In Depth Review: SurveyMonkey vs. Qualtrics vs. Paperform

Surveys are deceptively powerful tools. They help you better understand your customers, your employees and even your competitors (or just find out everyone’s favourite pizza toppings).

There’s one problem: there are a lot of form builders out there. With so many options, it can be difficult to figure out which one is right for you. That’s what we’re here for.

In this guide, we’ll compare three major players in the survey maker game: SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics and Paperform. We’ll take you through all the important features and functionalities, so you can make the best choice for your business.

What is SurveyMonkey?

(Image Source: SurveyMonkey)

SurveyMonkey is one of the most popular form builders available. It’s a tried and true option for businesses looking to create standard customer satisfaction surveys, feedback forms, or other basic intake forms.

There are 17 field types available on SurveyMonkey, and basic customization options available for paying members.

With over 15 million users, they’ve got to be doing something right. The unlimited free basic plan makes it desirable for folks who just need a few super simple, standard looking surveys. And if you pay up, you’ll have access to most features you need from a form builder, like question logic, data analysis, and further customization options.

What is Qualtrics?

(Image Source: Qualtrics)

Qualtrics is an enterprise solution for large businesses looking to gather and analyse data about customer engagement, employee satisfaction, product trends, and more. It’s quite a bit different from both Paperform and SurveyMonkey, which are first and foremost form builders.

Qualtrics does make forms, but it’s really more of a market research tool. Qualtrics uses forms and surveys to gather valuable data at a large scale, and then analyses that data into digestible, tangible market insights for your business.

There’s no doubt that Qualtrics is a valuable tool for those who can afford it: 13,000 brands are loyal to Qualtrics, including 88% of Fortune 100 companies. For those of us who aren’t Bezos, however, it may be more than you need.

What is Paperform?

(Image Source: Paperform)

Paperform is a scalable, intuitive form builder that helps businesses of all sizes automate everyday processes and create unique solutions.

Unlike SurveyMonkey and Alchemer, Paperform has a balance of beauty and brains. It’s perfect for individuals and small businesses who want a sleek, all-in-one platform for creating powerful and customizable surveys, forms, one-page websites and quizzes of any kind.

Paperform offers a solution for those frustrated by SurveyMonkey and priced out by Qualtrics.

The intuitive UI makes it easy for anyone to make use of our limitless customization options, 25+ unique field types, and thousands of direct and Zapier integrations. And with our competitive pricing, there’s a plan for all kinds of budgets at Paperform.

1. Feature Comparison

While both SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics focus on market research surveys, Paperform champions versatility and flexibility. Our platform empowers you to build beautiful forms for all kinds of use cases, from simple contact forms to ecommerce platforms that allow you to set up an online store.

Check out the table below to get a better idea of what each product offers.

	SurveyMonkey	Qualtrics	Paperform
Best For	Creating surveys that collect comprehensive insights.	Creating surveys for seriously powerful data analysis.	Creating fast, versatile, and visually beautiful forms, surveys, and questionnaires of all kinds.
GetApp Rating	4.6	4.8	4.9
GetApp Customer Support Rating	4.3	4.7	4.8
Export Results To CSV	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom Fonts	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom Colours	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom HTML	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom CSS	No	Yes	Yes
Insert Images & Videos	No	Yes	Yes
Access Partial Form Submissions	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automated Emails	Yes	Yes	Yes
Question Logic	Yes	Yes	Yes
Multi-page Forms	Yes	Yes	Yes
Payment Collection	Yes	No	Yes
Google Pay Integration	No	No	Yes
Automated Tax	No	No	Yes
Coupon Fields	Yes	No	Yes
Webhooks	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automatic Save & Resume For Responses	Yes	Yes	Yes
URL Customization	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom Domain	Yes	Yes	Yes

Design and customisation

Paperform gives you the most bang for your buck when it comes to design and customisation.

SurveyMonkey is great for cranking out customer satisfaction surveys, but it falls short when it comes to customization. Most templates look about the same, and you can only change background image and font—and that’s only if you’re on a paid plan.

