The 8 best survey software, tools, and platforms

To build an exceptional digital experience, you need to understand your customers—their needs, wants, and expectations. On-site surveys provide a direct line to their thoughts and frustrations, capturing authentic feedback right when it matters most.

With the right survey software, you can uncover insights that truly make a difference. This guide highlights the best options available, whether you're seeking a straightforward, cost-effective solution or a more comprehensive survey platform that adapts to your growing needs. 

We also discuss why simply collecting survey responses isn’t enough; you need survey software that offers deeper insights into what really drives customer behavior. By the end, you'll be ready to choose the survey tool that fits your needs and use it to turn feedback into actionable steps that increase conversions and strengthen loyalty.

8 top survey software to capture valuable customer feedback

Surveys are more than just a set of questions—they’re your gateway to understanding what truly matters to your customers. 

Whether it’s fine-tuning a product, improving your website, or leveling up your services, survey software, tools, and platforms capture your customer’s voice in real time, creating insights that fuel your growth. They’re fast, easy to use, and some even put your feedback collection on autopilot. 

Best of all, survey software helps you create a feedback loop that’s timeless, so you always keep your customers at the heart of your business. Here are the top tools to help you do just that.

1. Google Forms

Google Forms is a great starting point for anyone looking for a simple, no-cost survey solution. It’s easy to customize, intuitive, and allows you to launch unlimited surveys. 

Using its seamless integration with Google Sheets, you can

• View and analyze survey responses as they come in, in a familiar environment

• Take advantage of its collaborative editing features to bring your team up to speed with customer feedback

Google Forms is a solid choice for straightforward surveys, but if you’re looking to really dive into customer behavior and journeys, it might not be the best fit.

Who Google Forms is best for: SMBs, educators, and individuals who need quick, simple surveys without advanced customization or analytics.

2. Contentsquare VoC

Contentsquare’s voice-of-the-customer (VoC) surveys are a smooth and powerful way to gather customer feedback. You can create surveys in seconds, use AI tools to speed up analysis, and easily integrate the insights with other features across the platform.

Here’s why our surveys stand out

• Quick and easy set-up: create surveys in seconds using 40+ pre-built templates (like Net Promoter Score® (NPS®), exit-intent, and feedback surveys), or let AI do the work for you

• Customize surveys to match your brand: make every survey feel like a natural extension of your site by easily tweaking the design and targeting. Your users will feel like they’re still interacting with your brand

• AI-powered insights: skip the manual analysis with automated reports, sentiment analysis, and automated tagging that help you understand what users are saying right away

• Reuse settings to save time: no need to start from scratch. You can reuse settings from past surveys, ensuring your branding and targeting are consistent without extra effort.

An example of a Contentsquare survey

But that’s just the start. When you combine surveys with Contentsquare’s other digital experience products, capabilities, and features, you unlock even more insights

• Watch your users’ journeys: dive deeper into how survey respondents interacted with your site through session replays, giving you extra context to their feedback

• Behavior + feedback = the full story: pair survey results with behavior data like heatmaps and behavioral analytics to see what your users are saying and how they’re navigating your site

• Track their paths: easily visualize customer journeys to spot trends and identify friction points mentioned in survey responses

Who Contentsquare is best for: businesses of any size that need real-time, actionable insights from customer feedback, and a comprehensive view of how users behave on their site—all in one platform.

Pro tip: stay ahead of the game with real-time feedback management.

Basic website survey tools often leave you in the dark about negative feedback until it’s too late, which can lead to bigger issues down the line. But with Contentsquare, you’re always in the loop thanks to capabilities like sentiment analysis. 

When you notice a spike in negative feedback about a particular website feature or product element, sentiment analysis lets you sort survey insights by theme and matches them to historical behavior data, so you can predict users’ future actions—like whether they’ll embrace new features or drift away from the product.  

These types of capabilities make a survey platform like Contentsquare stand out; they not only help you gather feedback but also provide the tools to analyze and act on it effectively.

Don’t wait for problems to escalate—let Contentsquare equip you with the tools you need to stay informed and take action quickly.

Use the charts in the Results tab directly in your presentations to review real-time user sentiment and how it changes over time

3. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a versatile platform with a huge variety of pre-built templates for market research, customer satisfaction, and employee engagement surveys. 

It also offers advanced analytics tools, which provide real-time data analysis and reporting, and integrates with a wide array of third-party platforms such as CRM systems, email marketing tools, and productivity apps.

