In-depth Review: Typeform vs. Google Forms vs. Paperform

Whether you’re looking for a simple contact form solution, a way to capture leads, or just want to make a registration page for your latest event, every company uses online forms at some point.

And if you’ve ever been crazy enough to try to build your own form with HTML, you’ll know what a pain it is. That’s where form builders enter the equation.

But with hundreds of form-building tools out there—and more popping up every day—it can be nigh on impossible to figure out what’s right for your needs.

That’s why we’ve put together this side-by-side comparison of Typeform vs Google Forms vs Paperform. We’ll look at the key features and strengths of each to help you decide.

Let’s get right to it.

What is Typeform?

Typeform is a popular online form builder and survey tool. It specialises in a conversational one-question-at-a-time experience that can feel more engaging when compared to the regular form flow.

Most notably, Typeform has an attractive interface and form style that’s become its trademark. It uses a simple drag-and-drop interface to add questions, and you can customize your form with images and videos to make it more personalised.

What is Google Forms?

Google Forms is a free online form builder built by Google. Thanks to its low barrier to entry it’s become the go-to “starter” form builder for everyone from students to seasoned entrepreneurs.

It’s easy to use and part of the Google ecosystem, meaning it syncs nicely with tools like Drive and Google Sheets. Google Forms has some solid features but lacks the advanced design and field types you’ll find in more premium options.

What is Paperform?

Paperform is a flexible online form builder that helps small businesses and teams simplify work and get more done. It’s a single destination where you can make sales, take bookings, communicate with customers, and put manual processes on autopilot.

The powerful editor is built from the ground up for anyone to use, with nearly unlimited customization, 25+ question fields and advanced workflows baked in, so you can build the beautiful solutions you need, your way.

From small projects to running entire companies, Paperform is the digital Swiss Army Knife powering thousands of businesses around the globe.

Feature overview

Let's take a look at how Typeform, Google Forms and Paperform differ from each other.

	Typeform	Google Forms	Paperform
Best For	Creating surveys and questionnaires that display one question at a time.	Creating basic online forms for free.	Creating fast, versatile, and visually beautiful forms, surveys, and questionnaires of all kinds.
GetApp Rating	4.7	4.7	4.9
GetApp Customer Support Rating	4.4	4.3	4.9
Export Results To CSV	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom Fonts	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom Colours	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom HTML	No	Yes	Yes
Custom CSS	No	Yes	Yes
Insert Images & Videos	Yes	Yes	Yes
Access Partial Form Submissions	No	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	No	Yes	Yes
Webhooks	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automatic Save & Resume For Responses	No	Yes	Yes
URL Customization	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom Domain	No	Yes	Yes

Design and customisation

Paperform offers the most flexibility when it comes to design and theming.

Changing the header image and background colour is about the extent of Google Forms' customisation features. Even with these changes, the look of your form or survey doesn't change much.

In contrast, Typeform and Paperform's customisation is much more full-featured. You can fully customise your theme with colours, fonts, images and videos.

Where Paperform beats Typeform is its design integrations. It integrates with Adobe Creative Cloud, Unsplash, and GIPHY, to make customising your forms a breeze.

There's also an in-app image editor so you can put the final touches on your assets. If you're tech-savvy, you can even add custom HTML and CSS.

Paperform also has much more flexibility in terms of the way your form looks. Typeform only allows you to build one question at a time surveys, while with Paperform can switch between that and a standard form.

Typeform also locks themes behind a paywall, whereas, with Paperform, you never have to pay for individual themes.

Question logic

Typeform's visual logic path is excellent for seeing the logic paths, but Paperform's advanced conditions offer more functionality.

All three tools offer branching and conditional logic. Google Forms is the most basic of the bunch, offering the option to send respondents to a new section based on a previous answer.

While this is a good way to improve form flows, Typeform and Paperform offer much more advanced functionality.

Typeform uses a visual interface to build your logic conditions between questions. "If/Then' conditions are displayed in a flowchart that shows the journey through your form.

With Paperform you manage conditions within the editor. You can set conditions for each question to show or hide questions, or sections of content, and create custom paths for your respondents.

Integrations

Paperform and Typeform have a great collection of direct integrations and connect with third-party tools like Zapier and Make.

Google Forms doesn't offer any integrations, so this one is a straight comparison between Typeform and Paperform.

