Since their inception in 1999 SurveyMonkey has been a global leader in feedback and data collection. While the survey industry is cluttered with many survey tools, most people are mainly familiar with one tool, SurveyMonkey.
Today there are many survey tools on the market that offer just as many or more features than SurveyMonkey. Before diving into a list of SurveyMonkey alternatives, we’ll start by highlighting disadvantages of SurveyMonkey, some that you may not even be aware of. We’ll also go over a small study that highlights what survey users value most. Both of these will help you to better evaluate survey software for your needs.
SurveyMonkey Disadvantages
If you’re reading this article, it’s likely you’re looking for new survey software and are aware of SurveyMonkey disadvantages. Here’s a quick summary:
Annual pricing with NO month to month option.
SurveyMonkey’s anonymous survey feature shows email addresses for completed respondents – meaning a survey author could indirectly identify a respondent – this would decrease trust with your audience base (most often employees for anonymous surveys).
No ability to add custom variables to anonymous surveys. This is very useful to do annual or quarterly employee surveys and segment/compare the results. (SurveyKing use k-anonymity to protect identities when custom meta tags are used)
No advanced question types such as MaxDiff or Conjoint analysis. These question types allow organizations to make better decisions on product pricing, product features, or what to offer for an employee benefit package.
Limited ability to create custom reports with your data. What if you wanted to send a few specific question/results to coworker in a different region, while giving them the ability to manipulate the data themselves right inside of the report builder? Not possible with SurveyMonkey.
SurveyMonkey User Feedback
In November of 2019, we set out to get a better understand on how SurveyMonkey users view SurveyMonkey. Our mindset was to use this data to better shape not only our product, but the mission and overall vision of SurveyKing. So we set out to find paid SurveyMonkey users and sent them a survey!
What did we find? To our surprise a good portion of SurveyMonkey paid users found them too expensive! Over 30% overall. This was one of the core missions of SurveyKing – provide great tools at a low cost. We included a MaxDiff question in the survey and found that “reporting and statistical” features were most important. This directly led us to upgrade our reporting system, with the focus on giving user the ability to create custom reports.
As you’ll see in the data below, reporting features and price are deemed most important when choosing an online survey tool. The SurveyMonkey alternatives below where choosen with those features in mind.
Survey Sample Size: 581
When choosing an online survey tool what factors are LEAST and MOST important to you?
We didn’t include lower end tools like Google Forms, SurveyPlanet, or SurveyNuts in this list. While those tools are mostly free, they lack many advanced features large online survey tools offer. If your survey needs are quick and simple, those may be great options!
Self reviews are of course subject to bias! But overall SurveyKing offers a tremendous amount of tools for what appears to be the lowest price on the market. SurveyKing also offers a simple month to plan, no annual contracts. Nearly all features on the platform are accessible and free. If you like what you see, simply upgrade ($19 a month) to collect unlimited data or remove branding!
SurveyKing best features:
Simple easy to use (even for beginners), and requires no training.
Truly anonymous surveys using k-anonymity.
Create reports on the fly with a drag and drop report builder; share reports with one click and let end users edit their report.
Display logic – useful to ask follow up questions on the same page. Reduced survey fatigue and other survey tools use “skip page logic”.
Text message survey collector, with the ability to customize and track messages.
SurveyKing drawbacks:
A few less popular question types like Matrix of Dropdowns, or the ability to accept payments
Advanced statistical tools such as statistical significance or z-scores (both useful in cross-tabulation)
Advanced branching and advanced piping
SurveyMonkey
SurveyKing
Monthly price for most popular features
$32 USD (Billed annually)
$19 USD
Monthly price for unlimited responses
N/A – Contact Sales
$19 USD
Survey Building
Truly Anonymous Surveys
MaxDiff Question
Conjoint Question
Display Logic
Skip Logic
Advanced Logic & Branching
Survey Reporting
Create Custom Reports
Not easy to setup
Easily Share Reports and Let Users Manipulate Their View
Alchemer, formerly known as SurveyGizmo, is one of the best all around survey tools at a relatively affordable price. Alchemer stands out in terms of reporting. They are one of the few tools that offer user the ability to create reports on the fly, while adding advanced filters and comparisons. Their reporting features go well beyond what SurveyMonkey offers. Alchmer also has unique question types, including some unique ones like an image heatmap.
