Conducting survey serves as a vital research methodology in both product and market research, applied across various stages of product development. Despite the abundance of online survey software choices, the end-to-end process of survey planning, designing, distributing, and analyzing results can vary significantly based on the tool you use as each has its unique strengths and weaknesses. In this blog, we've curated a list of popular online survey tools, and share important factors to keep in mind when evaluating each of them.
- To learn more about surveys in general, we recommend our full guide to surveys.
Collect contextual feedback from users real-time
Set up in-product surveys in a few clicks with Hubble
Overview of the best survey tools for product research
We curated a list of popular survey tools for product research below. Review ratings are based on Capterra.
1. Hubble
Hubble is an all-in-one product research tool that offers in-product surveys to help product teams collect contextual feedback from realtime users engaging with your product and website at specified touchpoints. Moreover, you can build usability testing surveys or collect quantitative NPS and CSAT scores.
You can customize survey designs and tailor questions to a specific audience or interactions within your product. With in-product surveys, you can streamline your research by designing, distributing, and analyzing data within a single tool.
"With in-product surveys, we have been continuously learning about our users and making improvements to our core participant recruitment and research experience...the surveys integrate with our Segment account, so it's easy to connect events and user attributes for audience targeting."
Brandon Di Bartolo
Head of Product at Askable
See the full customer story
- 💡 Good for: Collecting contextual feedback, all-in-one survey management
- 📌 Unique Features: In-product surveys, user targeting
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free to use
- Custom organization plan available
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.8/5
- Ease of Use: 4.7/5
- Value for Money: 4.9/5
- Customer Service: 4.5/5
Collect contextual feedback from users real-time
Set up in-product surveys in a few clicks with Hubble
2. Qualtrics
Qualtrics is a powerful online survey software that provides advanced options including customizable surveys, advanced analytics, and reporting features. The best part is that you can build advanced, custom surveys using its API.
You can easily collaborate on a same project with team members. It supports testing with mobile devices, apps, websites, and chatbots. One major drawback is these features come at a price.
Highlights:
- 💡 Good for: Powerful tool for enterprise, advanced analytics and reporting
- 📌 Unique Features: Fully customizable surveys with its API using mainstream languages, such as Python, Node.js, and JavaScript
- 💰 Pricing:
- Pricing available upon request
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.8/5
- Ease of Use: 4.8/5
- Value for Money: 4.4/5
- Customer Service: 4.7/5
3. SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is a popular online survey tool built for varying levels of technical expertise. Its emphasis is on market research, providing detailed use cases for a wide range of professionals from marketers and HR to product research. It has flexible pricing options whether you are looking for an individual or team level subscription plans. There is also a free option with limited features.
- 💡 Good for: Quick surveys, CRM integrations
- 📌 Unique Features: GPT integration to auto-generate surveys
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free to use but lacks major features like branching and randomization
- Individual starter plan starts at $39 per month
- Team starter plan starts at $25 per user per month
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.6/5
- Ease of Use: 4.6/5
- Value for Money: 4.5/5
- Customer Service: 4.4/5
4. Alchemer
Alchemer, formerly known as SurveyGizmo, is a robust online survey platform designed to help businesses and organizations gather actionable insights through surveys and monitoring customer engagement. It boasts having over 40+ question types, advanced branching logics, and reporting features. While the price range is flexible, basic plans are limited.
- 💡 Good for: enterprise-level surveys, CRM integrations
- 📌 Unique Features: Customizable layouts and reporting features
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free trial available
- Basic Collaborator plan starts at $55 per user per month
- Professional plan at $165 per user per month
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.5/5
- Ease of Use: 4.5/5
- Value for Money: 4.3/5
- Customer Service: 3.9/5
5. Typeform
Typeform is an online survey platform designed to create engaging and interactive experiences for respondents. Unlike traditional survey tools, Typeform offers a visually appealing and user-friendly interface that encourages higher response rates and richer data collection. It also has rich template libraries by various use cases.
- 💡 Good for: Making interactive and engaging surveys, CRM integrations
- 📌 Unique Features: Top-notch design capabilities and smooth experience
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free to use
- Paid plan starts at $29 per month
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.7/5
- Ease of Use: 4.6/5
- Value for Money: 4.4/5
- Customer Service: 4.1/5
6. Zoho
Zoho is an all-in-one CRM tool that provides Zoho Forms to enable teams to create visually appealing surveys through customizable themes and templates. Zoho can be a great option if you are considering to adopt a comprehensive CRM platform that can also create surveys and questionnaires.
