Survey tools are online software used to gather answers from a particular target group on a certain topic. Nowadays, there are so many different types of surveys and feature-rich tools simplifying the whole process.
But which survey tool should you use? Let’s elaborate — we’ll go over the five best survey tools for businesses, covering the benefits of these tools and the key features you should aim to have.
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5 Best Survey Tools for Business in 2024
So, which are the best survey tools for business? Here are the top five for 2024:
1. Qualtrics
Qualtrics is one of the best survey software platforms, helping millions design quick surveys they can use to gather data. Qualtrics has over 50 templates designed by their experts based on the most common structures people use. With just a click of a button, you can start crafting your survey!
Qualtrics has five target markets:
- Customer research
- Employee research
- Product research
- Marketing research
- Academic research
Each section provides a different style. For instance, if you’re conducting employee research, you can create surveys for employee satisfaction, new hire onboarding, or employee engagement.
What’s more, Qualtrics offers tips to help you create the best surveys possible. The free plan includes eight question types per format, allows up to 30 questions per survey, and can reach up to 500 participants.
You can distribute your survey via email or online. And if you’re unsure whether your survey hits the nail on the head, the ExpertReview barometer will show you areas that need to be improved.
Price:
- Qualtrics Surveys: Free
- Strategic Research: $420/month (for small businesses)
- Strategic Research: Custom (for enterprises)
Pros:
- Free plan with a 30-day free trial on paid plans
- 50+ templates
- Free tips
- ExpertReview feature
Cons:
- A bit pricey for small businesses
- The user interface can be confusing
2. SurveyMonkey
Rated as one of the best free survey tools for 2024, SurveyMonkey provides expert templates for different industries and AI assistance to help craft quality surveys. SurveyMonkey’s main audience includes employees, customers, and target markets, but it also works in every industry you can think of — healthcare, technology, education, government, etc.
Its surveys can be used for gathering employee feedback, event feedback, online polls, customer satisfaction, and more. With over 200 integrations, you can easily distribute your survey using tools like HubSpot, Zapier, and even Google Workspace.
SurveyMonkey offers over 400 templates you can filter by type and customize to your needs. The free plan offers unlimited surveys with up to 10 questions and 25 responses each. Once you opt for the paid plans, you can include more questions and get more responses.
Price:
- Basic: Free
- Individual Advantage: €38/month
- Team Advantage: €30/user/month (minimum of 3 users)
Pros:
- Free plan
- Over 400 templates
- 200+ integrations
- AI help
Cons:
- Signal interruptions lose all information and require you to start all over
- No customization after the survey is released
3. Google Forms
Unarguably, one of the best survey tools is Google Forms. This free tool is part of Google’s suite, allowing businesses to create online forms with just a few clicks.
It offers different question types, a drag-and-drop reordering feature, and full customization. You can even add images to your Google survey. Simply start by choosing a template from the gallery and get crafting!
The best part is that you get detailed and clear analytics as the responses come in. Google Forms has a separate tab within your survey that gives you insights into the results for each question.
Moreover, you can easily share your Google Forms by sending out a link. There’s also the option to send it via email, embed it on your website, or post it on social media.
As for security, Google Forms is backed by Google, ensuring that your data is kept private and secure.
Price:
- For Personal: Free
- Business Standard: $12/user/month
Pros:
- Different templates for every need
- Easy to use and share
- High security
- Detailed analytics
Cons:
- Limited designing
- Requires a Google account
4. LimeSurvey
LimeSurvey is another top survey tool for businesses of every industry — education, healthcare, university, HR, marketing, and more. You can use it to create surveys for event planning, academic research, market research, patient satisfaction, and more. You can even integrate it with your existing content marketing tools to identify which parts of your strategy to improve.
With over 100 templates, over 28 questions, and translations in more than 40 languages, LimeSurvey is a top survey tool for businesses of all sizes. It offers unlimited surveys and questions, 2048-bit SLL encryption, and hosting in several countries including the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, Germany, and Singapore.
Aside from surveys, you can also create polls, questionnaires, votes, and forms using LimeSurvey.
Price:
- Basic: €34/month
- Expert: €29/month
- Business: €75/month
- Corporate: Contact sales for a quote
Pros:
- 100+ templates
- Surveys available in 40+ languages
- 1,000+ responses per month (based on the plan)
- Unlimited surveys with unlimited questions
Cons:
- Steep learning curve
- Limited built-in question types and flexibility with the scale-type of questions, according to customer feedback.
5. Alchemer
Finally, the fifth on our list of best survey tools in 2024 is Alchemer. This software was created for businesses that need to quickly create surveys and jump straight into analysis of the answers. Over 11,000 companies use Alchemer, earning its place at the top of the industry.
Alchemer has more than 400 business system integrations, supports surveys for 50+ industries, and even provides training services for newbies. To top it all, this survey tool offers multilingual surveys, i.e., you can translate any survey into 200 languages.
These benefits have earned Alchemer the award of “Best Survey Software” for 2024, stating that it’s all because they “offer nearly double the amount of question types” compared to competitors.