For paying Qualtrics customers, you can customise your forms by making changes in the “look and feel” section of the editor. From here you can alter the colour, font, and style of your surveys— though there are only four survey layouts to choose from. Qualtrics does have some unique customization features, including auto advance and custom CSS.

Paperform offers limitless customization options. With 25+ field types and our native integration with Unsplash and Giphy, you can add and alter everything from the font of the first question to the look of the final submit button, all without leaving the editor.

Try toggling between Standard and Guided mode, which displays one question at a time (comparable to Qualtrics auto advance). And not to one up, but unlike Qualtrics, we offer custom CSS and HTML to our agency customers.

Question Logic

We have a tie: Qualtrics and Paperform both offer question logic for all members, using easy to understand if, then statements.

Question logic is available on all three tools, though you’ll have to pay up to use it on SurveyMonkey. Their basic plan doesn’t allow users to add skip logic.

Qualtrics allows paying users to use conditional logic to show or hide questions, send emails or complete other actions, manage quotas, and more. As an enterprise market research tool, it’s no surprise that Qualtrics question logic is capable of some seriously powerful functionality.

Paperform supports question logic, conditional logic, and answer piping for all our members. You can set up your conditions using if/then statements, right from the editor. You can even change which success page your respondents land on based on their form responses, or thank them by name at the end of the survey.

Integrations

With over 3,000 direct and Zapier integrations to choose from, Paperform offers more automation, with less hassle.

SurveyMonkey offers around 100 integrations to its paying users. These cover a good amount of use cases, but they don’t include many popular apps, like Gmail or Excel.

Qualtrics also offers around 100 integrations to paying customers. Some extensions are limited to certain brand representatives or customers on a case by case basis, so they’re not available to all paying customers. If you do qualify for the extension on your membership, you’ll be able to connect with some popular apps, like HubSpot, Jira or Zapier, to automate processes.

Paperform offers over 3,000 direct and Zapier integrations with tools like Slack, Mailchimp, Asana, Google Sheets, Notion, and a whole lot more. We make it easy to sync data from your forms with all of your favourite apps, so you can automate more of your daily tasks. Send emails, accept payments, or update your CRM or CMS of choice, all without lifting a finger.

2. Pricing

Pricing is a huge factor when it comes to picking the right form builder for your business. SurveyMonkey and Paperform both offer a range of pricing plans online, but you’ll need to contact Qualtrics for a quote.

A. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey doesn’t offer a free trial, but it does have an extremly limited free version that acts more like an extended free trial.

With no way to customise the forms, and huge limits placed on functionality, the free version isn’t a real solution for anyone looking to create more than a hyper-basic “what’s your favourite movie?” survey.

Even on the starter plan, question types are limited, with no way to capture contact details. There are no customisation options to speak of in the free version, and it’s only possible to share your survey through three “collectors” (e.g. web link, social media or email).

If you’re looking to create any kind of substantial survey, or gather customer feedback or product reviews, you’ll need the perks that come with the more expensive plans.

Standard Monthly covers the needs of most small business owners, but if you reach more than 10,000 customers a month, you may want to upgrade to Advantage or Team Advantage.

Standard Annual ($192/year)

• Individual membership
• Ten questions per survey
• 40 responses per survey

Standard Monthly ($99/month)

• Unlimited questions
• Unlimited number of surveys
• 1,000 responses per month

Advantage Annual ($384/year)

• Individual membership
• Unlimited questions per survey
• Unlimited number of surveys
• 15,000 responses a year

Premier Annual ($1,428/year)

• Unlimited questions
• Unlimited number of surveys
• 40,000 responses a year

Team Advantage ($25/user/month)

• Team membership
• 50,000 responses a year
• Accepts payments
• Supports integrations

Team Premier ($75/user/month)

• Survey sharing and editing
• 100,000 responses a year

B. Qualtrics

Like SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics offers an extremely limited free version of their product. This version is intended to be a way for prospective users to get a feel for survey building in Qualtrics before committing to a plan.

As a trial, the free version is incredibly limited: you can only create three surveys, there’s no customisation available, analytics are super basic, and you can’t export any of your data.

In order to get a feel for what Qualtrics can really do, it’s best to reach out to their team and request a demo for your business.

