13 Free Survey Tools For Small Businesses

We all know the cliche the customer is always right, but do many businesses take the time to listen? Not many, its safe to assume, or the business failure rate would not be as high as it currently is. Unfortunately, if you don't have the luxury of being a monopoly or government-funded institution then ignoring your customer feedback in the free market will ensure that your business won't be around for very long. Often I've suggested this approach to companies, and I've been flat our ignored. I hear the excuses; we don't have the time, we don't have the money, we don't have the resources? To that, I say you don't have a clue what you're missing out on.

Get free feedback

I know money is tight, I know resources are limited, and you need to focus on what you know makes you money, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get into the customer feedback game as soon as possible. There are plenty of free tools to get you started which will help you gain incredible insights. You will be surprised at the wealth of data customers are willing to provide you with if only you ask and give them a platform to provide you with feedback. So in the interest of business owners not having an excuse for ignoring customer surveys, I decided to put together a list of 10 options you can use today that won't cost you a cent.

1. Survey Monkey

My personal go-to tool for setting up surveys is Survey Monkey. Its free version offers you more than enough to get you started. The one downside is that your data is contained in survey monkey and cannot be exported unless you pull out that credit card In the free version, you’ll get:

• 10 questions
• 100 respondents
• 15 question types
• Light theme customization and templates
• The system is well designed, pretty easy to use, and you can embed surveys.

Visit Survey Monkey

2. Typeform

Typeform offers major benefits when it comes to an all in one survey creation tool. Typeform’s UI interface is elegant and it's pretty easy to use. In the free version, called the CORE plan, you'll get:

• Unlimited questions
• Unlimited answers
• Data export
• Custom design themes or choose from templates
• Basic reporting

Visit Typeform

3. Google Forms

If you thought Google would let surveys go by without a fight you're wrong. Google Forms is just another way of consolidating literally everything the internet is known for into their platform. With Google Forms you'll get:

• Unlimited surveys
• Unlimited respondents
• Survey answers and data are automatically collected in Google Spreadsheets
• Lots of theme options
• Add your own custom logo
• Add images or videos
• Skip logic and page branching
• Embed survey into emails or website
• Add collaborators
• free skip logic

Visit Google Forms

4. Zoho Survey

While nothing to really save about Zoho Survey is another decent free survey creator tool and offers users a free version that gives you:

• Unlimited surveys
• 15 survey questions
• 150 responses

Visit Zoho Survey

5. Survey Gizmo

Survey Gizmo lets you create great-looking surveys and can work for you as long as you don’t plan on getting a ton of respondents, once you hit over 50 you're out of luck. Survey Gizmo has a free version that offers:

• Unlimited surveys and questions
• 50 respondents
• Several basic question types
• Free templates
• Basic reporting
• Option to export to CSV

Visit Survey Gizmo

6. Survey Planet

SurveyPlanet offers a tremendous set of free tools for designing your survey, sharing your survey online, and reviewing your survey's results. The free version of Survey Planet is a pretty sweet offer, you'll get:

• Unlimited surveys
• Unlimited questions
• Unlimited respondents
• Survey theme options
• Survey embedding

Visit Survey Planet

7. LimeSurvey

LimeSurvey Professional survey hosting gives you a reliable and safe way of hosting forms online Using the free version of LimeSurvey, you'll get:

• 25 responses/month
• Unlimited administrators
• 10 MB upload storage
• No white-labelling
• Advertisement on end page
• No feature restrictions

Visit LimeSurvey

8. Responster

Responster lets you create beautiful surveys and forms ready for any platform, for the low, low price of free. Responster free package includes:

• Unlimited surveys and responses
• Super-simple builder
• Response analytics

Visit Responster

9. Kwiksurveys

KwikSurveys is a free to use online survey builder, which has been specifically designed so that it is quick and easy to use for people of all experience levels. To get started sign up for the free version and receive:

• Unlimited questions
• Unlimited responses
• Full results export
• Powerful report builder
• SSL encryption

Visit Kwiksurveys

10. Polldaddy

Polldaddy offers users unlimited polls, surveys, quizzes, responses and votes with No limits so you can collect all the data your heart desires also it's free forever and best of all it as great integration options with WordPress.

• 1 user account
• yourname.polldaddy.com
• Excessive poll voting is rate limited

Visit Polldaddy

11. JotForm

JotForm is right there on top with all the other solutions when it comes to surveys. JotForm Survey Maker offers advanced conditional logic and customization on surveys with an easy drag-and-drop interface. JotForm is free to use, in the free plan you’ll get:

• 280+ Survey Templates
• Full Customization
• Form Analytics Feature
• Report Builder
• Easy to embed surveys
• 5 Forms
• 100 monthly submissions
• 100 MB available space

Visit JotForm Survey Maker

12. GroHawk

GroHawk is a survey tool that specialises in Net Promoter Score (NPS) their tools are suited for engaging with customers and extracting customer service feedback. Their smart AI algorithms segment users into relevant categories allowing them to service recover, retain existing clients as well as create raving brand ambassadors, and drive active referrals.

You can sign up to GroHawk for free and get:

• Unlimited email surveys
• Unlimited responses
• Dashboard and tracking
• Real-time reporting
• 1 user
• 1 Location

Visit GroHawk

13. Zonka Feedback

Zonka Feedback is a customer and employee Feedback Survey App. You can use it to create and customize surveys and feedback forms that can gather responses on multiple channels such as Kiosks, iPads, Android Tablets, Smartphones, Emails, SMS, websites, QR Code and more. Get real-time reports, insightful analytics, instant feedback alerts and take action to close the feedback loop.

You can sign up to Zonka Feedback for free and get:

• 15 Days of access
• You will get full access to all the services
• No credit card required to sign up

Visit Zonka Feedback

Create a feedback loop

Once you've set up your survey there are plenty of ways to encourage users to provide feedback, with social media, email marketing, embedding surveys on your website, SMS marketing, an iPad in-store or as a gateway for the WiFi in-store. So pick one or a few and go our there and start getting customer feedback.

For ideas on what type of data you should be collecting from your clients check out our post - How To Quickly Gather Qualitative Data

Contact us

If you want to know more about marketing surveys don’t be shy we’re happy to assist. Simply contact us

Are you looking to promote your business?

South African Business owners can create your free business listing on nichemarket. The more information you provide about your business, the easier it will be for your customers to find you online. Registering with nichemarket is easy; all you will need to do is head over to our sign up form and follow the instructions.

If you require a more detailed guide on how to create your profile or your listing, then we highly recommend you check out the following articles. 

• How to create a nichemarketer profile 
• How to create a nichemarket business listing 

Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have a little extra time to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, why not check out the following posts on collecting data.

• Embedded Web Tools For Better Content Marketing
• How To Quickly Gather Qualitative Data
• Free Digital Tools For Small Businesses and Startups

Tags: Data Analysis, survey, tools, reporting