Both have a similar list of Direct integrations, and both connect to third-party apps to extend the possible connections you can make.

Paperform has the upper hand when it comes to tutorials. Each of our integrations comes with a step-by-step guide to setting it up, as well as potential use cases. There are also video tutorials on our YouTube.

2. Pricing

All three form builders have different pricing strategies. There are some important differences, so let’s take a look.

A. Typeform

Typeform has three pricing options:

Basic Plan ($29/month)

• One user
• Unlimited Typeforms
• 10 responses/month

Plus Plan ($59/month

• Three users
• 1,000 responses/month
• Remove Typeform branding
• Custom subdomain

Business Plan ($83/month)

• Five users
• 10,000 responses/month
• Drop-off rates
• Conversion tracking
• Priority support & live chat

While Basic is the most cost-effective, it’s extremely limited. There’s a cap at 100 responses per month which is a drop in the ocean if you’re serious about using forms across your business.

And even the Plus plan—which comes in at a considerable $59 a month—is limited to 1,000 responses. In comparison, Google Forms and Paperform both are much more generous with their response limits.

B. Google Forms

Google Forms is completely free for individual use. So if you need a quick survey or quiz for anything non-business-related, then you won’t have to open your digital wallet. (Although if a dedicated survey builder is what you're after, you'll need to look elsewhere now that Google Surveys has sunset).

But businesses have to purchase a Google Workspace plan. The benefits these bring aren’t directly related to form building, but rather have broader implications for your business:

Business Starter Plan ($6/user per month)

• Custom and secure business email
• 100 participant video meetings + recordings
• 30 GB cloud storage per user
• Security and management controls
• Standard Support

Business Standard Plan ($12/user per month)

• 150 participant video meetings
• 2TB cloud storage/user
• Standard Support (paid upgrade to Enhanced Support)

Business Plus Plan ($18/user per month)

• eDiscovery and retention
• 500 participant video meetings
• 5 TB cloud storage/user
• Enhanced security controls, including Vault and advanced endpoint management
• Standard Support (paid upgrade to Enhanced Support)

There’s also an Enterprise solution that offers more storage, encryption and security measures, as well as inclusive Enhanced Support.

Pricing is much more affordable than Typeform, but unfortunately, there’s no dedicated Forms plan. You’re paying for a range of features and applications that you mightn’t even need (who uses Google Jamboard?)

C. Paperform

Like Typeform, Paperform offers three separate pricing tiers with an option to talk to sales about Paperform for Enterprise for a custom solution.

Essentials Plan ($24/month)

• Unlimited forms
• 10,000 form views per month
• 1,000 submissions per month

Pro Plan ($49/month)

• Everything in Essentials
• 10,000 submissions per month
• Remove Paperform branding
• Priority support
• Calculations and E-signature fields
• Advanced design & theming
• Personalised URLs

Agency Plan ($159/month)

• Everything in Pro
• Add custom HTML & CSS
• Unlimited payment accounts
• User permissions and management

→ Learn more about Paperform's pricing

Paperform is a much better deal than Typeform or Google Forms. Typeform’s cheapest plan offers only 10 responses per month, whereas Paperform offers literally 100x that number for $5 less per month.

Essentials also offers unlimited forms, the ability to take payments, unlimited integrations, and live support from real humans, a feature that Typeform and Google Forms only offer on their most expensive plans.

Paperform also includes advanced features like conditional logic, pre-filling, dynamic success pages, and a range of customisation options in the base offering.

When you compare the three tools, Paperform's a clear winner when it comes to value. This is even more obvious when you consider that Paperform does more than build forms, including workflow automation, email marketing, simple ecommerce, and much more.

3. Usability

A. Typeform

(via Typeform)

Typeform has become known for its distinct forms that look elegant and distinctive. It’s a shame that this elegance doesn’t entirely cross over into the form-building experience.

The editor is split into three sections: on the left, you have your content (questions), in the middle, you have a live preview of your form, and on the right, you have design and logic settings.

You pick survey questions from a vertical bar on the side of the screen. This keeps the page clear but can make it hard to keep track of important elements, especially after you add a few questions.

Building a Typeform feels more like using Google Slides or Microsoft Powerpoint than it does a form builder. Whether that’s positive or negative will depend on your experience with those tools.