Keep in mind that Qualtrics isn’t marketed for individuals or small businesses, so if your budget doesn’t match their target audience, you may be priced out. While you have to reach out for a quote, prices start around $1,500-$5,000 per year, which means it’s certainly not an option for everyone.

C. Paperform

You’ll notice two things about Paperform. First, our prices are a lot cheaper than both SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics. You’ll pay $99/month at SurveyMonkey for less functionality than we offer for $24/month on Essentials. Those numbers speak for themselves.

That’s because we aim to democratise digital creation, and part of that is making sure we’re affordable for everyone to use.

The second thing you’ll notice is that we don’t offer a free version. Why? Because we focus on giving all our users a rich experience at a super competitive price. Plus, with our 14-day free trial you can try out our platform and make sure we practice what we preach.

Essentials ($24/month)

• Unlimited forms
• 10,000 form views per month
• 1,000 submissions per month
• Connects with one payment account

Pro ($49/month)

• Unlimited forms and form views
• 10,000 submissions per month
• Supports three payment accounts
• Advanced calculations

Agency ($159/month)

• Unlimited forms, views, and submissions
• First priority customer support
• Custom domain support
• Up to five users
• Custom HTML and CSS

→ Read more about Paperform’s pricing plans

3. Usability

A usable tool is one that gives you the functionality you need, without making you want to tear your hair out in the process.

SurveyMonkey has a slight learning curve and a dated UI, but it’s nothing compared to the mountain of information you’ll need to be able to use Qualtrics effectively. Paperform makes it easy to enjoy all of our features, from detailed customisation to conditional logic.

A. SurveyMonkey

(Image Source: SurveyMonkey)

SurveyMonkey has a barebones interface that’s fairly user-friendly. With a basic drag-and-drop interface, a sizable collection of survey templates and the handy suggested survey questions, it is relatively easy to create an online survey using their suite of tools.

Things become challenging once you want to create your own survey questions. There's a lot going on within the interface and simple actions often take more clicks than they should.

Features are in-line with all leading form builders. Expect to find all the relevant question fields, as well as advanced features like conditional survey logic and A/B testing (also offered by the other two platforms on this list).

Where SurveyMonkey shines is its analytics tools. Result prediction and word clouds are very useful, and their visualisation tools are second-to-none. Interpreting data really is a breeze. Unfortunately, their customisation options are a letdown, with limited options to make surveys that really feel unique.

B. Qualtrics

(Image Source: Qualtrics)

Qualtrics is the spaceship of survey tools—it’s powerful, but you can’t expect to learn how it works without a lot of training. It’s not really designed for small businesses or startups, but if you’re a large business looking for a research-heavy survey tool, it’s a good choice.

Thankfully, once you’ve climbed a rather steep learning curve it becomes easier to use. It would be ideal if Qualtrics offered more tutorials to help with the initial setup, though their real-time support is excellent.

In terms of functionality, Qualtrics may be aimed at more advanced users, but they have tools that cover the basics, too. Paying customers can create surveys both online and offline, send them out via email, SMS or any other avenue, then export data to Excel or analyse it from within the app.

Like Paperform, you’ll find features like skip logic, dynamic reporting tools and automated save and resume (this makes life easier for respondents). There’s also a predictive AI that helps you come up with relevant questions—not exactly a game changer, but a nice touch.

It’s a shame that third-party integrations are limited. Where Paperform allows you to connect to over 3,000+ popular apps through native and Zapier integrations, Qualtrics relies on their own built-in tools.

C. Paperform

(Image Source: Paperform)

Paperform has a unique doc-style editor that is easy to use for beginners and experienced designers alike. Whether you design your own form or choose from one of our 650+ templates, creating a form that's functional and stylish is a breeze.

Rather than bumbling through a confusing interface or scrolling indefinitely, just click anywhere on your form to add any of our 25+ field types. You can also use our nifty slash commands to edit, add questions, embed images and videos, and more.

At Paperform we know how important it is to have your forms and surveys look exactly as you imagined, whether you're making a questionnaire for your social media pages or a check out page for your online store. That's why we offer comprehensive customisation features for all subscribers.

