Jotform Vs SurveyMonkey: Forms, Surveys, or Both?

July 19, 2023 |
21 min read

When it comes to choosing a form-builder, Jotform has gained significant popularity and is often the go-to choice for many users.

However, when it comes to survey-building specifically, the presence of platforms like SurveyMonkey and SurveySparrow with the term Survey in their names itself, can create a perception that they may be the better option for survey-related tasks.

But is this perception based on reality or mere assumptions?

Aren't there other factors to consider beyond just their names?

In this blog, we aim to uncover the truth and delve into the key differences between a versatile form-builder like Jotform, which also offers survey-building capabilities;

And survey-specific platforms like SurveyMonkey.

Join us as we embark on a comprehensive comparison of Jotform and SurveyMonkey to uncover the unique features and functionalities that set them apart.

By the end of this journey, you'll have a clearer understanding of which platform aligns best with your unique requirements.

Jotform: The Versatility of Jotform's All-in-One Form-Building Platform

When it comes to creating forms of diverse kinds, Jotform is your go-to solution.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Home-Page

With its intuitive interface, comprehensive features, and unparalleled flexibility, Jotform empowers its users to design and customize forms that suit their unique needs.

Whether you're looking to create simple contact forms or complex surveys, Jotform offers a robust platform that ensures seamless form-building every step of the way.

What Sets Jotform Apart from SurveyMonkey?

Let's explore the key factors that make Jotform unique from SurveyMonkey:

Screenshot showing: What Sets Jotform Apart from SurveyMonkey?: 1. Versatility in Form Building 2. Superior Customization 3. Advanced Form Features 4. Powerful Integrations 5. Extensive Template Library 6. Collaboration and Workflow Management

1. Versatility in Form Building

Jotform offers a wide range of form-building options, catering to both simple and complex form requirements.

With such a setup and capabilities, Jotform equips its users to create both, web forms that cater to diverse business processes, as well as surveys that allow for data collection and research.

2. Superior Customization

With Jotform, you have extensive customization options, allowing you to tailor every aspect of your forms, including designs, themes, and branding to match and maintain your brand identity.

3. Advanced Form Features

Jotform offers a plethora of advanced form features, such as conditional logic, payment processing, file uploads, calculations, multi-page forms, empowering you to create dynamic, interactive and personalized form experiences. Moreover, it also offers Form Analytics to derive meaningful insights from the submissions received.

4. Powerful Integrations

Jotform provides seamless integrations with a wide range of third-party applications, enabling its users to connect their forms with other tools, services and systems to streamline workflows and enhance productivity.

5. Extensive Template Library

Jotform boasts a vast collection of pre-designed form templates, spanning various industries and use cases, making it easy for its users to kickstart their form-building process, by making minor edits.

6. Collaboration and Workflow Management

Jotform offers collaborative features, allowing multiple members of the same team to work together on form creation, share forms internally or with clients, and manage form submissions efficiently.

These unique features make Jotform a standout choice for individuals and businesses seeking a versatile, collaborative, and secure form-building platform. Whether you're collecting customer feedback, conducting surveys, or automating workflows, Jotform has the tools and capabilities to meet your specific needs.

SurveyMonkey: Powerful Data Collection with SurveyMonkey's Advanced Survey Solution

SurveyMonkey stands tall as a trusted and widely recognized platform, in the world of online surveys.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Home-Page

With its range of advanced features and tools, SurveyMonkey offers an extensive toolkit to conduct surveys and gather valuable insights.

SurveyMonkey empowers its users to collect, analyze, and make data-driven decisions with ease.

If you're looking to explore the true potential of surveys and gain deeper insights for your research, SurveyMonkey is here to elevate your survey game.

What Sets SurveyMonkey Apart from Jotform?

Let's explore what makes SurveyMonkey unique from Jotform:

Screenshot showing: What Sets SurveyMonkey Apart from Jotform?: 1. Extensive Survey Features 2. AI-Powered Survey Expert 3. Powerful Data Analysis & Reporting 4. Market Research Solutions 5. Integrated Survey Panel 6. Branding, Customization, and Ease of Use

1. Extensive Survey Features

SurveyMonkey is designed specifically for survey creation and offers a wide array of survey-specific features, including pre-built survey templates, question libraries, skip logic and randomization options, that help its users create engaging and interactive surveys.

2. AI-Powered Survey Expert

SurveyMonkey's AI-powered survey expert, SurveyMonkey Genius, offers personalized recommendations, suggesting questions and responses to streamline survey creation.

This feature evidently helps cut down user workload helping users create high-quality surveys in less time.