While the platform is feature-rich, unlocking certain advanced capabilities can increase your costs significantly. For example

• The more advanced features like skip logic, A/B testing, and white-labeling are locked behind the premium plans, making it costly for small businesses

• The reporting features in the lower-tier plans are also limited, which restricts more advanced data analysis and user segmentation

Who Survey Monkey is best for: enterprises that need a flexible survey tool and can afford premium plans for advanced features.

4. Typeform

Typeform is celebrated for its engaging, conversational approach, presenting one question at a time, which helps users stay focused and improves survey completion rates.

Here’s what you get when using Typeform for surveys

• Customization options like photos and videos to make surveys interactive and keep customers engaged for longer

• AI-powered tools that streamline the survey creation process, and save you time and effort 

Typeform is particularly strong in user experience (UX), but it has limitations when it comes to more complex surveys, like those requiring cluster questions. Its pricing scales quickly as your response count increases, and its more advanced features are only available on higher-tier plans.

Who Typeform is best for: design-focused businesses and brands seeking more polished, branded survey experiences that don’t require advanced customer insights and behavior analytics.

Pro tip: work smarter, not harder and get faster insights with AI-powered reports.

Survey tools like SurveyMonkey and Typeform provide you with data but often require hours of digging through responses to extract actionable insights. 

With Contentsquare, you can wave goodbye to endless analysis. Our AI summary feature transforms your text responses from the last 30 days into a comprehensive report that includes

• A summary of answers: get a clear overview of what your respondents are saying

• Focus areas: discover the key themes and issues that stand out in feedback

• Relevant quotes: pull in direct quotes that highlight customer sentiments (perfect for presentations!)

• Action plan: use actionable insights to guide your next steps and improve your customer experience

Instead of spending hours analyzing responses, you’ll have a detailed report that allows you to focus on making meaningful changes based on what your customers really think.

Each Contentsquare survey report contains a summary of your answers, along with main focus areas, relevant quotes and an action plan

5. Qualtrics XM

Qualtrics is one of the most extensive platforms on this list when it comes to survey design and analytics, making it a favorite for large enterprises. It offers advanced survey logic, reporting, and collaboration features like

• Tools for sentiment analysis, A/B testing, and predictive intelligence

• Features like choice randomization, text piping, branching, and survey flow editing

However, its pricing can be prohibitive for SMBs, and it lacks the integration of behavioral data and cross-device session tracking found in solutions like Contentsquare. The platform is also quite complex and may need dedicated training for your team to use it effectively.

Who Qualtrics XM is best for: large enterprises that want powerful feedback management tools and are ready to invest in sophisticated survey software, even if it comes with a bit of a learning curve.

6. HubSpot Free Online Form Builder

HubSpot's free online survey tool integrates directly with its CRM platform, automatically adding contacts based on survey responses. It’s a great choice if you’re looking for

• A unified approach to collecting customer data and nurturing leads that fits nicely within your existing workflows

• An intuitive form builder that lets you easily customize surveys and questionnaires without technical knowledge

While easy to use, the tool lacks deep customization options available in other more specialized survey software and you’ll have to unlock HubSpot’s premium plans to use advanced reporting features—including detailed segmentation and automated insights.

If your goal with surveys is to optimize digital experiences, HubSpot’s capabilities might leave you wanting more. Without the in-depth analytics that reveal exactly how users are interacting with your site, you could be flying blind when it comes to understanding what’s working and what needs improvement.

Who HubSpot Free Online Form Builder is best for: SMBs using HubSpot’s CRM who need a simple, integrated solution for collecting survey responses and managing customer data.

Pro tip: turn your survey responses into rich insights by following up with deeper discussions.

Surveys can kick off the conversation, but if you want to really connect with your customers, you need to engage them further. And while Qualtrics and HubSpot let you create surveys, they often don’t provide easy pathways for interviews or usability testing, leaving you without deeper insights when you need them most. 

With Contentsquare, you can easily explore complex topics and behaviors that surveys can’t fully address

• Receive a vague response to one of your surveys? Watch that respondent’s session replay to gain more context. 

• Need more clarity on an issue raised by one of your respondents? Use Contentsquare to invite them to a follow-up user interview with a simple click.

• Want to dive deeper into user needs? Effortlessly recruit users from a diverse pool of 200,000+ participants from over 130 countries and 25 industries—or from your own user base.

