8 Best Poll Maker Tools in 2026: Compared

Which poll maker should you choose?

Polls split into two situations. One is live: a room, a webinar, or a lecture where results appear on screen as people answer. The other is asynchronous, where you send a link and collect votes over days.

Tools built for live events price by audience size, which is the number you can least predict. Tools built for async polling price by responses or not at all. Knowing which situation you are in removes half the shortlist immediately.

How the eight poll makers compare at a glance

The table below shows what each free plan covers, where paid pricing starts on monthly billing, and whether the tool is built for live rooms or async links. Start here, then read whichever review matches your situation.

How we picked and ranked these eight poll makers

Everything here comes from the vendors' own pricing pages and plan limits, read in full. For polling the participant cap decides more than the feature list, because it is the ceiling you hit in the middle of an event.

The ranking weighs what each free plan allows and what a full team pays, plus whether the tool fits live rooms or async links. Several of these vendors bill annually, so the monthly figures here are the ones you actually pay each month.

1. Mentimeter, best for live audience engagement

Mentimeter is the tool most people picture when they think of live polling: a question on screen, a code for the room, then a bar chart filling in as answers arrive.

Its strength is the range of interaction types. Word clouds, scales, rankings and open text all update live, which keeps a session moving in ways a plain multiple-choice poll cannot.

Pricing is per presenter and billed yearly: Basic at $14 a month and Pro at $28. The free plan allows 50 participants a month, which suits testing rather than real events.

Best for: workshops, classes and conference sessions where the room answers live.

The catch: cost scales with presenters rather than usage, so five people who each run one session a quarter still need five licences.

G2 rating: 4.7/5, from 533 reviews. A solid base and the strongest score among the live-polling specialists here.

2. Slido, best for corporate events and Q&A

Slido is the corporate default, and its Q&A moderation is why. Audience questions arrive and get upvoted, then a moderator picks what reaches the stage, which is what large all-hands meetings actually need.

Owned by Cisco, it integrates tightly with Webex and works inside Teams and PowerPoint, so IT approval tends to be straightforward in enterprises.

Paid plans are per host and billed annually: Engage at $17.50 a month, Professional at $75, and Enterprise at $200, which works out at $210, $900, and $2,400 a year.

Best for: all-hands meetings and conferences where audience Q&A needs moderating.

The catch: there is no month-to-month option. Every paid tier is an annual commitment, so a single event pays for a year.

G2 rating: 4.8/5, from 780 reviews, the highest score in this comparison on a substantial base.

3. Poll Everywhere, best for large lecture halls

Poll Everywhere scales to audiences the others struggle with, which is why universities and large training organisations keep choosing it. Its higher tiers handle tens of thousands of respondents in a single session.

It also works well in mixed settings, where some people answer on a laptop, some by SMS, others through the web app.

Paid plans run $10 a month for Present, $49 for Engage, and $84 for Teams, billed as $120, $588, and $999 a year. Additional seats are charged on top.

Best for: universities and large events where audience size is the binding constraint.

The catch: seats are billed separately from the plan, so a teaching department with several lecturers pays well above the headline price.

G2 rating: 4.5/5, from 63 reviews. A modest base for a product this established.

4. Formester, best all-around with no caps

Formester is not a live-polling tool, and it earns its place here for the other half of the category: polls you send as a link and collect over time.

Nothing is metered. Unlimited forms and unlimited responses come with the free plan, so a poll that gets shared more widely than expected costs the same as one that does not.

Quiz auto-scoring and drop-off analytics are included free, and paid tiers add capability rather than volume: Personal at $13 a month for conditional logic, Business at $49 for 25 seats and a custom domain.

Best for: async polls and surveys where you send a link and results arrive over time.

The catch: there is no live mode. If you need a chart filling in on a projector while a room answers, pick Mentimeter or Slido.

G2 rating: 4.7/5, from 14 reviews. High score, small sample; read it as an early signal.

5. StrawPoll, best for quick public polls

StrawPoll is the fastest way to put a poll on the internet. No account is needed for a basic poll, the link works immediately, and results are public by default.

That simplicity is the entire product. For settling a question in a community, a Discord server, or a social thread, nothing here is quicker.

Paid plans add control rather than scale: $8 a month for Basic, $28 for Pro, and $52 for Business, which bring custom domains, poll passwords and vote verification.

Best for: quick public voting where speed matters more than analytics.

The catch: it has no G2 profile at all, so the usual third-party trust signals are not there to check before you rely on it.

G2 rating: StrawPoll has no G2 profile. Reputation signals come from Trustpilot and general usage rather than reviewed feedback.

6. Google Forms, best free option

Google Forms handles a simple poll perfectly well, costs nothing with any Google account, and puts results in Sheets where you can chart them in a minute.

For an internal poll about lunch orders, meeting times, or team preferences, this is usually the correct amount of tool.

There is no separate paid plan for polling. Forms arrives with Google Workspace, where Business Starter is $7 per user a month on an annual basis, Standard is $14, and Plus is $22.

Best for: internal polls where the result matters and the presentation does not.

The catch: it cannot run a live room. Results only update when you refresh the responses tab.

G2 rating: Google Forms has no standalone G2 profile. The 4.6/5 from 48,175 reviews quoted elsewhere covers Google Workspace as a whole.

7. Microsoft Forms + Polls in Teams, best inside Teams

If your meetings happen in Teams, the poll you want is already there. Polls in Teams launches a question inside the meeting, and results appear in the chat without anyone leaving the call.

Microsoft Forms handles the same job outside meetings, with results in Excel and the tenant's compliance posture applied automatically.

There is nothing extra to buy. Business Basic is $7 per user a month on annual billing, and Business Standard now bundles Copilot at $23.50.

Best for: teams that already run their meetings in Microsoft Teams.

The catch: outside a Microsoft tenant it does nothing for you, and the poll types are basic next to the live specialists.

G2 rating: 4.4/5, from 476 reviews, at the lower end here, which matches its internal scope.

8. Typeform, best for polished async polls

Typeform is the option when a poll represents your brand. One question at a time, with clean transitions and a respondent experience that looks considered rather than functional.

For a public poll on a marketing site or in a customer email, that polish measurably helps completion.

It is also the most expensive way to collect volume here. Free covers 10 responses a month, Basic is $39 with 100 responses, Plus $79 with 1,000, and Business $129 with 10,000.

Best for: customer-facing polls where presentation is part of the message.

The catch: ten free responses a month makes the free plan a demo, and volume gets expensive quickly after that.

G2 rating: 4.5/5, from 1,017 reviews. A large base, with cost the most frequent complaint.

How to pick the right poll maker

Answer the live-or-async question first, because it splits this list cleanly in two. If a room needs to see results appear while people answer, you are choosing between Mentimeter, Slido and Poll Everywhere.

Within that group, the tie-breaker is the shape of your event. Mentimeter suits workshops and teaching, Slido suits all-hands meetings that need Q&A moderation, and Poll Everywhere suits audiences large enough that capacity is the real constraint.

If you are sending a link instead, cost per response decides it. Formester never meters, StrawPoll is fastest for public voting, Google Forms and Microsoft Forms are free inside their suites, and Typeform is worth its price only when presentation matters.

Common questions about poll makers