3. Powerful Data Analysis & Reporting

SurveyMonkey's robust data analysis features, including automatic results summaries, customizable dashboards, and real-time tracking, allow users to gain valuable insights from their survey responses. Additionally, with the ability to apply filters and cross-tab reports, users can easily slice and dice data to uncover valuable insights. Also the various export options available, users can easily analyze and share their survey data for data-driven decision-making.

4. Market Research Solutions

SurveyMonkey offers dedicated solutions for market research, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking to conduct professional market research surveys.

Features like sample selection, demographic targeting, and statistical significance testing empower users to gather valuable insights for their research studies.

5. Integrated Survey Panel

SurveyMonkey provides access to a large, diverse panel of survey respondents through its integrated survey panel feature.

This allows users to reach a wider audience and obtain representative data for their surveys, thereby enhancing the reliability and accuracy of research findings.

6. Branding, Customization, and Ease of Use

With SurveyMonkey, users can easily customize their surveys to match their brand's visual style, using features like adding logos, brand colors, custom themes, and templates.

Moreover, the user-friendly interface and intuitive survey creation process make it accessible to users of all levels of technical expertise.

These unique features and capabilities make SurveyMonkey a preferred choice for individuals, businesses, and researchers seeking a dedicated surveying platform.

Having covered the unique features of each of these platforms, now let's move on to a...

Feature-Wise Comparison of Jotform and SurveyMonkey

A one-on-one feature-wise comparison will help you evaluate these platforms for different functionalities and map them to your specific requirements.

Infographic showing: Feature-Wise Comparison of Jotform and SurveyMonkey: 1. Form and Survey Creation: - Jotform: Multiple form fields and customization options. - SurveyMonkey: Specializes in survey creation and question types. 2. Customization and Branding: - Jotform: Extensive customization with branding options. - SurveyMonkey: Limited branding customization options. 3. Question Types: - Jotform: Wide range of question types. - SurveyMonkey: Comprehensive selection of survey question types.

1. Form and Survey Creation

Jotform: Jotform offers multiple kinds of form fields, a variety of customization options, and a wide range of form elements, including text inputs, images, files, dropdowns, ratings, and payments, to create versatile forms and surveys.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Form Builder Dashboard

It provides an intuitive drag-and-drop interface for easy form building.

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey specializes in survey creation, offering a variety of question types, skip logic, and randomization, specifically for gathering feedback and insights.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Survey Builder Dashboard

2. Customization and Branding

Jotform: Jotform allows you to customize the look and feel of your forms with branding elements such as logos, colors, and fonts. It offers a range of design options to match your brand identity.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Customization and Branding Options

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey also provides customization options to align your surveys with your brand. You can add your logo, select color themes, and apply custom styling to create surveys that reflect your brand image. However, the customization options are limited, with less flexibility in terms of branding and visual customization.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Customization and Branding Options

3. Question Types

Jotform: Jotform offers a wide range of question types, including multiple-choice, dropdowns, checkboxes, text fields, file uploads, rating scales, and more.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Question Types

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey provides a comprehensive selection of survey question types, including multiple-choice, ranking, matrix, slider, open-ended, and demographic questions.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Question Types

Infographic showing: Feature-Wise Comparison of Jotform and SurveyMonkey: 4. Integration and Collaboration: - Jotform: Integrates with third-party apps and offers collaboration. - SurveyMonkey: Integrates with apps and provides collaboration. 5. Logic and Branching: - Jotform: Conditional logic for dynamic form experiences. - SurveyMonkey: Skip logic and branching for customized surveys. 6. Advanced Questionnaire Options: - Jotform: Question piping, prefilling, and calculations. - SurveyMonkey: Question randomization and validation.

4. Integration and Collaboration

Jotform: Jotform integrates with numerous third-party applications and services, allowing you to connect your forms with other tools in your workflow. It also offers collaboration features, enabling team members to work together on form creation.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Integrations Page

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey provides integrations with popular business applications, making it easier to sync survey data with your existing systems. It also offers collaboration features, allowing multiple users to collaborate on survey design and analysis.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Integrations Page

5. Logic and Branching

Jotform: Jotform allows you to create conditional logic and branching within your forms, enabling dynamic form experiences based on user responses.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Logic and Branching Features

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey offers skip logic and branching features to customize the survey flow based on participant responses.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Logic and Branching Features

6. Advanced Questionnaire Options

Jotform: Jotform provides advanced questionnaire features such as question piping, prefilling form fields, and calculations based on user input.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Advanced Questionnaire Options

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey offers advanced features like question randomization, question validation, and custom survey URLs.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Advanced Questionnaire Options

Infographic showing: Feature-Wise Comparison of Jotform and SurveyMonkey: 7. Submission Permissions: - Jotform: Set different submission permissions. - SurveyMonkey: Control user access to form submissions. 8. Response Collection Methods: - Jotform: Various methods like embedded forms, links, and more. - SurveyMonkey: Offers different response collection methods. 9. Data Analysis and Reporting: - Jotform: Basic reporting and data visualization. - SurveyMonkey: Advanced data analysis, filtering, and charts.