Price:
- Collaborator: $55/user/month
- Professional: $165/user/month
- Full Access: $275/user/month
- Business Platform: Request
Pros:
- 200 available languages for survey translations
- 400+ business system integrations
- Comprehensive features that offer everything from basic polls to in-depth, study-worthy surveys
- A high level of personalization and customization
Cons:
- Pricey for small businesses
- A slight learning curve for those just starting out with more complex survey tools
What Types of Surveys Are There?
The questions in a survey can be:
- Multiple-choice
- Open-ended
- Ranking
- Image choice
- Likert scale
- And more
In the business world, surveys are usually conducted to gather feedback for a certain product or service. This gives companies insight into their strengths and weaknesses, directly showing them what they should improve on. Survey tools can also collect valuable data about your customers, such as their likes, dislikes, etc.
A study on online survey response rates showed that on average, people responded to online surveys 44.1% of the time. It also showed that sending online surveys to a particular group is more effective and generated higher rather than to a broader audience.
The best survey tools allow you to distribute your survey via different marketing channels — email, website, social media platforms, and more. You can even include it alongside your other small business marketing tools and boost your brand awareness.
6 Benefits of Survey Tools
Many businesses use different marketing analytics tools, yet they fail to recognize how a simple survey can cut down on their efforts and still produce the same results. Here are a few benefits of using customer survey tools:
- Fast: The best survey tools can create a survey in mere minutes. With hundreds of templates at your disposal, you can easily customize them to your liking, add the questions and their sequence, and save the project.
- Cost-effective: Even marketing agencies look for tools that are good and affordable. Top survey tools provide customers with everything — from templates to guides and analytics — at a low monthly subscription cost. Compared to spending money on traditional survey methods or gathering insights via long-term marketing tactics, survey tools drastically reduce costs.
- Give feedback from the right audience: Surveys are typically sent out to a specific demographic. The best survey tools offer specialized templates for different industries and goals (e.g., employee satisfaction, customer feedback, etc.). This way, you get feedback from your target audience in a few hours or days.
- Create centralized data: Top survey tools instantly provide you with the data from the survey. For example, with Google Forms, you can view the analytics as soon as someone answers your survey. These tools help centralize data on specific topics your survey addresses, allowing you to structure it later — whether by creating buyer profiles, dividing it into subsections based on a mutual factor, etc.
- Easy to use: Regardless of your digital marketing tool, it’s important that they’re easy to use. The best survey tools come with a simple UI, easy-to-navigate dashboards, customizable templates, and training resources if the tool’s too complex for beginners.
- Mixed media sharing: Top survey tools don’t just include text. Businesses can use videos, audio, and embedded links that participants can open to better understand the question or drive further interaction. For instance, Alchemer allows you to embed videos into your questions.
Key Features of Survey Tools for Businesses
If the top survey tools we’ve listed above are not up to your liking, consider these essential features when choosing a survey tool:
- Customization: Look for survey tools that offer customization options, multilingual translations, the ability to add different media sources, and multiple distribution methods. This can be especially helpful for startups as another tool in their branding tools set.
- Easy-to-use dashboards: If you can’t figure out how to create a survey, then the tool has failed its purpose. The best survey tools will have drag-and-drop features, simple templates, or a training center if the software is complex.
- Quality support: Even the simplest tools can present challenges. Having knowledgeable, responsive, and polite support always makes the process smoother.
- Detailed analytics: Look for survey tools that offer detailed analytics. Getting a direct insight into your participants’ responses gives you the chance to address issues and work on your services. The State of the Global Workplace 2024, for example, stated that employee engagement has dropped to a 23% low. Using surveys to explore the reason for this can help businesses know what to improve.
- Pre-made templates: Check that the tool you want has a range of pre-made templates. The best survey tools offer hundreds of templates, organized based on the type you need.
- Integrations: Choose a tool that integrates with other platforms. Being able to transfer your survey directly on a social media platform, CRM software, or even your Google Workspace can save you time and money.
- Automation: Avoid manual data handling by choosing a survey tool with automation features. The best survey tools allow you to automatically transfer data to specific systems or departments, such as directing customer feedback to your sales department.
- AI-powered help: While not essential, the best survey tools provide AI features to analyze the responses, view actionable insights, or tailor the survey. According to the latest IBM research, 43% of enterprises have used AI in some form.
Best Survey Tools Takeaways
Finding the perfect survey tool for your business doesn’t have to be a draining task. If you’re doing it on your own, look for the key features we mentioned above such as customization options, AI assistance, pre-made templates, analytics, and more.
The best survey tools will cut your costs by half, help you save time, target the right audience, and allow businesses to create centralized data sets. Of course, survey tools also come with some disadvantages, but these can be easily avoided by using some of the top five survey tools we listed.
If you need more help, we advise turning to professional survey companies to get the job done.
Best Survey Software FAQs
1. How to choose the best survey tools?
You can make a checklist with the key features every survey tool should have. Look for automation, AI help, customization features, a list of templates for different surveys, the option to add more questions to your forms, and similar features.
Always remember to construct your checklist depending on what your business needs.
2. What is the best survey tool?
The best survey tool depends on your business needs and preferences. However, many enterprises find Qualtrics to be a good choice, while smaller businesses opt for Google Forms. Whichever survey tool you choose, always make sure to select a tool that works with your brand’s requirements and needs rather than relying solely on external reviews.
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