How we make this list: we compare pricing pages, product documentation and public user reviews. Ratings come from G2, Capterra or Trustpilot, with the date we checked them.
Key takeaways
- Tally has the most generous free plan in form building: unlimited forms, unlimited responses, logic, payments and uploads included free.
- Google Forms is the closest like for like swap: free, unlimited in practice, and unbeatable if responses belong in a spreadsheet.
- Jotform is the feature ceiling: payments, signatures and approvals from a free start of 5 forms and 100 responses a month.
- Typeform is the design pick with the weakest free tier in this list: 10 responses a month is a demo, not a plan.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|
 Tally | Most generous free plan | Free | Yes |
 Google Forms | Simple forms inside Google accounts | Free | Yes |
 Jotform | Payments, signatures and templates | $39 per month | Yes |
 Typeform | Conversational, design led forms | $39 per month | Yes |
 Fillout | Airtable and Notion workflows | $19 per month | Yes |
 Cognito Forms | Calculations and order forms | $24 per month | Yes |
 SurveyMonkey | Surveys with analysis built in | See website | Yes |
 Zoho Forms | Zoho suite users on a budget | See website | Yes |
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#1Tally
Best for: Most generous free plan4.9/5 on
G2 (156 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit tally.so
Starting priceFree
Free planYes
Tally is the answer when the question is Microsoft Forms' caps. No response ceiling, no form count ceiling, and the features Microsoft withholds, logic, uploads, payments, are in the free product. For most small teams this ends the search: build the form, share the link, read the responses.
Paid Tally is about presentation, not permission: removing branding, custom domains, partial submissions and workspaces at $29 a month. That is a healthy model for buyers, since you upgrade when you want to look bigger, not when your form succeeds and responses 201 arrive.
What we like- Unlimited forms and unlimited responses on the free plan, the only builder here offering both, conditional logic, calculations, file uploads (10MB per file) and Stripe payments all included free, document style editor: type the form like a note, no drag and drop wrestling, Pro at $29 a month is mainly for branding removal, custom domains and team features
Watch out for- Design control is good but not Typeform level polish, advanced reporting and analysis are lighter than SurveyMonkey's, data retention features sit on the highest tier ($89 a month per its own comparison page), a smaller company than Google or Jotform, which some IT departments weigh
Starting priceFree
Free planYes
Google Forms is the like for like swap: same simplicity as Microsoft Forms, without the 200 response cap, and with Sheets as a genuinely powerful back end. If your organisation lives in Google Workspace, it is already paid for and already understood.
Its ceiling is the same shape as Microsoft's, hit later: the moment a form must calculate, charge, approve or impress, you are shopping again. Until that moment, free and unlimited beats clever, which is why Google Forms remains the default for internal surveys and signups everywhere.
What we like- Completely free with no practical response limits for normal use
- Google documented very high ceilings in September 2026, responses land directly in Google Sheets, ready for sorting, charts and sharing, quiz mode with automatic grading is the best free option for teachers and trainers, everyone already knows how to fill one in, so completion rates stay high
Watch out for- Design is dated and branding control is minimal, no payments without third party add ons, logic is limited to section branching, file uploads require respondents to sign in to Google, which blocks anonymous uploads, stops at collection: approvals, notifications workflows and analysis need other tools
#3Jotform
Best for: Payments, signatures and templates4.7/5 on
G2 (5,415 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit jotform.com
Starting price$39 per month
Free planYes
Jotform is where forms stop being questionnaires and start being operations: order forms that charge cards, intake forms that route for approval, contracts that get signed. If a Microsoft Form ever needed to do something after the submission landed, Jotform is the established answer.
Start free and count your meters honestly for a month. Jotform's pricing rewards knowing your volume; guessing wrong in either direction wastes money. The $39 Bronze tier is the real entry point for a business, and most stay there.