7. Submission Permissions

Jotform: Jotform allows you to set different submission permissions, including submit-only, submit and view, and submit and edit, giving you control over user access to form submissions.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Submission Permissions

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey also allows you to control user access to form submissions, ensuring privacy and data security.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Submission Permissions

8. Response Collection Methods

Jotform: Jotform allows responses to be collected through embedded forms on websites, direct links, email invitations, QR codes, and social media.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Response Collection Methods

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey offers various response collection methods, including email invitations, web links, social media sharing, and embedding surveys on websites.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Response Collection Methods

9. Data Analysis and Reporting

Jotform: Jotform provides basic data analysis and reporting capabilities including summary reports and data visualizations, allowing you to view form responses in a graphical form and export them. It offers visualizations and charts to help you analyze data at a glance, in real time. Advanced reporting features, however, are available with higher-tier plans.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Data Analysis and Reporting

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey offers advanced data analysis and reporting features, including real-time results tracking, customizable dashboards, data filtering, cross-tabulation, trend analysis and custom charts.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Data Analysis and Reporting

Infographic showing: Feature-Wise Comparison of Jotform and SurveyMonkey: 10. Accessibility: - Jotform: Compliant with WCAG 2.1 guidelines. - SurveyMonkey: Offers accessibility features. 11. Survey Quotas and Sample Management: - Jotform: Set quotas and manage samples. - SurveyMonkey: Manage survey responses and participant demographics. 12. Data Security and Compliance: - Jotform: SSL encryption, GDPR, and HIPAA compliance. - SurveyMonkey: Follows data security practices and GDPR compliance.

10. Accessibility

Jotform: Jotform provides accessibility features to ensure compliance with WCAG 2.1 guidelines, making surveys accessible to individuals who are specially-abled.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Accessibility Features

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey offers accessibility options, including screen reader compatibility and keyboard navigation support.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Accessibility Features

11. Survey Quotas and Sample Management

Jotform: Jotform allows you to set response quotas and manage survey samples, ensuring control over the number of responses.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Survey Quota Pop-up

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey offers features for setting response quotas and managing survey samples, allowing you to control the number of responses and participant demographics.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Survey Quotas' Options

12. Data Security and Compliance

Jotform: Jotform ensures data security with features such as SSL encryption, GDPR compliance, HIPAA compliance, and data backup options.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Data Security and Compliance Features

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey also follows industry-standard data security practices and offers features like SSL encryption, GDPR compliance, and data anonymization.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Data Security and Compliance Features

13. Form Templates: - Jotform: Over 10,000 templates, including surveys, contact forms. - SurveyMonkey: Over 250 templates, 20 free, categorized. 14. Support and Customer Service: - Jotform: Email support and knowledge base. - SurveyMonkey: Email and phone support, higher-tier with managers. 15. Plans & Pricing: - Jotform: Free plan, 4 paid tiers with varying features. - SurveyMonkey: Free Basic plan, multiple paid tiers and options.

13. Form Templates

Jotform: Jotform sets a pretty high in templates, offering over 10,000 online form templates, including surveys, contact forms, and payment forms, providing users with a wide range of options.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Form Templates Page

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey has over 250 templates, but only 20 are free to use. Templates are categorized into academic, marketing, quiz, events, and more.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Form Templates Page

14. Support and Customer Service

Jotform: Jotform offers customer support through email and an extensive knowledge base. Paid plans come with priority support and faster response times.

Screenshot showing: Jotform's Support and Customer Service Page

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey provides support through email and phone, with higher-tier plans offering priority support and dedicated customer success managers.

Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Support and Customer Service Page

15. Plans & Pricing

Jotform: Jotform offers a free plan that allows you to create upto 5 forms with 100 submissions, along with basic features per month.

It serves as a good starting point for users with basic form creation needs.

Paid Plans: Jotform offers 4 paid plans with additional features and benefits, with each upgrade.

