SurveyMonkey vs. Google Forms

SurveyMonkey and Google Forms are two of the most popular survey form makers available. Both platforms boast various features and unique designs. Google Forms integrates into the rest of the Google Suite, and SurveyMonkey is a powerhouse. Because platforms have benefits, it may be challenging to decide on the best survey program for you.

Keep reading to learn all about SurveyMonkey vs. Google Forms.

What Is SurveyMonkey?

SurveyMonkey is an online survey tool designed to collect business feedback. Since its inception, SurveyMonkey has been adding features to meet users’ unique needs. Today it’s one of the most well-known survey services with a comprehensive offering of features.

What Are Google Forms?

Google Forms is an online survey tool and part of Google’s free suite of products. Responses from your forms are automatically transferred to Google Sheets and saved into Google Drive. Google Forms is a powerhouse with the full suite of Google apps behind it.

SurveyMonkey vs. Google Forms

When deciding which survey platform is best for you, there are many features to consider. We’ve broken down the essential elements to help compare both services. See more about SurveyMonkey vs. Google Forms below.

Pricing

Google Forms is 100% free, but you need a Google account. Fortunately, creating an account is also free. There are no limits to how many forms you can build. You can also create an unlimited amount of questions and collect unlimited responses.

On the other hand, SurveyMonkey offers a tiered model for advanced features and limits. There is a free tier called “Basic,” which limits you to 10 questions per survey and 40 responses per survey, with other limited features. They also offer plans at the Individual, Team, and Enterprise levels.

The Individual plan can range from $99 per month to $1,400 per year. The Team plans can range from $25 per user per month to $75 per user per month. The Enterprise plans require you to ask SurveyMonkey’s sales team for a quote.

While Google’s free service immediately seems more appealing, SurveyMonkey offers a depth of features. With each tier in their price plans, SurveyMonkey adds additional advanced features and quickly outstrips Google Forms.

Customizations

Currently, Google Forms’ customizations are minimal compared to SurveyMonkey.

Google Forms offers 20 templates you can customize with a header image or the pre-loaded image. You can also change the theme color and background color. There are four options for fonts. However, Google Forms does not allow you to remove the Google branding.

The free SurveyMonkey plan offers 40 templates and nine pre-designed themes. You can also adjust your survey’s layout. There is the option of using image and video questions in your survey, a feature unavailable in Google Forms.

Paid SurveyMonkey plans offer even more features, including 200 survey templates organized by industry and purpose. The paid plans can remove SurveyMonkey branding and add themes with customized fonts, colors, layouts, and images. If you plan to embed a survey on your website, SurveyMonkey allows you to add your complete branding to the survey.

Collaboration

The collaboration features of Google Forms are limited even compared to other Google products. There is no view-only option when inviting collaborators, only the “Edit” option. You also cannot make comments or view change history. However, you can add an unlimited number of collaborators.

Google Forms’ collaboration tools fare better than SurveyMonkey’s Basic and Individual plans. With these plans, there are no collaboration tools at all.

However, the Teams and Enterprise plans have access to a comprehensive set of collaborative features. You can set different permissions for viewing, editing, and commenting on surveys and results. The live collaboration feature lets you build a survey with another team member.

Question Types

Google Forms offers nine question types: short answers, multiple choice, checkboxes, and drop-downs. There are no pre-written questions, but Google Forms does allow you to modify user-generated Google Form templates. These could be useful as a foundation to build your survey.

SurveyMonkey offers more question types than Google. Depending on your plan, you have the choice of 15 question types. These include multiple choice, text, Net Promoter Score, A/B comparisons, and matrix. However, not all plans offer all question types. Only SurveyMonkey’s “Essential question types” are available on every plan.

“Essential question types” include:

• Multiple choice
• Checkboxes
• Drop-downs
• Text Box

Additional question types are only available for the paid plans. The Standard Monthly plan only has access to a few other question types, while question types like the A/B test questions are only available on the yearly subscriptions. Team and Enterprise plans have access to all question types.