What we like- The deepest feature set here: 40 plus payment gateways, e signatures, approval workflows and a template library in the thousands, free plan includes 5 forms, 100 responses a month and 10 payment submissions, drag and drop builder plus tables and apps turn forms into small business systems, HIPAA capable tiers serve healthcare intake, a Microsoft Forms blind spot
Watch out for- Everything is metered separately (forms, submissions, storage, payments, signed documents), so bills need reading, free storage is just 100MB, the interface carries the weight of its features
- Simple forms take longer to build than in Tally, paid starts at $39 a month (some regions and annual deals show $34)
#4Typeform
Best for: Conversational, design led forms4.5/5 on
G2 (1,014 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit typeform.com
Starting price$39 per month
Free planYes
Typeform sells an experience: forms people enjoy finishing. For brand surveys, onboarding and lead qualification where completion rate is money, that experience earns its price, and its design language still leads the field.
But be clear eyed about the free tier: ten responses a month is a product demo. Budget for the $39 Basic plan from day one, and price your expected response volume before a campaign, because Typeform's tiers count responses the way airlines count bags.
What we like- One question at a time presentation lifts completion rates on long forms and surveys, the most polished design system in form building, with strong media and layout control, logic and calculations included, and a deep integration library, brand led teams standardise on it for customer facing research and lead capture
Watch out for- Free plan allows 10 responses a month across the whole account, the tightest cap in this category, file uploads and payments require paid plans, removing branding starts at $79 a month per comparison tables, per response economics punish success: popular forms get expensive fast
#5Fillout
Best for: Airtable and Notion workflows4.6/5 on
G2 (30 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit fillout.com
Starting price$19 per month
Free planYes
Fillout is the workflow pick: the form is the front door to a database, and submissions should land structured, matched and ready to use. Teams running their operations in Airtable or Notion feel the difference immediately, because the integration is the product, not an afterthought.
At $19 a month for Starter it is also one of the cheaper upgrades here. If your stack is spreadsheets and databases rather than an office suite, Fillout maps to how you already work better than either tech giant's form tool.
What we like- Free plan is strong: unlimited forms, 1,000 responses a month, logic and Stripe payments included, built to feed Airtable, Notion and Google Sheets, including updating existing records, not just appending, modern, fast builder with good design defaults, multi page forms and scheduling and identity checks on higher tiers
Watch out for- A younger company than the giants here
- Some enterprise buyers will pause, free uploads are limited to 20MB per file, and the best database features assume you run Airtable or Notion, advanced analytics are thinner than SurveyMonkey's, branding removal waits for the $49 tier in some listings
#6Cognito Forms
Best for: Calculations and order forms4.6/5 on
G2 (163 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit cognitoforms.com
Starting price$24 per month
Free planYes
Cognito Forms wins forms that are secretly spreadsheets: registrations with priced options, orders with quantities and discounts, applications with scored sections. Its calculation engine is the reason it survives beside bigger names, and the free tier is honest for testing real forms.
Pick it when the maths inside the form is the hard part. Pick Tally or Fillout when volume and integrations are the hard part. Cognito's plainness is a fair trade for getting totals right, which is what its users are actually buying.
What we like- Calculation strength is the headline: repeating sections, totals and pricing logic that rivals here treat as premium, free plan includes unlimited forms and 100 responses a month, with payments available, entry paid tier at $24 a month undercuts Jotform and Typeform, data handling and compliance features suit forms carrying sensitive information
Watch out for- Design and themes trail Typeform and Tally in polish, template library is smaller and more functional than inspiring, the builder's power shows as complexity for first time users, brand recognition is low, which occasionally matters when respondents judge a form's trustworthiness
#7SurveyMonkey
Best for: Surveys with analysis built in4.4/5 on
G2 (23,901 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit surveymonkey.com
Starting priceSee website
Free planYes
SurveyMonkey answers a different question from the others. Microsoft Forms users who leave for research quality, benchmarked results, analysed themes, a respondent panel, land here. Nothing else on this list tells you whether your 72 percent satisfaction score is good; SurveyMonkey's benchmarks try to.
That specialism prices accordingly and hides the number behind plan packaging, hence See website. Buy it for a research programme, not for a contact form, and it will feel worth it. Buy it for signups and you have rented a laboratory to make tea.