You can edit colours, fonts, and images, add a background image or video, embed media of any kind, integrate with over 3,000 apps, customise success pages, and change any element of your form, any time you like.

Paperform makes form-building easy, but we get that using any new online survey tool can be confusing. That's why we have a YouTube channel packed full of tutorials, a Help Centre full of helpful guides, and a 24/7 live chat to support you every step of the way.

4. Customisable Templates

Templates help save time and headaches by giving you a pre-made version of the survey or form you need. SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics have a few business oriented templates, but neither compare to Paperform's robust library of over 650.

A. SurveyMonkey

(Image Source: SurveyMonkey)

SurveyMonkey organises their templates by category, like health, education, or market research. There are about 150 customisable templates to choose from.

While there are a good amount of options, they tend to have a cookie-cutter, generic feel, with stock cover images and uniform question sets. In order to customise them to your liking, you'll run into the same challenges as you would starting from scratch: a dated, tricky interface and clunky survey making tools.

There are plenty of templates intended for internal business use, like employee engagement forms and HR surveys. There are fewer options for personal use, ecommerce, startups, or small business owners.

To access most of the templates, you'll have to upgrade to a paid plan. It's a shame there aren't more free options, but once you do break through the paywall, there are a good amount to choose from.

B. Qualtrics

(Image Source: Qualtrics)

Qualtrics has a library of around 100 templates. For some reason they are difficult to find, which is down to odd user experience (UX) design. Thankfully they didn’t take a leaf out of SurveyMonkey’s book, and all templates are included in the free plan.

They’re industry leaders when it comes to data analysis and market research for large businesses, but if you’re looking for an easy to use product page or contact form for your small business, you’ll find yourself disappointed.

The ones available cover standard business survey use cases, like Net Promoter Score and Demographic Polls. For more unique use cases, you’ll have to start from scratch.

C. Paperform

(Image Source: Paperform)

Paperform has over 650 unique templates to choose from in our easy to navigate template library. All of our templates are organised into helpful categories, so you can find the form you need without falling into the scroll-hole.

Paperform has more templates than SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics combined. We have templates for all kinds of use cases, from feedback forms like Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Customer Satisfaction Forms (CSAT) to client feedback or art commission forms.

Whether you're running a small or midsize business, need an easy bookings solution, or just want a beautiful contact form for your website, Paperform has a template for you.

The best part? All Paperform templates are 100% customisable, meaning you can pick one just because you like the style, and change the content completely to fit your use case. You can also create your own from scratch, and then share it as a template—so you and your team can start from the same square one.

5. Accepting Payments

As much as we may wish it were love and rainbows, money makes the world go round. Being able to accept payments on your forms is an essential feature, especially for ecommerce businesses.

A. SurveyMonkey

(Image Source: SurveyMonkey)

Stripe payments are available only to SurveyMonkey members on an annually billed plan. If you’re one of these users, you can set a fixed payment amount or give respondents several options to choose from.

SurveyMonkey’s payment “system” is very basic. It’s intended for simple donations and one-off payments rather than full ecommerce functionality like Paperform. There’s no way to generate invoices or receipts, and Stripe is the only gateway supported which limits things quite a bit.

For something like a charity or event registration, SurveyMonkey’s payments will do the trick. But if you’re running an ecommerce business or looking for more payment pathways, you’ll need to look somewhere else.

B. Qualtrics

(Image Source: Qualtrics Community Forum)

There’s no built-in way to accept payments with Qualtrics, meaning no ecommerce functionality for businesses of any size.

You can integrate your Paypal and Qualtrics account to try and make a workaround, but without a way to properly design a payment page or embed a payment field, it probably won’t live up to your expectations.

C. Paperform

(Image Source: Paperform)

At Paperform, we get that making accepting payments quick, easy, and consistently functional is essential to running any successful business.

We also believe that only you know what's best for your business. That's why we let you choose from over 25 leading payment gateways, including Stripe, Paypal, Braintree , Google Pay, and Square.

You can add a payment field to any of your forms in just a few clicks. Simply use slash commands or select from the dropdown menu to set prices, integrate payment methods, calculate tax, add coupons, automatically generate receipts, and more.