Overall, Typeform offers a good user experience. The biggest drawback is also Typeform’s signature: because each question appears on its own page, putting together your survey can feel slightly convoluted.

B. Google Forms

(via Google Forms)

Google Forms has a clean layout and is simple to use. Surprisingly, the process of building and customising your form is a lot simpler than Typeform.

Rather than having to deal with sidebars, everything in Google Forms is managed in the editor. You can type to add questions, select from multiple question types, drag and drop to order questions and tweak the look.

While the user experience is undoubtedly fluid, the level of polish is much lower than Typeform or Paperform. There are fewer question types available, and advanced options are limited. It’s more of a “what you see is what you get” situation.

You might expect this for what is essentially a free tool (Google Workspace doesn’t add any new form features), but if you’re looking for something more powerful, you’re bound to be let down.

C. Paperform

Paperform's minimalist interface makes it easy for anyone to create a beautiful form. The builder is designed to be as simple as a doc, so if you've ever used a word processor, you'll be able to master it in a few minutes.

Just type anywhere on the page to add paragraphs of text and question types, insert logos, and embed images and videos with a click. Rather than requiring you to interact with clunky menus, Paperform's builder adapts to you.

Instead of dealing with sidebars and sub-menus, as you add questions and build your form, contextual menus appear. These minimise distractions and allow you to concentrate on what matters, when it matters.

You can view your form or adjust your theme at any time from the bespoke top menu. Changes are reflected in real-time without affecting your experience, or needing to open another menu.

Unlike Typeform, you’re not restricted to a single form experience either. Paperform offers both a standard form experience and a one-question-at-a-time mode that you can activate at any time.

Thanks to the streamlined interface, you’ll find that building a unique form that fits your brand is truly a breeze in comparison to Typeform and Google Forms.

4. Customisable templates

A. Typeform

(via Typeform)

Typeform has a collection of over 600 survey templates. These are sorted into categories like “Giveaway” or “Feedback” and are curated to look great and be ready to use out of the box.

If you want to build something unique or use a template as inspiration, you can easily adjust the design, add or remove questions, and adapt it to your goals.

Templates are also accompanied by descriptions, so if you don't quite know what you need, you can see what they can be used for.

Recently, Typeform has also included featured templates that other companies recommend. It’s a nice touch and gives you some context as to what each template may be useful for.

Each template shows you how many questions are included, the estimated time it will take to complete, and whether it uses paid features.

This last feature is particularly handy as there are multiple features used in templates that are only available on higher-tier plans.

B. Google Forms

(via Google Forms)

With only 16 form and survey templates, Google Forms’ template library just doesn’t compare to Typeform or Paperform. Both other tools have libraries in the high 600s.

Templates are split into 3 broad categories: Work, Personal, and Education. While there are forms covering common use cases like job applications and event feedback, the collection is underwhelming, to say the least.

This is also where Google Forms’ customisation limitations are highlighted. Seeing you’re only able to adjust the background colour and header image, every form looks the same.

The upside is that each template is pre-filled with relevant question types. So if you’re building a contact form, for example, it’ll automatically have what you need. This is true across each tool on this list though, so it’s not exactly a killer feature.

C. Paperform

Paperform has a library of over 600+ expert-designed templates for every possible need. Each template's form design looks unique and fits a specific use case

Need a simple registration form? Customer survey tools? A dedicated mobile app for your cafe orders? There’s a custom template for all these and more.

The library is sorted by industry and type, so you’ll have no trouble finding exactly what you need. And once you’ve found your ideal template, it’s easy to make it yours.

Use the pre-filled questions as a guide, then insert a logo, customise the colour palette and add or remove questions with ease. Unlike Typeform, there’s no uniform appearance—how your forms look is up to you.

All our templates are mobile optimised too, meaning they’ll look fantastic whether you choose to embed them on WordPress, post them on social media or host them with us.

Plus, our library is updated weekly, so there are always new additions to get you inspired.

5. Accepting payments

A. Typeform

(via Typeform)

We’ve covered how restrictive Typeform’s free plan is, so it’ll be no surprise that you’ll have to sign up to Basic ($29/month) to unlock payments. This unlocks the ability to sell products, take bookings, or accept donations.

Fittingly, Typeform’s payments are also “basic”. 🥁It processes all payments through Stripe. While millions of businesses use Stripe as a secure way to take payments, not every company does.

