshots

Formidable Forms

Creating forms in Formidable Forms (Source)

* Analysis accurate as of March 1, 2023

2. Google Forms: Allows to add collaborators for building questions

Google Forms is an online tool to create surveys and forms. The platform enables users to access, create, and edit forms from anywhere and from any device, including mobile, tablet, and computer. It also allows you to add collaborators, similar to Google Docs, slides, and sheets, to build questions and surveys in real time. You can also use the tool to collaborate on results without having to share multiple versions of the file. 

Product features of interest:

  • Automatic form summaries: Analyze your survey and form responses using the automatic form summaries feature. The software provides you with a summary of all responses, including individual responses in forms. You can also access the data using a new spreadsheet for deeper analysis and even download responses as a CSV file.

  • Form and survey sharing: Share your forms and surveys with a broad audience or a specific group of people by embedding forms on your website. Alternatively, you can also share surveys via email or as links on social media websites.

  • Response validation: Set response validation rules to restrict the type of responses that can be filled in a particular survey field. For example, you can use this feature to limit the number of answer choices for a particular checkbox question. Response validation can be used for three of the question types—short answer, paragraph, and checkboxes. 

Customer support options: Phone, email, and chat

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

Part of Google Workspace, the price of which starts at $6 per user, per month

Device compatibility

Screenshots

Google Forms

Form summaries in Google Forms (Source)

* Analysis accurate as of March 1, 2023

3. Sogolytics: Offers over 20 different question types for surveys

Sogolytics, previously known as SoGoSurvey is an experience management platform that helps you build attractive and engaging surveys. The software offers a variety of question types and multimedia features, along with survey branching, templates, and multilingual functionality to help you customize online surveys. You can choose from over 20 different question types, such as descriptive text, check box, drop-down, rating scale, and symbol rating to ask complex questions in your surveys. 

Product features of interest:

  • Survey templates bank: Select from a variety of ready-to-use templates, such as customer surveys, HR surveys, and event surveys to create meaningful and interactive surveys. For each template, the software showcases a small description, the number of questions in the template, the number of times the template has been used, and an estimated participant completion time.

  • Advanced branching: Allow respondents to avoid irrelevant questions and skip to different pages of your survey depending on their answers. For example, if you want to show a specific set of questions only to doctors taking up the survey, you may use advanced branching. The feature helps you customize each participant’s experience and make it as relevant as possible.

  • Header and Footer messages: Add survey header and footer messages that appear on every page of your survey. The feature can be used to add survey title, company name, contact information, links, and relevant instructions. You can also format the text in the header and footer using different fonts and colors to match your brand’s requirements. 

Customer support options: Phone, email, and chat

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$25 per month

Device compatibility

Screenshots

Sogolytics

Designing surveys in Sogolytics (Source)

* Analysis accurate as of March 1, 2023

4. Startquestion: Features skip logic for surveys

Startquestion is a survey creation tool that helps you create unlimited surveys and forms with a lot of personalization options. The software uses a skip logic feature to ask participants only relevant questions. The feature changes survey questions a respondent sees based on how they have answered the current questions. 

Product features of interest:

  • Advanced reporting and analysis: Set recurring report sharing with team members or generate one-click reports in Excel, PDF, Word, or PowerPoint formats to present in a meeting. With Startquestion, you can view answers from each respondent separately, filter survey results, and even export raw data to Excel or SPSS for detailed analysis.

  • Notifications and alerts: Set up email notifications about survey completion. You can also set custom notifications for new responses that meet certain criteria. For example, you can choose to receive alerts when a respondent has marked 0 on the rating scale at the time of taking a survey.

  • Segmentation and filtration: Analyze survey results by utilizing the advanced filtering capabilities offered by the tool. Startquestion allows you to derive more insights by filtering results based on specific conditions, such as the occurrence of the response, the time of filling, and respondent data. The software also facilitates user segmentation based on different criteria, such as the level of customer satisfaction, and the age and gender of those completing the survey.

