Why choose SurveyMonkey?

SurveyMonkey is a great employee feedback solution. Use SurveyMonkey to conduct employee satisfaction surveys, boosting productivity and morale. 

The design interface is very user-friendly. Over 230 templates are available, all designed with beginners in mind. You can choose from the Net Promoter Score surveys, Customer Satisfaction surveys, Exit Intent, and more.

The editor supports advanced branching and survey logic and you don’t need to code at any point in the creation process. You can randomize answers and add a scoring mechanism or a progress bar. 

You can fetch feedback in real-time and take advantage of multilingual features. The SurveyMonkey software integrates with popular third-party tools like Automate.io, HubSpot, and Salesforce.

SurveyMonkey also lets you to conduct feedback analysis inside their tool. The AI Genius engine calculates and even estimates the completion rate for live and future surveys for quantitative data. To analyze qualitative insights, use their sentiment analysis and Word Cloud.

But SurveyMonkey has its downsides, too.

Why search for SurveyMonkey alternatives?

If you are looking for flexibility on pricing or ready-to-send templates, choose a SurveyMonkey alternative.

SurveyMonkey’s pricing model forces customers to invest in an annual plan. If your team would do better with a monthly or quarterly subscription, this tool is not the right way to go.

SurveyMonkey also does not offer any free trial. There is a basic free plan with highly limited features. Once you receive over 100 responses, you may have trouble accessing the collected data. 

Some users also do not like the template-driven design. The tool strongly encourages a customer to use a template. You can power through the process to create a survey you won’t use and then start from scratch. 

You have to account for the extra step if the survey you want to make is custom or if you can’t find a fit within the template library.

Note that this information was derived from several recent reviews; however, while writing this post, I noticed it might be possible to start a survey from scratch when creating a subsequent survey.

Free users, i.e., anyone taking advantage of the basic plan, cannot export collected data to Excel. One user called this “holding your responses hostage until you upgrade the plan.”

Overall, the most useful features are only available on the (steep) paid plans.

Some reviewers are unhappy with the level of customization you can apply to surveys.

Moreover, pricing plans are not optimized in terms of price-to-ratio as regards an organization’s size. If you are a small to mid-size business, you will likely be paying for features you won’t use.

Finally, if you downgrade your plan, you will lose access to collected data. 

As a case study, a user described their experience as such;

• As a student, they were interested in conducting one study with a single question
• They chose SurveyMonkey, as it was advertised as the number 1 free survey tool
• They collected over 100 responses, which means they were forced to purchase a subscription plan to review the results
• They decided not to pay for an expensive subscription plan, forfeiting their results
• As a result, they missed a deadline and decided to stick to a free solution - Google Forms - for the foreseeable future

Note, that this use case would have been easily dealt with by using Survicate freemium.

SurveyMonkey pricing

SurveyMonkey offers several plans for teams, individuals, and enterprises. The quotes provided below are the cheapest available options as of October 2022. 

Remember, you can pay month-by-month, but you have to commit to an annual plan unless you choose the Standard Monthly plan, which only allows one user.

Free plan

The free basic plan lets you create a survey with limited features. If you collect more than 100 responses, you must purchase a subscription to access data.

Individual Advantage

Price $39 per month, billed $468 annually

You can launch unlimited surveys with endless questions and collect up to 15,000 responses yearly. Apart from the free plan features, you can export data, use skip logic, and add your logo.

Team Advantage

Price: $25 per user per month

You must purchase three seats minimum, totaling $75 per month. This plan is billed annually, making the initial price $900.

You get the features from the previous plan plus, notably, file uploads, A/B testing, and question randomization.

Enterprise

If your needs exceed the Team and Individual plans, you can book a demo and discuss your needs with SurveyMonkey’s sales team.

SurveyMonkey advertises its enterprise plan by offering more users, visibility into all survey data collected across your company, assurance that confidential data is protected with enhanced security, and feedback automation.

Bearing all this in mind, you may want to consider some SurveyMonkey alternatives. I have divided the most popular SurveyMonkey competitors into the best tools dedicated to business use cases, academic research, and personal use.

Business use cases 

The following SurveyMonkey alternatives are the best picks for customer feedback, experience, and satisfaction.

Survicate

Survicate is an easy-to-use customer feedback and satisfaction tool. Easily run NPS, CSAT, and CES campaigns. 

Automate surveys with our software, so you never have to send them out manually to your users and collect continuous user insights. Survicate also captures partial responses.

You’ll be able to collect continuous data and analyze the results in real time. Thanks to  unlimited users, any team member can take advantage of our interactive filters to get a bird’s eye view of score changes across days, weeks, months, quarters, and years. 