Alchemer best features:
Reporting – The ability to create reports on the fly, add in segments, and even create complex filters with advanced rules
Advanced answer piping, giving you the ability to carryforward responses from one question to another.
A variety of question types like MaxDiff and image heatmap
Alchemer drawbacks:
A little pricey – $49 for the lowest package, but considering how much they offer it’s not bad. Less expense than tools like Qualtrics.
No text message surveys.
User interface is slightly crowded – might need training for users that aren’t familiar with survey software
SurveyMonkey
Alchemer
Monthly price for most popular features
$32 USD (Billed annually)
$49 USD
Monthly price for unlimited responses
N/A – Contact Sales
$49 USD
Survey Building
Truly Anonymous Surveys
MaxDiff Question
Conjoint Question
Display Logic
Skip Logic
Advanced Logic & Branching
Survey Reporting
Create Custom Reports
Not easy to setup
Easily Share Reports and Let Users Manipulate Their View
SurveyHero is a great online survey tool with a very user friendly interface. SurveyHero doesn’t haven’t a ton of advanced features but the balance of an elegant user interface, with solid reporting, makes this a great SurveyMonkey alterative. The cost is comparable to SurveyMonkey, but you get a little more for value for your money.
SurveyHero best features:
Month to month pricing, no annual contract
Very simple, but elegant user interface
The reporting section is very clean, enabling you to quickly create a segment report and add filters
Easy to use display and skip logic
SurveyHero drawbacks:
No advanced question types
No ability to create advanced reports or complex cross tabulations.
Their anonymous survey feature is more expensive than most – $55 a month
SurveyMonkey
SurveyHero
Monthly price for most popular features
$32 USD (Billed annually)
$35 USD
Monthly price for unlimited responses
N/A – Contact Sales
$35 USD
Survey Building
Truly Anonymous Surveys
MaxDiff Question
Conjoint Question
Display Logic
Skip Logic
Advanced Logic & Branching
Survey Reporting
Create Custom Reports
Not easy to setup
Easily Share Reports and Let Users Manipulate Their View
SurveySparrow is an excellent choice if you need a survey tool that integrates with other platforms. They have integrations for Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Google Analytics, and MailChimp! SurveySparrow has well designed user interface and even offers unique question types like constant sum and payment collection. They offer a package similar to the SurveyMonkey basic package for $19 a month.
SurveySparrow best features:
Tons of integrations
Easy to use survey builder, with unique question types
Multilingual text support – ideal for large organizations that need to send the same survey across different countries
SurveySparrow drawbacks:
Advanced question types and cross tabulation reports are only available in their $49 a month package.
Plans are billed annually, which is over $500 for their more advanced package The lower end package is $240 annually, which is still over $100 less than the comparable SurveyMonkey plan.
SurveyMonkey
SurveySparrow
Monthly price for most popular features
$32 USD (Billed annually)
$19 USD (Billed annually)
Monthly price for unlimited responses
N/A – Contact Sales
N/A – Contact Sales
Survey Building
Truly Anonymous Surveys
MaxDiff Question
Conjoint Question
Display Logic
Skip Logic
Advanced Logic & Branching
Survey Reporting
Create Custom Reports
Not easy to setup
Easily Share Reports and Let Users Manipulate Their View
SoGo Survey is geared towards larger organizations, but still offers a great set of tools for individuals and smaller organizations, at an affordable price. Their $25 a month (billed annual_ plan is comparable to the $32 SurveyMonkey plan. The main thing this plan lack is the ability to create a crosstabulation report. That is only available on the $66 a month (billed annually) plan.
If you just need a simple survey, with a little more flare to the reporting, the low cost SoGo plan will be more value than the SurveyMonkey plan. But if you need some additional features that SurveyMonkey dosen’t offer, like complex pivot tables for results, then you can spend a little bit more to access those features.