Unlike SurveyMonkey, Paperform doesn't keep its payment integration locked up behind more expensive plans. You can accept payments on any Paperform plan, with loads more options, add-ons and flexibility than SurveyMonkey or Alchemer.

6. Form Analytics

Even if your form looks great, it won't do you much good if you can't harness the data behind it in a meaningful way. Luckily, all three of these options offer robust data analysis to paying members.

A. SurveyMonkey

(Image Source: SurveyMonkey)

SurveyMonkey is a comprehensive tool for data collection and analysis. All online survey software offer analytics of some kind, but SurveyMonkey does a great job of breaking down data into visuals (graphs and charts) that look good and are easy to comprehend.

One useful feature is the ability to segment survey results based on audience demographics. This is effective for market research. For example, if you were running a survey to find out the most popular colour among millennials for your new brand identity, you’d be able to split results by gender and age groups.

They also have a word cloud feature, which allows you to analyse open text responses at a larger scale. If you want to further analyse your data, you can connect with one of SurveyMonkey’s data analysis integrations, like OfficeReports or Dasheroo.

B. Qualtrics

(Image Source: Qualtrics)

Qualtrics analytics are designed with enterprise businesses and large-scale research in mind. Whether you’re collecting customer feedback or diving deep into complex numbers, Qualtrics can handle it. As a market research tool, excellent data analysis is their bread and butter.

From the Data & Analysis tab, you can filter, classify, merge, clean and statistically analyse your survey response data. There’s also a nifty Stats iQ section that allows you to identify trends and even produce predictive models.

These models could help you estimate when a customer might churn, empowering you to better understand customer satisfaction and boost your customer retention.

Of course, these features come at a cost. But if you’ve got the cash to splash, and think you’d benefit from interpreting complex data at a large scale, these analysis tools are worth the hefty price.

C. Paperform

Paperform Analytics gives you all the tools you need to get actionable insights from your data, so you can better understand the behaviour of your customers, site visitors and clients.

You can access our robust, built in form analysis from any Paperform plan (although partial submission analysis is reserved for Pro and Agency members). From the analysis hub of your dashboard, you can also view your data as a graph, segment it however you like, or filter for specific periods.

If you prefer to use your favourite analytics tools that’s no problem too. We offer direct integration with leading apps like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel or Mixpanel. You can also export your data as a .CSV, .PDF, or .DOC file, and share it straight to a Notion database or send it to your CRM of choice.

The verdict: which is the best form builder for you?

SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics are powerful, popular form builders, each serving different clienteles. But they both have more than a few limitations when it comes to customization, integrations, ease of use, and affordability.

• SurveyMonkey is an industry standard. The data analysis features are unique, but the interface is difficult to use, pricing tiers are expensive (and confusing), and it lacks robust customization and integration options.
• Qualtrics is a powerhouse form builder and market research tool. The market insights you can glean with Qualtrics are unparalleled, but the interface is hard to learn, the templates don’t cover a wide array of use cases, and the sky high prices make it inaccessible for most. Therefore, it's advisable to also check some Qualtrics alternatives.

Paperform addresses the shortcomings of both to provide the Goldilocks option: a feature rich, intuitive, affordable way to build highly customised forms and surveys.

And when you sign up for Paperform, you’re getting much more than a form building tool. You are getting a hub for your business and a digital Swiss Army Knife that can help you automate tasks and put more of your work on autopilot.

Here are just a few of Paperform’s great features:

• Guided Mode: You can turn any Paperform into a one question at a time experience with a single click.
• Appointments: Use the appointment field to take bookings and update your Google Calendar automatically when scheduling meetings or tasks.
• Automations: Automate repetitive tasks and set custom workflows without leaving the Paperform editor.
• Calculations: Use our Excel-style functions to calculate prices, and quiz scores.
• Smart embeds: Embed Paperform creations on your website or share them directly with your own custom link.
• Shareable templates: Build templates and share them with your colleagues or clients.
• Personalised emails: Send emails directly in Paperform and automate your outreach.
• PDF Generation: Generate custom PDFs with your unique branding and design.

We get it: we’re a little biassed. But don’t take our word for it: give it a go yourself with our 14-day free trial and see what you can build today.