The editor and analysis tab are intuitive and have a clean interface. There is no need to code, and you won’t need developers to connect native, one click-integrations. We offer multichannel distribution and advanced skip logic and customization.

You can start building a survey the moment you sign up. This is true both for surveys you want to start from scratch or from a template. There is a library of over 125 templates designed for the best response rates, and they are all 100% editable.

Survicate offers hundreds of third-party tools with popular integrations like HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, and more. The analysis is easy with integrations like Mixpanel and Productboard. 

You can integrate Survicate with all our integrations on our free plan - it's just a limit of how many of them you can connect with at once.

Survicate is also a great solution for qualitative data analysis with integrations to tools like FullStory, Smartlook, and SessionCam. You can also connect more tools with Zapier.

According to a comprehensive comparison by G2, there isn’t a single category survey tools are judged on where SurveyMonkey surpasses our tool.

We win or match them in ratings for features like:

• Ease of use
• Ease of Admin
• Customization/branding
• BI tools integrations
• Quality of support
• Reporting & analytics
• Survey builder
• And more

Survicate’s pricing is not seat-based. You can invite as many members of your team as you want to create, edit, connect, or analyze any of your surveys for no additional price. How much you pay for a subscription depends solely on the needs your company has for feedback collection.

As long as you only want to run one survey at a time for no longer than 7 days, Survicate is completely free. You will be able to access data gathered from previous surveys at any point as well. You will have to purchase a paid plan to export the results, though.

All pricing plans allow unlimited users.

Survicate Freemium

Price: free

Run any survey for seven days with access to essential features. Collect as many responses as you can and connect your surveys with marketing, product, and support tools natively.

Choose from all four distribution channels: email, website, in-product, or mobile, and use any of our pre-made survey templates.

Feedback Starter 

Price: $89 per month

You can run three surveys simultaneously. Use any integrations you want and remove Survicate branding to add your own.

Advanced Researcher

Price: $129 per month

This plan allows you to run five surveys simultaneously. You can use all four distribution channels. Export your data with Google Sheets and use the word cloud text analysis tool.

Feedback Automation

Price: $179 per month

This plan is most popular among our users. It comes with seven active surveys and advanced targeting. Make your surveys multilingual to reach your audience in their preferred language. Take advantage of Webhooks and automate your recurring surveys.

Team Insights

Price: $269 per month

Team Insights gives you room to run ten surveys simultaneously. You get access to collaboration features and user roles. You can even edit CSS if you want to make your campaigns more customized.

Scale

Price: $299 per month

If the plans above still don’t meet your expectations, consider our Scale plan for enterprises. We offer custom onboarding plans and training, performance reviews, and more.

Netigate

Netigate is a great tool that lets you collect feedback from both customers and employees. They offer a 30-day free trial.

Netigate makes it possible to send surveys and collect responses via SMS. They have a great knowledge hub with:

• Blog articles
• Video tutorials
• eBooks
• Case studies
• And more

Reviews confirm Netigate is easy to use, and their customer service team is very responsive. You can even contact them before you sign up to guide you through the onboarding process.

On the downside, even their highest subscription plan only offers 20 seats. It can be troublesome to set up an account, as you have to be contacted by phone. You won’t be able to set up an account as an individual.

Pricing is based on needs, so you have to get an individual quote. Reviews do claim plans are expensive.

Alchemer 

Alchemer, previously SurveyGizmo, is a survey platform for enterprises. It may not be the best pick if you are a small to mid-size business.

They offer advanced customization and real-time insight collection. You can use many question types, oftentimes more than their direct competitors.

They support multiple survey types, which makes collecting diverse customer data easy. You can customize branding and set up skip logic and branching as you want. You can create mobile in-app surveys if that is how you communicate with your users.

There is a reporting and analysis dashboard for easy data perusal, and it is all gathered in one place. You can integrate Alchemer with tools like Salesforce and Webhooks.

There are pre-designed survey templates to save you time when starting your campaign.

Compared with SurveyMonkey, surveys are easier to set up, including features like multilingual questions and multimedia within the forms. The tool has an intuitive CMS.

You can download result reports in multiple formats.

On the other hand, reviewers complain about confusing sub-menus and the fact that pricing is based on the number of responses. Subscription plans are also seat-based, so if you want many of your team members to access surveys and results, it may not be the best choice.