- 💡 Good for: Collection of Zoho products to streamline CRM
- 📌 Unique Features: Robust customization feature for themes and templates
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free with first three surveys
- Basic paid plan starts at $10 per month
- Standard plan at $25 per month
- Professional and Premium plans each at $50 and $90 per month
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.7/5
- Ease of Use: 4.6/5
- Value for Money: 4.6/5
- Customer Service: 4.4/5
7. Sogolytics
Sogolytics is a comprehensive online survey tool and experience management tool. It is equipped with all the major survey design functionalities and focuses on advanced feedback management with dashboards and reports.
- 💡 Good for: Working with multiple surveys, enterprise surveys
- 📌 Unique Features: Robust reporting with 20+ features, advanced API feature to streamline survey data
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free plan available
- Paid plan starts at $25 per month
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.7/5
- Ease of Use: 4.6/5
- Value for Money: 4.5/5
- Customer Service: 4.7/5
8. Google Forms
Google Forms is a simple and intuitive tool within Google’s suite of productivity applications. It allows users to create custom surveys and forms for various purposes, including collecting feedback, conducting research, organizing events, and more. It is free and straightforward to create and distribute surveys. The major benefit is the seamless integration with other Google Workspace applications, such as Google Sheets and Google Drive to analyze and organize surveys.
Highlights:
- 💡 Good for: Ease of use, simple small scale surveys
- 📌 Unique Features: Integration with Google Workspace products
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free up to 5 surveys
- Google Workspace plan starts at $12 per user per month
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.7/5
- Ease of Use: 4.7/5
- Value for Money: 4.8/5
- Customer Service: 4.4/5
9. Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms is another free alternative that integrates with other Microsoft 365 applications like Excel, OneNote, and SharePoint, making it a convenient choice for users already familiar with Microsoft’s ecosystem. It is straightforward to use, and allows multiple team members to collaboratively create surveys and analyze results real-time.
- 💡 Good for: Ease of use, simple small scale surveys
- 📌 Unique Features: Integration with Microsoft 365 suite products
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free to use
- Microsoft 365 personal plan starting at $69.99 per year
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.6/5
- Ease of Use: 4.6/5
- Value for Money: 4.7/5
- Customer Service: 4.2/5
10. Jotform
Jotform specializes in forms and surveys. It boasts having hundreds of templates, themes, and question libraries to help you customize studies. The best part is having rich widgets to let you customize the form, such as making payments and even take photos. It has reporting features to facilitate with data analysis.
- 💡 Good for: Customizing forms with themes and widgets
- 📌 Unique Features: Rich templates and add-ons, Widgets
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free up to 5 surveys
- Paid plan starts at $39 per month
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.7/5
- Ease of Use: 4.6/5
- Value for Money: 4.6/5
- Customer Service: 4.4/5
11. SurveyPlanet
SurveyPlanet is an online tool specifically made to create various forms of surveys, such as education, employee engagement, research, and customer. It has a minimalistic design that is easy to use and navigate with rich template and question libraries. It's paid feature offers branching that lets you visually organize the flow of the survey.
- 💡 Good for: Simple surveys, minimalistic design
- 📌 Unique Features: Rich question templates, visual logic branching
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free to use
- Paid plan starts at $20 per month
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.8/5
- Ease of Use: 4.9/5
- Value for Money: 4.8/5
- Customer Service: 4.5/5
12. Hotjar
Hotjar is a powerful tool that offers website analytics and feedback functionality. At its core, Hotjar specializes in website analytics, heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys to examine how users interact with a website. It allows user feedback through customizable surveys and polls. You can create targeted surveys to gather feedback on specific aspects of the website or gather general insights from visitors.
- 💡 Good for: Web analytics and questionnaires
- 📌 Unique Features: AI-powered survey generation, user targeting
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free to use
- Paid plan starts at $39 per month
- Advanced Business plans at $99 per month
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.7/5
- Ease of Use: 4.6/5
- Value for Money: 4.5/5
- Customer Service: 4.5/5
13. QuestionPro
QuestionPro offers a comprehensive suite of survey creation and deployment tools, allowing you to design custom surveys tailored to your specific needs to gauge customer experience surveys and employee engagement. Some of the standout features of QuestionPro are its sophisticated survey logic, branching capabilities, and advanced customization through scripting (paid feature).