SoGo Survey best features:
Extra reporting tools – Add sum, min, max, mean to results. Add complex pivot tables with just a few clicks.
Data cleaning – This helps eliminate survey responses that were taken from the same device multiple times,
Unique question types like cascading dropdowns and CAPTCHAs
SoGo Survey drawbacks:
Their user interface is not simple to use. There is no ability to add links or color to answer choices. Creating a simple survey link takes multiple clicks.
The lower end package for $25 a month is okay, but more advanced features cost a substantial amount – $66 a month billed annually. While the $66 plan has features SurveyMonkey lacks, those features can be found for a lower cost on other platforms.
SurveyMonkey
SoGo Survey
Monthly price for most popular features
$32 USD (Billed annually)
$25 USD (Billed annually)
Monthly price for unlimited responses
N/A – Contact Sales
$25 USD (Billed annually)
Survey Building
Truly Anonymous Surveys
MaxDiff Question
Conjoint Question
Display Logic
Skip Logic
Advanced Logic & Branching
Survey Reporting
Create Custom Reports
Not easy to setup
Not easy to setup
Easily Share Reports and Let Users Manipulate Their View
QuestionPro is another tools that geared towards enterprises, large organizations, and universities. QuestionPro offers a free version with unlimited questions and responses. But important question types, such as Net Promoter Score, are under their paid plan, which starts out at $1,000 annually. The free plan does offer things like sliders and star ratings, which are nice. Simple surveys that only require multiple choice questions, or ratings, along with basic reporting would be find and would replace the need for a SurveyMonkey paid plan.
QuestionPro best features:
A free version with unlimited questions and responses
They do offer a lot of great question types like MaxDiff, Conjoint, Image Heatmap, and van westendorp analysis
QuestionPro drawbacks:
Poorly designed user interface – layouts make survey bridling hard. For example on the distribution page, the surrey link shows at the top right, all other collectors are top left or in the middle of the screen
Very expensive – $1,000 minimum for advanced question types
SurveyMonkey
QuestionPro
Monthly price for most popular features
$32 USD (Billed annually)
Free
Monthly price for unlimited responses
N/A – Contact Sales
Free
Survey Building
Truly Anonymous Surveys
MaxDiff Question
Conjoint Question
Display Logic
Skip Logic
Advanced Logic & Branching
Survey Reporting
Create Custom Reports
Not easy to setup
Not easy to setup
Easily Share Reports and Let Users Manipulate Their View
TypeForm is by the far the best looking survey tool on the market. Their user interface is elegant and very easy to use. The main issue is that TypeForm is best for simple surveys only. You can’t add multiple pages, advanced question types like a matrix, sliders, or MaxDiff. Their reporting section also lacks; any advanced reporting would need to be done via an export to Google Sheets or Excel.
Their free plan does include unlimited questions and 100 responses. For simple surveys this would an ideal alternative to SurveyMonkey.
TypeForm best features:
Great user interface!
They have “calculator” feautre which is great for quizzes or to score your survey based on certain criteria
A lot of integrations like Mailchimp, Google Sheets, and Salesforce
TypeForm drawbacks:
Limited survey building options
Limited reporting options and statistical features
No truly anonymous survey feature
SurveyMonkey
TypeForm
Monthly price for most popular features
$32 USD (Billed annually)
$35 USD
Monthly price for unlimited responses
N/A – Contact Sales
$35 USD
Survey Building
Truly Anonymous Surveys
MaxDiff Question
Conjoint Question
Display Logic
Skip Logic
Advanced Logic & Branching
Survey Reporting
Create Custom Reports
Not easy to setup
No
Easily Share Reports and Let Users Manipulate Their View
Advanced Data Benchmarks
For an extra fee
No
Cross Tabulation
$99 month – Billed at $1,888 a month
N/An
Download Results to Excel
Poorly formatted for question types like matrix
Yes
Allen Frantsen
Allen is the founder of SurveyKing. A former CPA and government auditor, he understands how important quality data is in decision making. He continues to help SurveyKing accomplish their main goal: providing organizations around the world with low-cost high-quality feedback tools.