QuestionPro

QuestionPro is praised for its wide range of applications. Most notably, customers use QuestionPro to track and manage

• Customer experience
• The pulse of the customers
• Employee management

‍

They offer ready-made survey templates with customizable design themes. Popular integrations with tools like Salesforce and Webhooks are available. They are also known for their multilingual options.

In the survey editor, you can alter logic and piping. For your results, you can use advanced filtering and segmentation. Set up email reminders and scheduling to smooth out your data collection process. There is a lot of documentation in the form of help articles and FAQ sections to minimize the learning curve of using the tool.

QuestionPro advertises their tool as easy to use, with only 5 minutes needed to launch a survey. The free plan gives you access to basic features, such as over 40 question types. You can export data in XLS and CSV.

The downsides include an unclear pricing model and slow loading speed, especially if you want to create longer surveys.

On the website, you can find that paid plans start at $129 per month.

SoGoLytics

SoGoLytics is a feedback management software with two prominent features: SoGoCX and SoGoEX. The aim of SoGoCX is to boost customer experience, while SoGoEX focuses mostly on boosting customer engagement.

Use SoGoLytics to create custom surveys, polls, and quizzes for your customers. As with the competitors described above, you can use survey templates and integrate them with tools like  Salesforce, Zapier, and Google Analytics.

The survey editor works on a drag-and-drop basis, making the learning curve practically non-existent. You can also get response alerts to stay on top of your real-time feedback.

You can automate your feedback collection with their API. Add branching and skip logic to optimize the results you get. In terms of analysis, there are data visualizations that you can use in meetings and presentations.

But the solution isn’t perfect. The basic version has limited features, and reviewers complain about server and programming-related issues.

Academic research

The SurveyMonkey alternatives from this section are best for academic purchases, i.e., for students, professors, and researchers.

Qualtrics

Qualtrics is an all-in-one survey tool loaded with many functionalities. They offer a lot of question types to help build surveys efficiently. It is a versatile tool that comes with a steep price.

The bank of pre-built templates includes interesting surveys like

• Vote and rank survey
• Employee suggestion box
• Meeting feedback
• Quick poll
• And more

Survey creation is a fast process with the drag-and-drop editor. A notable feature is the predictive intelligence tool that will help you obtain actionable insights from the data you collect.

You can gather customer insights from many sources, including

• Chatbots
• Websites
• Mobile apps

The tool will recommend survey designs while you edit your questions. You can integrate the tool with Adobe, Marketo, Salesforce, and more. 

30 types of graphs make data visualization very advanced, including crosstab capabilities. You can export all of this in multiple formats, including popular solutions like CSV and PDF. 

SurveyMonkey is a better choice if you want highly customized surveys. Reviewers also complain about the complexity of adding contract data to directories. Pricing from Qualtrics is available on request.

LimeSurvey

LimeSurvey is an open-source survey tool. This means you can modify the software according to your individual needs. It is free to use with a few features, and the paid plans are much cheaper than SurveyMonkey.

LimeSurvey offers a question library to create accurate surveys fast. You can host your survey in many ways, including self-hosting. The tool specializes in market research as well as customer satisfaction and employee experience.

It is easy to create white-label surveys and add your own branding. Advanced targeting lets you host surveys on custom URLs. The software supports rich media, branching, and skip logic.

The user interface is very responsive, and reviewers like the navigation. You can analyze results using graphs, bards, and charts.

On the downside, email handling is limited, and it may be difficult to train employees due to the steep learning curve. The tool may also be suboptimal for individual use. 

Paid plans start at $10 per month, making LimeSurvey considerably cheaper than SurveyMonkey.

Smartsurvey

Customers of both SurveyMonkey and Smartsurvey complain that many essential features are locked behind a paywall or expensive subscription plans. But, if you do decide to invest, you can take advantage of highly advanced question types and logic in your surveys.

The Smartsurvey Enterprise plans include out-of-the-box customer experience questions, dashboards, and complex variable options. You can add multimedia like images and videos to your surveys and translate the questions into many languages.

The free version will not let you filter, or export collected data into formats other than Word and PDF. White-label surveys are only available on the Enterprise plan. The same goes for survey customization.

No credit card is needed for the free plan, but you can only have one named account user. The free version comes with unlimited surveys, but they can only have up to 15 questions, and you can collect up to 100 responses per month.

Paid plans start at £30 per month (a UK-based company) with unlimited responses on the annual plan or 1000 responses on the monthly plan. There is a rolling subscription, but reviewers claim it is easy to cancel, unlike SurveyMonkey.

SurveySparrow

SurveySparrow is a conversational survey builder. Make visually attractive surveys with video snippets as survey backgrounds, which can be muted or set up to play on loop.