• Tired of endless back-and-forth scheduling? Contentsquare’s built-in scheduling makes it easy to set up video calls, so you can focus on the conversation instead of logistics.

Use Contentsquare’s Interview capability to set up chats with subject matter experts and your own users

7. Mailchimp Surveys

Mailchimp allows users to integrate surveys into their email marketing campaigns, helping you grow email lists while gathering feedback. 

Here’s the good (and the not so good) of using Mailchimp for surveys

• It automatically tags survey respondents, which means you can segment your audience based on responses, and use these insights for targeted marketing

• However, it lacks deeper analytical capabilities that help you understand why users respond the way they do

While advanced features such as detailed reporting, custom survey templates, and automation require a paid subscription, their basic plan includes the option of modifying the design to showcase your branding, messaging, and style. You can then share these detailed surveys on the web or in your Mailchimp campaigns.

Who Mailchimp Surveys is best for: SMBs and marketers who already use Mailchimp for email marketing and want to add simple survey functionality to their campaigns.

8. Zoho Survey

Zoho Survey offers a wide range of features such as advanced skip logic, multilingual surveys, and customizable templates at lower prices compared to premium competitors. 

Those who use Zoho for surveys appreciate that

• For businesses already using Zoho CRM, Zoho Survey integrates seamlessly, allowing for easy survey data collection, transfer, and collaboration

• It allows you to send unlimited surveys, although each is restricted to 10 survey questions and 100 responses

Design customization is only available on paid plans. However, you can display your survey as a pop-up, include it in emails, embed it on your website, or share it on social media. The platform is user-friendly and offers some customization options, but for more comprehensive analytics or integration with other digital experience tools, you’ll need a more robust platform.

Who Zoho Survey is best for: small to mid-sized businesses looking for an affordable, easy-to-use survey tool that integrates well with the Zoho ecosystem.

Pro tip: pair surveys with analytics to decode the customer experience.

Many survey tools excel at gathering insights, but they can leave you hanging when it comes to understanding the ‘why’ behind the data.

With Contentsquare, you can effortlessly switch between voice-of-the-customer insights and experience analytics to get the complete picture of what your customers are feeling. Here’s how you can make the most of it:

• Spot and fix issues fast. If you notice something off in a session replay, don’t hesitate—launch a quick survey right there on that page! It’s a breeze to gather targeted feedback, giving you the insights you need to figure out what’s really going on and how to fix it.

• Tackle low conversion rates head-on. If your shiny new landing pages aren’t performing, use product analytics to see where users are dropping off. Then, send out exit-intent surveys to get to the heart of why they’re leaving. This combo gives you the clarity to make improvements that really resonate.

• Boost retention after product launches. Create an NPS® survey in seconds using a ready-made template to keep tabs on user sentiment. As you gather feedback, keep an eye on the journeys of users who aren’t feeling great about your product. Address their concerns quickly, and you’ll keep them engaged and coming back for more.

• See the whole customer journey. No more piecing together feedback from various sources. With Contentsquare’s Journey Analysis capability, you can visualize the paths users take before they share their thoughts. Understanding their journey helps you see what brought them to that point and how you can improve their experience.

See the user journeys leading up to an issue quoted in survey responses by building segments with survey events in CS and applying those segments in journey analysis

How to choose the right survey software for your business

With so many survey tools and platforms to choose from, how do you know which one’s right for you? Here are 3 factors to consider

🛠 What are your goals?

Think about what you want to achieve with surveys. For example, if you want to know why users are dropping off during sign-up, look for tools that offer customizable surveys and exit-intent features to gather real-time feedback. 

💰 How much does it cost?

You shouldn’t have to break the bank for great insights. Check out survey platforms with pricing options that let you start small and scale up as your needs grow. That way, you’re only paying for what you actually use.

💆‍♀️ How easy is it to use?

Look for a tool that feels intuitive. You want something that lets your team create surveys and dive into results without needing a tech manual. The easier it is to use, the faster you can start making data-driven decisions.

Next steps: build your website feedback tech stack

Choosing the right survey software is just the tip of the iceberg. To unlock deeper customer insights, complement them with other website feedback tools—like heatmaps, feedback widgets, user tests, and user interviews. 

The simplest approach? Use an all-in-one experience intelligence platform like Contentsquare that combines everything you need and captures user behavior, feedback, and site metrics at scale with very little effort on your part.

FAQs about survey software