  1. Bronze: $39/month, with upto 25 forms and 1000 submissions

  2. Silver: $49/month, with upto 50 forms and 2500 submissions

  3. Gold: $129/month, with upto 100 forms and 10K submissions

  4. Enterprise: Customized Pricing

    Screenshot showing: Jotform's Plans & Pricing Page

SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey offers a Basic plan for Free.

Paid plans are available under three main categories, with additional features and upgrades with every higher version. The said categories are as follows:

  1. Individual: Suitable for Individuals, such as Freelancers. It has 3 categories:
  • Standard Monthly: Starts at $46/month with upto 1000 responses
  • Advantage Annual: Starts at $42/month with upto 5000 responses
  • Premier Annual: Starts at $116/month with upto 7500 responses
  1. Teams: Suitable for users who work in teams, it comes in 3 three versions:
  • Team Advantage Plan: Starts at $35/month with upto 10K responses
  • Team Premier Plan: Starts at $88/month with upto 15K responses

(Note: Additional Responses can be bought at $0.80 each)

  1. Enterprise: Custom Pricing for Enterprises with specific requirements.

    Screenshot showing: SurveyMonkey's Plans & Pricing Page

With the conclusion of the comparison;

It is important to discuss the Similarities between Jotform & SurveyMonkey to get a more all-rounded perspective.

Where do Jotform and SurveyMonkey overlap?

Infographic showing: Similarities between Jotform and SurveyMonkey: 1. Additional Features 2. Survey Translation and Localization 3. Respondent Experience 4. Validations

1. Additional Features

Both Jotform and SurveyMonkey offer additional features to enhance form and survey creation. Jotform provides conditional logic for dynamic form experiences, while SurveyMonkey offers the Question Bank with suggested questions for different survey categories.

2. Survey Translation and Localization

Both platforms support survey translation and localization. Jotform allows the creation of multilingual surveys, while SurveyMonkey offers translation options for targeting respondents in different languages.

3. Respondent Experience

Jotform and SurveyMonkey both focus on providing a user-friendly experience. Jotform ensures a seamless form-filling experience, while SurveyMonkey includes features like progress bars and validation messages to enhance respondent satisfaction.

4. Validations

Both Jotform and SurveyMonkey prioritize data accuracy by offering robust validation options. With features like required fields and element-specific validations, these platforms ensure that the data collected through their forms and surveys is reliable and complete.

If you came here with a specific use-case in mind, let's make decision-making even easier for you.

Let's dive into the...

Best Use-Cases and Limitations of Jotform and SurveyMonkey

(so you know exactly what to choose!)

Best Use-cases of Jotform

Infographic showing: Best Use-cases of Jotform: 1. Simple Surveys and Feedback Forms 2. Event Registrations and RSVPs 3. Contact Forms and Lead Generation 4. Job Application Forms 5. Order and Payment Forms

1. Simple Surveys and Feedback Forms

Jotform is well-suited for creating simple surveys and feedback forms to gather valuable insights from customers, employees, or target audiences.

2. Event Registrations and RSVPs

Jotform can be used to create event registration forms and RSVP forms, streamlining the process of managing attendee information and registrations.

3. Contact Forms and Lead Generation

Jotform is effective for creating contact forms and lead generation forms, capturing customer inquiries and contact details for follow-up.

4. Job Application Forms

Jotform provides a user-friendly solution for creating job application forms, simplifying the hiring process and collecting applicant information efficiently.

5. Order and Payment Forms

Jotform enables businesses to create order forms and payment forms for online sales, making it convenient for customers to place orders and make secure payments.

Limitations of Jotform

Infographic showing: Limitations of Jotform: 1. Limited Advanced Analytics 2. Complex Logic Functionality 3. Limited Question Types 4. Limited Free Plan Features

1. Limited Advanced Analytics

Jotform's analytics capabilities are not as robust compared to SurveyMonkey, with fewer options for in-depth data analysis and reporting.

2. Complex Logic Functionality

Jotform's conditional logic features, while useful for basic logic requirements, may not be as advanced or comprehensive as the logic capabilities provided by SurveyMonkey.

3. Limited Question Types

Jotform may have fewer question types available compared to SurveyMonkey, limiting the range of survey design options for certain specific research needs.

Best Use-cases of SurveyMonkey

Infographic showing: Best Use-cases of SurveyMonkey: 1. Market Research 2. Employee Feedback and Engagement Surveys 3. Event Feedback and Evaluation 4. Customer Experience Surveys 5. Employee Engagement Surveys

1. Market Research

SurveyMonkey is an ideal tool for conducting market research surveys, allowing businesses to gather valuable insights on consumer preferences, market trends, and competitive analysis.