The tool offers many analysis options, with better reviews than that of SurveyMonkey. Advanced filtering options make it easy to sort responses, which you can view on graphs and charts in an intuitive UI. 

SurveySparrow is a lot more affordable than SurveyMonkey. There is a 14-day free trial for which you don’t have to provide a credit card. The free plan allows 100 responses per month with 100 email shares per month. You can have three active survey projects and list up to 10 questions in each.

Paid plans only allow 1 user, but add the option of skip logic and unlimited questions.

Personal use

If you are looking for free SurveyMonkey alternatives or competitors that are much more affordable, consider the following four.

Google Forms

Google Forms is a part of Google Suite - it is free and comes with native integrations to Sheets, Drive, and more. You can share forms and surveys online via links.

This tool records responses in real-time and supports collaboration between team embers to analyze feedback results. The smart validation feature ensures accurate formatting in emails and other distribution methods.

Google Forms is the best and most popular free SurveyMonkey alternative. It supports branching and skip logic, and works on many devices like tablets, smartphones, and desktops. 

All edits you make to surveys are saved automatically in the Cloud.

On the downside, Google Forms may look less professional than SurveyMonkey, the distribution methods are limited, and there are no on-site, in-app pop-up capabilities.

Typeform

Typeform is great for personal use as it specializes in visually-pleasing forms like quizzes. This form experience, however, is not the best pick if you want to collect extensive or complex data.

You and your respondents can use keyboard shortcuts to get through the forms faster. You can add images and videos, and the forms will be compatible with all browsers. If you want to quiz your friends on fun topics - Typeform is a great solution.

Typeform offers on-site and in-app surveys. There are pre-designed survey templates that are hard to customize. There is also no static view, all questions are displayed one by one.

You can integrate Typeform with popular tools like Canva, Trello, and HubSpot.

However, there is a rigid payment structure and a security issue - all forms show up on the Typeform website, making them available to spam and bots. Choose a Typeform alternative if you want to collect many responses or payment data.

SurveyPlanet

SurveyPlanet is a free SurveyMonkey alternative. You can make unlimited surveys with unlimited questions and collect unlimited responses. It’s a great solution for basic surveys. There is also a pro plan with advanced functionalities.

The focus here is on sharing free surveys quickly. The design is responsive, and the results review is easy and intuitive, albeit limited when it comes to filtering and sorting.

If you are a new business interested in product research in the ideation phase, you can take advantage of responses from a pre-screened pool of qualified participants SurveyPlanet offers.

The free version does not allow adding your branding, custom themes, or data export. If you purchase a subscription, you can download customer insights in formats like Word, Excel, CSV, JSON, and PDF.

Pro plans start at $20 power month or $180 per year.

Survio

When you first start creating a survey with Survio, you’ll get to peruse their template library. As you can see above, there are many categories and options to choose from. Each template comes with a theme for a professional look.

Survio offers integrations through Zapier, meaning you can connect it to thousands of tools. This survey software is particularly recommended for HR specialists. They advertise how easy it is to:

• Screen potential candidates
• Analyze employee feedback
• Assess employee performance
• Carry out exit surveys

all within the Survio software.

When it comes to Survio’s limitations, data analysis is very limited on the free version of the tool. If you don’t purchase a paid plan, you can only collect 100 responses. And, if you want to distribute or market your surveys via email, you need at least the Standard plan.

SurveyLegend

SurveyLegend has one of the most intuitive survey builders out there. You simply pick the type of question you want to include on the left and drag it onto your survey preview on the right. You can build an entire survey, even a long one, in a matter of minutes.

On the downside, you may hit a paywall when adding more complex options. You will, however, be able to add images to questions and take advantage of live analytics. It’s easy to duplicate surveys, but this is only available on paid plans.

SurveyLegend is great if you want to share your forms via email or SMS, as well as social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, or blogs.

The free version allows three surveys with up to six pictures, but you won’t be able to export data. You can use one conditional logic element. The surveys will have ads and include watermarks.

Paid plans start at $15 with up to 20 surveys and 30 pictures. You can export up to 1000 responses per survey and use 10 conditional logic elements. The surveys will still be watermarked on the lower-tier plans.

Wrapping up

The 14 survey tools described above are the most popular SurveyMonkey alternatives. They all have their pros and cons. I hope this breakdown has made it easier for you to reach a decision on which piece of software will meet your needs first.

And if not, make sure you play around with free versions and trials of these tools. Remember, as long as you only need one survey at a time, Survicate remains free forever. And your whole team can have access to all your surveys and results. Happy feedback collecting!