- 💡 Good for: Advanced customization, survey logics and branching
- 📌 Unique Features: Shareable dashboards, multi-language support
- 💰 Pricing:
- Free with up to 1,000 responses per survey
- Paid plan starts at $99 per month
- 🌟 Rating:
- Overall Score: 4.8/5
- Ease of Use: 4.6/5
- Value for Money: 4.8/5
- Customer Service: 4.8/5
Factors to consider when choosing a survey tool
When exploring the adoption of a new survey tool for your team, it's crucial to consider several key factors:
Features and functionality:
While the essence of surveys involves creating a series of questions, not all survey tools are created equal. Evaluate the features offered by different platforms to determine which would best suit your needs. Some of the key features to consider are:
- Customization options and question types: Many survey tools offer customization features to align survey designs with your brand identity or specific research goals. Additionally, depending on the survey's complexity, you may need various question formats, including multiple choice, open-ended text responses, Likert scales, logic branching, and multimedia options.
- In-product surveys: In-app surveys are effective for collecting contextual feedback as they prompt users during specific touchpoints while they interact with a product. Utilizing in-product surveys eliminates the need to worry about the distribution channels required for traditional surveys.
- Template libraries: Pre-built templates can significantly expedite survey projects. Access to rich template libraries and comprehensive how-to guides simplifies the setup process.
- Collaboration: Research is a team effort, which begins with having all the team members onboard. Make sure that you have enough seats for your team and can collaboratively edit and review the draft.
- Analytics and reporting: Advanced survey tools feature automated data analysis and reporting capabilities. These include real-time reporting dashboards, customizable analytics tools, and the ability to export survey data in various formats for further analysis.
Cost:
Evaluate the cost of the survey tool, including any subscription fees, usage-based pricing models, or additional charges for premium features. Consider your research needs and budget constraints to the value provided by the tool. If you are just starting out to explore using surveys, there are free tools like Hubble and Google Forms, or Typeform that offer free trials.
Data Security and Privacy:
Ensure that the survey tool adheres to data security and privacy standards, especially if you are collecting sensitive information from participants. Look for features such as data encryption, secure data storage, and compliance with GDPR regulations.
Scalability:
Consider the scalability of the survey tool, particularly if you anticipate conducting large-scale research projects or collecting responses from a global audience. The tool should be able to handle high volumes of survey responses without compromising performance or data quality.
Why we recommend in-product surveys
Numerous advanced user research tools offer customizable online surveys in various formats. Hubble provides in-product surveys, which display non-intrusive prompt modals at specific points or events within a product to collect contextual feedback in real-time. Recently, in-product surveys have emerged as a valuable tool, offering distinct advantages over traditional surveys. While both methodologies serve to gather insights from users, in-product surveys provide a unique opportunity for direct engagement within the users.
Pros of in-product surveys
- Direct access to live users: By intercepting users within the product, in-product surveys capture feedback in real-time, offering authentic insights into user experiences and preferences.
- Targeting based on behavior or events: In-product surveys can be strategically triggered based on specific user actions or events, allowing for highly relevant and contextual feedback collection.
- Great for evaluative research: Ideal for assessing usability, feature satisfaction, and overall user sentiment, in-product surveys provide actionable insights for product improvement and optimization.
- Doesn’t require additional participant recruiting like traditional surveys: In-product surveys leverage the existing user base of a product. Since these surveys are embedded directly within the product interface, you can quickly gather feedback from users who are already engaged with the product, without the need for external recruitment efforts.
Cons of in-product surveys
- Less useful for early discovery phase research: In-product surveys may not be as effective for exploratory research aimed at uncovering new user needs or behaviors. In-product surveys are most effective when triggered appropriately to collect feedback on a particular experience.
- Not as suitable for long surveys: Due to the inherent limitations of in-product interfaces, lengthy surveys may lead to user fatigue or disengagement, limiting the depth of insights gathered.
"Using Hubble’s in-product SDK has significantly reduced the turnaround time for feedback collection and synthesis within the seller experience team."
Jaegun Lee
Lead Product Manager at IDUS
We’ve introduced several survey platforms that are popular in the market. Depending on your project needs, purpose of surveys, and resource constraints, you should carefully weigh the pros and cons of each tool. If you are interested in exploring in-product surveys to hear from users that are actively engaging with your products, consider using in-product surveys over traditional surveys like Hubble.
Collect contextual feedback from users real-time
Set up in-product surveys in a few clicks with Hubble
If you are interested in further exploring other tools available in the market, we recommend checking out these articles:
- To learn more about top UX research tools, please see the best user research tools in 2024.
- To see our curated list of usability testing tools, see the best usability testing tools in 2024.
- To streamline your research with AI, we recommend the top AI tools for user research.