It would be nice to have the option to use another payment tool like PayPal, or Square.

The process itself could be smoother too. Filling in a simple payment field we had to go through a whopping eight pages to get to the final payment. Did someone say cart abandonment?

B. Google Forms

(via Google Forms)

You might think that Google Forms would at least have integration with Google Pay. Right? Well, you’d be wrong.

Yet another glaring difference between Google Forms, Typeform and Paperform is that Google Forms doesn’t allow users to collect payments directly.

If you’re hellbent on collecting payments with Google Forms, you can link a URL and send respondents to an external site like PayPal. (This is even the use case it shows on its Order Form template.)

We wouldn’t recommend this. Not only is it unprofessional (would you want to pay through an external link?), but when payments aren’t properly integrated into your form, it adds unnecessary steps into your workflows.

C. Paperform

Paperform doesn’t limit you to external links or one payment provider. With support for all major payment gateways like PayPal Business, Stripe, and Square, you can make the best choice for your business and customers.

(You can even use Google Pay—take note, Google Forms!)

But Paperform goes beyond basic payments, offering a variety of advanced ecommerce tools. For example, with custom pricing rules you can automatically calculate shipping costs, add discounts and coupons, and charge taxes on your products.

You can even accept subscriptions and generate receipts and invoices to keep your business organised and compliant. There are also simple order management tools so you can manage inventory, fulfilment, and payment in one place.

Best of all? Payments are available as part of the $24/month Essentials plan. Paperform also doesn’t take any percentage of payments or fees, meaning your profits stay in your pocket.

6. Form analytics

A. Typeform

(via Typeform)

Typeform provides solid analytics on who has viewed and submitted responses to your form, as well as more granular numbers like completion rate and average completion time.

While you can see drop-off points (where respondents decided they had something better to do), you’re unable to view partial submissions.

This is a bit of a misstep as it gives you an idea as to the reasons behind drop-offs so you can fix whatever is causing it.

It doesn’t allow you to track partial submissions or view sales figures, but you can supplement these features with Zapier integrations, and unlock even more data.

B. Google Forms

(via Google Forms)

Google Forms falls short when it comes to analysing data. You can look at individual responses or get a summary of results with automatically generated graphs and charts.

These charts are helpful for a bird’s eye view of your data. But they offer somewhat shallow insight into your responses.

For further data analysis, you can always export your results to Google Sheets.

Though you can do this with Paperform and Typeform just as easily, there’s no additional functionality available for those who stick within the Google ecosystem.

C. Paperform

With native Paperform Analytics, you can analyse survey responses to learn more about customer behaviour, boost conversions, and improve your response rates—all from your dashboard.

Easily view crucial data like form views, incomplete submissions and completion rates, as well as the number of sales and drop-off questions. All stats are updated in real-time, meaning you always stay up to date. Unlike Typeform, you can also view partial submissions.

Of course, you can always use your favourite analysis tools too. With one click you can export data to CSV to open with your spreadsheet program of choice.

Alternatively, you can take advantage of more than 5,000 Zapier integrations to send your data wherever you need it. You can also use our Direct integrations with tools like Notion and Google Sheets to make the process even easier.

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

Typeform and Google Forms are good survey platforms for certain uses. But they both have a few limitations when it comes to usability, customisation and design functionality, and advanced features.

• Typeforms look elegant and work great on mobile. But the form editing process can be unintuitive; customisation is limited, and many of its more advanced features are locked behind costly pricing.
• Google Forms is an excellent “starter” form builder for individuals or if you need a quick form for a single use. But it’s just not suitable for professional or business use. Features are limited, customisation is nearly non-existent, and there’s no integration support.

Paperform addresses all the shortcomings of these tools. It’s easier to use and more affordable than Typeform and offers more advanced features and design functionality than both.

The no-code form editor makes it easy for literally anyone to build beautiful forms and surveys in minutes.

On top of that? When you sign up for Paperform, you’re getting much more than a form builder.

You're getting a one-stop-shop for your business, and a digital Swiss Army Knife that can help you automate an array of functions, and put your business on autopilot.

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

• Guided Mode: Want Typeform style with more smarts? 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 and advanced maths to calculate prices, and quiz scores.
• Smart embeds: Embed Paperforms 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.

Don’t believe we can do all that? We don’t blame you. That’s why we offer a 14-day free trial so you can see for yourself.