Conditional Logic

Conditional logic is critical for surveys. It allows you to send users to a different section of the survey or even end the survey based on their answers. This allows for more targeted questions and more valuable responses.

Google Forms allows you to use conditional logic for only multiple choice and drop-down questions. On the other hand, SurveyMonkey will enable you to use conditional logic on multiple choice, drop-down, checkboxes, and star ratings.

You can only use conditional logic with SurveyMonkey’s paid plans.

Collecting Responses

Collecting responses is an essential part of the survey. Without reaching your survey users, you will be unable to gather the information you need. For this reason, having a variety of ways to send your survey is critical to its success.

Google Forms allows you to distribute your survey in three ways. You can send the survey via email, post a link, or embed the survey on your website.

When collecting responses, SurveyMonkey offers more options than Google Forms. You can gather responses using the same methods as Google Forms or various other options. With SurveyMonkey, you can send the survey on Facebook Messenger or embed it in a mobile app.

If your survey parameters allow for it, you can also take advantage of SurveyMonkey’s Audience feature. With this feature, you can purchase responses from your target audience. This can quickly boost the number of results you have and provide a better analysis of your questions.

Using the SurveyMonkey Anywhere app, you can collect results without Wi-Fi access. Some have used the app to collect responses at conferences, retail stores, and more. The results are stored on your device locally and uploaded to SurveyMonkey once your internet connection is restored.

The SurveyMonkey Anywhere app is available for both Android and iOS.

Analysis and Reporting

Google Forms offers different graphs based on the question type to help analyze the responses within the program. You will not be able to decide how you want the data to be visualized as everything is pre-set. However, you can export the data directly into Google Sheets or Google Data Studio. There you can conduct an advanced analysis of the results.

SurveyMonkey offers more in-program options for the analysis of survey results. The Basic plan provides eight graph types, like pie charts, bar graphs, and line graphs. In addition, you can customize the colors and graph labels. You’ll need a paid plan if you want to export your SurveyMonkey results.

Another great feature of SurveyMonkey’s reporting is its ability to benchmark questions. If you use a pre-designed question in your survey, your results can be compared to other surveys that used the same question. This will tell you how your results compare to similar businesses.

Customer Service

Google Forms doesn’t offer a help center if you run into issues. Your only option is the Docs Editors Help Center which offers only basic troubleshooting solutions. If this doesn’t cover your needs, the only solution is to conduct an internet search on the issue.

For Basic SurveyMonkey users, you have access to 24/7 email support if you run into issues. For higher tier plans, the level of support available increases. Paid Individual and Team plan members can expect prioritized email and phone support over Basic members. Enterprise plan members have an additional support tier and are assigned a Customer Success Manager to their accounts.

SurveyMonkey vs. Google Forms: Which Is Best?

In general, SurveyMonkey offers more features and options than Google Forms does. This is true even for the SurveyMonkey Basic plan. However, for shorter surveys, the limited options of Google Forms may be more than enough.

Google Forms has a more user-friendly interface and can be used for purposes other than a traditional survey. Typical uses of Google Forms can include event RSVPs, job applications, quizzes, order forms, and more.

By comparison, SurveyMonkey has more options for all the same features as Google Forms. However, the Basic plan is the only budget-friendly option. Users who create surveys may not need all of the features of the paid plans. These plans are not very budget-friendly and may require payment for a whole year. It should also be noted that SurveyMonkey has more of a learning curve due to a more complicated interface.

A Survey for Every Need

Depending on your survey goals, you may have a clear winner regarding SurveyMonkey vs. Google Forms. Both platforms offer features to meet the needs of their users and can be used for different purposes. Choosing one will be solely based on the user’s needs as the two platforms cater to varying levels of need.

Have you recently built a survey in either SurveyMonkey or Google Forms? Which platform worked best for you? Let us know your survey platform of choice in the comments below.