Create smart forms with Paperform—the best alternative to Google Forms

Paperform

Paperform gives you the option to choose from three pricing tiers: Essentials at $24/mo, Pro at $49/mo, and Business at $165/mo. The lowest pricing plan gives you unlimited forms and generous 100 form submissions per month, with even higher quotas on higher pricing plans. The only limitation on the lowest pricing plan is having no access to some of the more advanced features such as Calculations, e-signature support, custom CSS/HTML, and APIs.

Google Forms

Google Forms is completely free for personal use. All you need to get started is a Google account. There are no limitations on submissions and you can create as many forms as you need. If you want more storage for your forms, you can go with Google’s Business Starter plan at $6/user/month. In addition to 30 GB storage per user, it also includes custom and secure business email and up to 100 participant video meetings on Google Meet.

Paperform

Paperform's minimalist no-code interface makes it easy for anyone to create beautiful forms and surveys. The editor is designed to be as simple as writing 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.

As you add questions and build your form, contextual menus appear. These allow you to only concentrate on what matters and when it matters, rather than clicking through clunky menus. You can view your form or adjust your theme at any time from the top menu. Any changes you make are reflected in real-time without needing to open another menu.

Paperform’s advanced features include auto-generating responses and hiding fields based on previous fields or existing data, creating Excel-style smart dynamic Calculations, taking one-off payments and recurring payments, as well as managing booking appointments. Paperform also has a built-in integration with Papersign that lets you automatically trigger signature requests on connected documents.

Google Forms

Google Forms has a clean layout and is simple to use. Everything 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 fluid, the level of polish is much lower than with Paperform. There are fewer question types available, with very few advanced options. You might expect this from a free tool, but if you’re looking for something more powerful, you’re bound to be let down.

Google Forms

As far as theming and visual customization goes, Google Forms leaves a bit to be desired. Google Forms only has 16 form and survey templates. This just doesn’t compare to Paperform 750+ pre-built templates that cover every possible need—from job applications and event registrations to yoga studio software and landing pages.

While Google Forms allows you to complete basic actions like changing colors and fonts, it isn’t as accommodating for customizing ‘Thank You’ screens or adding any automated emails.

Paperform

On the other hand, Paperform’s success pages are fully customizable. You can choose to create simple pages or set up complex workflows that do things like redirecting users to other pages or dynamically adjusting the page’s look and feel based on user responses. You can easily add images, video, or any other media to Paperform’s forms and success pages, as well as use answer piping to automatically display certain questions or responses based on previous answers. This is especially useful for quizzes or surveys that need a calculation or score to be displayed upon completion.

Google Forms

Google Forms doesn’t allow users to accept payments natively. If you really want to collect payment with Google Forms, there is a workaround. You can link a URL and redirect users to an external site like PayPal or Google’s payment add-ons. We can’t recommend this course of action though as customers aren’t likely to trust an external link to a payment page, and when payments aren’t integrated into the form process, it also adds extra steps to your workflow.

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.

Paperform also offers a variety of advanced e-commerce tools. With custom pricing rules, for example, 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 organized and compliant. Paperform also offers order management tools so you can manage inventory, fulfillment, and payment all in one place.

Both Paperform and Google Forms allow you to create reports for your forms and export raw submission data into Excel for deeper analysis.

Google Forms

Google Forms has rudimentary data analysis features. You can look at individual responses or get a summary of results with basic graphs and charts. That’s about it. These charts are helpful for basic insights, like breaking down the percentage of responses. But if you want to delve any deeper you’ll have to export your data to a third-party tool.

Google Forms integrates with G-suite, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of other direct integrations. For anything other than sending responses to a Google Sheet, you’ll need to use a third-party integration platform like Zapier or Make. Google Forms has an API, but no webhooks and integrations as such, however, if you know how to play around with add-ons, you can use Google's add-ons as a workaround. It won’t be as quick and easy as Paperform’s built-in integrations but lets you do the job.

Paperform

Paperform has analytics functionality built into the dashboard. You can analyze responses, boost conversions and improve your response rate all from one place. Track in-depth data like incomplete submissions and completion rates, the number of sales, or find the questions that are causing respondents to drop off. Our analysis tools help gather insights to perfect your processes and ensure your form is working for you.

When it comes to integrations, Paperform outshines Google Forms with its API and 3,000+ integrations with popular apps and software to improve productivity, automate workflows and free up time to focus on the work that matters. The integrations are available as native integrations, or via Zapier and Make.