2. Employee Feedback and Engagement Surveys

SurveyMonkey can be used to create employee feedback surveys and engagement surveys, fostering a culture of feedback and improving employee satisfaction.

3. Event Feedback and Evaluation

SurveyMonkey is useful for gathering feedback and evaluations from event attendees, helping organizers improve future events and enhance the attendee experience.

4. Customer Experience Surveys

SurveyMonkey excels in creating customer experience surveys to gather feedback and measure customer satisfaction.

It offers specialized features such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) measurement, which helps businesses understand and improve customer loyalty and advocacy.

5. Employee Engagement Surveys

SurveyMonkey provides powerful tools for conducting employee engagement surveys, enabling organizations to assess employee satisfaction, identify areas for improvement, and drive employee engagement initiatives. It offers features like anonymity, question randomization, and customizable dashboards for analyzing and acting on employee feedback.

Limitations of SurveyMonkey

Infographic showing: Limitations of SurveyMonkey: 1. Limited Form Customization 2. Restrictive Response Limits 3. Limited Integration Options 4. Complexity for Basic Users

1. Limited Form Customization

SurveyMonkey's form customization options may not be as extensive as those offered by Jotform, making it less suitable for users requiring highly customized and branded survey designs.

2. Restrictive Response Limits

SurveyMonkey imposes response limits on lower-priced plans, which can be a limitation for users who anticipate a high volume of survey responses.

3. Limited Integration Options

While SurveyMonkey offers integrations with several popular third-party tools, the range of integrations may be more limited as compared to Jotform, potentially restricting data flow across different platforms.

The Final Verdict

In conclusion, the decision between Jotform and SurveyMonkey largely hinges on the specific needs and preferences of your business or organization.

If you require both surveys and web forms for various business processes, Jotform stands out with its customization capabilities and advanced features, catering to versatile form-building needs.

While, its user-friendly interface, customization options and scope for personalization and branding, make it an ideal choice for business web forms such as Contact Forms, Registration Forms, Subscription Forms, etc.;

The ability to include complex logic, seamless integration with third-party applications, flexibility and dynamism make it suitable for unique form requirements, including surveys, data collection, analysis, and reporting;

On the other hand, if your focus is primarily on surveys, SurveyMonkey emerges as the right choice. With its user-friendly interface and robust data analysis and reporting tools, it excels in gathering feedback and insights. The availability of free customizable surveys and paid options for advanced data analysis and representation makes it a reliable choice for survey-oriented endeavors.

Although both platforms offer powerful features, they come with certain limitations. Jotform, while user-friendly, may present a learning curve when dealing with extensive surveys involving complex logic. Conversely, SurveyMonkey, while effective for survey creation, may not be the optimal solution for businesses requiring feature-rich web forms tailored to specific business processes.

That said, to end your quest for the best of both worlds, Formester is here!

Formester empowers you to:

  1. Design highly customized and personalized web forms, aligning with your branding and catering to diverse business needs.
  2. Create complex Survey Forms with ease, incorporating advanced logic, while enjoying seamless integration with a wide range of third-party platforms.
  3. Leverage robust data analytics and reporting capabilities to gain valuable insights from survey responses, supporting data-driven decision-making.
  4. Enjoy the simplicity and user-friendliness of Formester's interface while crafting intricate survey forms and accessing comprehensive data analytics.

Formester offers the versatility and advanced customization options of Jotform, allowing users to create a wide range of forms, including surveys, contact forms, payment forms, and more. With an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and powerful conditional logic and calculation fields Formester makes form-building a breeze for users with varying levels of technical expertise.

At the same time, Formester incorporates the user-friendly experience and robust data analysis capabilities of SurveyMonkey. It provides real-time tracking of survey responses, automatic results summaries, and various data export options, empowering users to gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions.

Additionally, Formester goes a step further by offering unique features such as seamless integration with essential apps, digital signature support, and an Information Recall feature that makes forms feel more dynamic and compelling.

What’s more? A vast collection of Templates for both Web Forms and Surveys, catering to diverse needs and preferences!

With Formester, businesses can enjoy the best of both worlds – the versatility and customization of Jotform and the user-friendly survey features of SurveyMonkey – all in one comprehensive platform.
Whether you need to create complex forms, conduct in-depth surveys, or collect payments online, Formester is the ultimate solution for streamlining your data collection and form management processes.

Unlock the full potential of your data collection and form-building with Formester. Experience a seamless blend of customization, simplicity, and advanced features – Sign-up on Formester for free, now!

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