What we like- The survey specialist: question banks, benchmarks against other organisations, and analysis that goes past raw counts, audience panel access lets you survey people you cannot reach yourself, a free plan exists for trying the builder, enterprise grade compliance and sharing controls on team plans
Watch out for- The free tier is heavily restricted, with response viewing limits that make it a trial in practice, pricing is packaged per user and feature, so no single honest starting figure exists, it is a survey tool first: payments, approvals and operational forms are outside its centre, per seat team pricing climbs quickly
#8Zoho Forms
Best for: Zoho suite users on a budget4.4/5 on
G2 (128 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit zoho.com
Starting priceSee website
Free planYes
Zoho Forms is the ecosystem play. Alone, it is a competent builder with a fair free tier. Inside a business already running Zoho CRM or Books, it removes integration work entirely, and its forms load fast, a small thing respondents notice and owners should.
Check your regional pricing page rather than any roundup, including this one: Zoho prices by market, and the figure you will actually pay is the one on your country's page at checkout.
What we like- Free plan covers 3 forms and 500 responses a month, with 10 payment submissions, inside Zoho's wider suite it connects to a CRM, books and campaigns tools under one login and one bill, forms are lightweight and fast on mobile
- One phone test found Zoho's form the lightest of twelve builders, pricing in many markets undercuts the US centred rivals
Watch out for- Best value only materialises inside the Zoho ecosystem, standalone it is a mid field builder, prices vary by country, so no single starting price can be printed honestly, design and template depth trail Jotform, fewer third party integrations outside Zoho's own orbit
How we chose
We compared the builders a Microsoft Forms user would realistically move to, using October 2026 verifications of each vendor's free limits and prices. The ranking weighs the free tier first (Tally and Google Forms lead on it), then the job specialisms: operations (Jotform), design (Typeform), databases (Fillout), calculations (Cognito), research (SurveyMonkey) and ecosystem value (Zoho). Where sources conflicted on price, or pricing is regional or packaged, the entry says See website instead of printing a doubtful figure. Microsoft Forms is excluded as the article's target. We did not claim hands-on testing.
Migration is mostly painless because forms are simple. The traps are elsewhere. Export historical responses from Microsoft Forms to Excel before switching, since the new tool starts empty. Rebuild logic by hand: branching does not transfer between any two builders on this list. And change the link everywhere it lives, email signatures, intranet pages, QR codes on paper forms, because the old Microsoft link keeps collecting responses nobody reads.
Run old and new in parallel for one cycle if the form matters, a payroll or compliance form, say. The cost is an hour of reconciliation; the cost of a lost month of responses is higher. For everything else, a clean switch on a quiet day is fine.
Frequently asked questions
Which alternative has the best free plan?
Tally, and it is not close: unlimited forms and responses with logic, uploads and payments included. Google Forms matches the unlimited part for simple collection. Every other free tier here is a ration: Jotform 100 responses a month, Fillout 1,000, Typeform 10.
Can I collect payments, which Microsoft Forms cannot do?
Yes. Tally and Fillout include Stripe payments on free plans, Jotform allows 10 payment submissions a month free across 40 plus gateways, and Cognito supports payments with calculations for priced options. Google Forms needs a third party add on. Check each gateway's own transaction fees on top.
What happens to my existing Microsoft Forms responses?
They stay in Microsoft Forms and your Microsoft account; nothing migrates automatically. Export them to Excel before you switch tools, rebuild the form in the new builder, and update every place the old link appears. Responses submitted to the old link after the switch are the classic loss.
Which is best for quizzes and training?
Google Forms for free automatic grading at any scale. Microsoft Forms itself was decent here, so only move if response caps or upload limits bite. For scored applications and assessments with calculations, Cognito Forms is the stronger specialist.
Do these tools work for HIPAA or sensitive data?
Some do on specific tiers: Jotform offers HIPAA capable plans, and Cognito emphasises data handling controls. Microsoft Forms inside a business Microsoft 365 tenant has its own compliance story. Never put health or similarly regulated data into a free consumer tier of any tool here without checking its current compliance terms.
Sources we checked (0)
Is your product missing or out of date?
We review this list regularly. Vendors can request a listing, send updated pricing or ask about featured placement.
Shihab Mia · Founder, Rankite
Shihab has 5+ years in B2B and SaaS SEO. He writes Rankite's software buying guides from pricing pages, documentation and public user reviews. More about Shihab.