Customer support options: Phone, email, and chat

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$49 per month

Device compatibility

Screenshots

Screenshot of survey feedback analysis in Startquestion

Analyzing survey feedback in Startquestion (Source)

* Analysis accurate as of March 1, 2023

5. SurveyLab: Offers automatic device and screen resolution detection

SurveyLab is an online survey platform that automates data collection and enables users to create quick surveys. The software automatically detects your device type-laptop, tablet, or smartphone, and scales your survey to fit the desired screen. You can also hide survey questions on selected device types. 

Product features of interest:

  • Survey branding: Make your online surveys look professional by adding logos, colors, fonts, and themes that best match your brand requirements. You can also set a custom redirect to selected web pages and your audience will automatically be redirected to these pages after survey completion.

  • Multi-channel response collection: Collect and combine survey responses from multiple channels, such as Email, SMS, Popup, QR code, Facebook, and mobile apps. With SurveyLab, you can set automatic email notifications for new survey responses and notification frequency for each survey.

  • Graphical real-time reports: View the survey results instantly with SurveyLab’s real-time reports. The software generates automatic reports as soon as the first responses are collected so that you do not have to wait for your survey analysis. You can also export survey results into different formats, such as Excel and PDF files. 

Customer support options: Phone, email, and chat

Best functionality

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$49 per month

Device compatibility

Screenshots

SurveyLab

List of surveys in SurveyLab (Source)

* Analysis accurate as of March 1, 2023

6. SurveyMonkey: Offers Survey Genius for collecting survey feedback

SurveyMonkey is a cloud-based solution that allows users to create, share, and analyze online surveys. You can also collect expert feedback on your drafts, including the survey design to improve your survey scores and provide respondents with a better survey-taking experience. The tool offers a Survey Genius feature that leverages the power of artificial intelligence (AI), survey experts, and machine learning to identify potential errors in your draft, recommend fixes, and predict survey performance. 

Product features of interest:

  • Question bank: Browse through different categories and include the right questions in your surveys. The software provides you access to thousands of questions across multiple categories, such as education, events, customer feedback, and healthcare. If your survey does not have a category, you can browse through other categories to search for relevant questions.

  • Recurring surveys: Set up a recurrence to share your regular surveys and gather insights over time. The feature helps you save time by automatically creating web links for your surveys, also called occurrences, at a frequency of your choice. You can also filter results for each occurrence to track sentiment over time.

  • Inactivity timer: Set an inactivity timer to loop the survey back to the beginning in case it remains inactive for a specific amount of time. You can also set a passcode to prevent respondents from exiting a survey. The feature is available in the Kiosk mode on the SurveyMonkey Anywhere App. 

Customer support options: Phone, email, and chat

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$25 per user, per month

Device compatibility

Screenshots

SurveyMonkey

Analyzing results in SurveyMonkey (Source)

* Analysis accurate as of March 1, 2023

7. Zonka Feedback: Supports over 30 languages for multilingual surveys

Zonka Feedback is a customer and employee feedback survey app that supports more than 30 languages, including English, Arabic, Italian, Hindi, and French. With Zonka, you can create multilingual surveys, change the default language of your surveys to meet global requirements, add language translations to surveys, and even provide the option to switch languages on the welcome screen of your surveys.

Product features of interest:

  • Pre-built survey templates: Choose from over 50 expert feedback survey templates to seek feedback from customers across varied industries. The software offers you access to pre-built survey templates with varied question types across multiple industries, such as healthcare, hospitality, finance, banking, and retail.

  • Answer piping for website feedback: Personalize survey questions by using the answer piping feature that allows you to select a text/an answer from a previous question and insert it into an upcoming question/survey screen. For example, you may want to select the name of the survey participant from the first screen and insert it into the upcoming survey screens, or as may be required to personalize experiences for your participants.

  • Respondent tracking: Track text messages and email deliveries, survey open rates, and response rates with Zonka Feedback. The platform allows you to view a complete log of all the emails you have sent, including a timestamp for each of the activities. For each email, you can view the time and date when your email was sent and opened, along with the time when the respondent submitted the survey response. 

Customer support options: Phone, email, and chat

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Starting price

$49 per month

Device compatibility

Screenshots

Screenshot of feedback reports in Zonka Feedback

Feedback reports in Zonka Feedback (Source)

* Analysis accurate as of March 1, 2023

How to choose the best survey software for your business

You can consider the following factors to finalize the best survey software from the list of available options on the market. 

  1. Consider skip logic and question branching: Skip logic and question branching are two important survey features that allow you to customize the flow of your surveys based on the previous answers submitted by respondents. These provide you the ability to create intelligent surveys and personalize the survey experience for each of your participants.

  2. Look at survey customization options: Your shortlisted survey tool should help you customize your surveys with the brand’s logo, themes, fonts, and images. Consider a survey app that allows you to customize different types of surveys, such as product, website, service evaluation, and customer surveys. A customized survey helps enhance your brand awareness, increase customer satisfaction, and strengthen your brand authority.

  3. Understand the respondent tracking capabilities: An online survey software should help you track individual responses to your surveys. You may use the software to export your survey data and analyze how a particular respondent has answered a survey. Several survey tools also allow you to send reminders and follow-up surveys to facilitate survey tracking.

How much does survey software cost?

Most products in the market are priced on a "per month" basis and can be broken down into three common pricing tiers based on their starting price.

Price ranges*:

  • $10 - $20

  • $21 - $49

  • $49+

*The pricing included is for the entry-level/lowest-priced offering found on vendor websites on March 01, 2023. These ranges correspond to the 25th, 75th, and 100th percentiles of pricing information gathered from vendor websites of sample products.

Hidden costs associated with survey software

The above pricing list summarizes pricing for the base plans of most products. An enterprise or premium survey software solution that is priced higher may include additional features, such as data analysis tools, question piping, response quotas, response validation, and audio/video support. Even the free plan may have hidden charges, such as implementation costs, customization costs, scalability costs, and charges for an increased number of respondents or questions. Before finalizing a tool, ask the vendor about any such hidden charges to ensure complete pricing transparency.

Frequently asked questions when selecting survey software

Here are some questions to ask online survey software providers before selecting the top survey software for your business:

What are the available question types?

The top survey software should offer you multiple question types, such as open-text questions, rating scales, checkboxes, and image questions for your online surveys. To start with, you can look for an online survey tool that offers you at least the basic question types, which include single answer, multiple choice, matrix, open-ended, number type, and semantic differential (rating scale) question types.

Does the software support multilingual surveys?

If you need to target a global audience, you must invest in a survey tool that allows you to create and translate surveys into the audience’s preferred language. Multilingual capabilities in a survey solution also increase your response rate as more people can take the survey.

Does the software feature a question library for survey creation?

Several survey tools come with a question library consisting of a set of standard questions that can be used in surveys. This helps minimize the efforts in framing the same questions every time you design a survey. You can also save your most commonly used questions in the library for later reference.


Methodology

To be considered for this list, products had to:

  • Have at least 20 unique product reviews published on Capterra within the past two years, with an average rating of 3.0 or higher, as of March 01, 2023. We selected the top seven products from Capterra’s shortlist report for survey software, having the highest ratings to feature in this article.

  • Include multi-channel distribution, survey builder, and reporting as core features.

  • Meet our survey software market definition: “Survey software enables the efficient design and management of electronic surveys, polls and questionnaires for market research, measuring customer satisfaction, and collecting employee feedback, along with many other applications.”

The “best functionality” tool is identified based on the highest user ratings for functionality that a vendor received based on user reviews as of March 01, 2023.

Read more about our editorial independence.

Products evaluated for the pricing calculation were taken from Capterra’s survey software directory. The pricing ranges exclude freemium versions of the products. The features highlighted were identified based on their relevance and the percentage of products in the Capterra directory that offer them.


Looking for Survey software? Check out Capterra's list of the best Survey software solutions.

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About the Author

Shephalii Kapoor profile picture

Shephalii Kapoor is a writer at Capterra. She helps small businesses identify the right software for their needs by analyzing user reviews for top-rated software products. Prior to Capterra, she worked as an assistant content manager at InfoEdge India Ltd. She has also worked in company law, aviation, and real estate. She is a published author and has contributed to various magazines and websites. During her free time, she enjoys reading.

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