Builder.ai (discontinued) vs. SnapSurveys

TLDR: 28 months into a 6 month project. They stopped developing it without a working MVP, fired all the developers, and do not respond to my requests that involve figuring out what’s happening and when I will be getting a refund.First, please feel free to reach out before removing this review. Builder.ai has taken down our bad reviews in the past saying they couldn’t verify them. I’ll be happy to point you in the direction of the people I’ve worked with including Jason.Second, when I say this is a fraud from the top down, I’m not exaggerating. Please take a look at the news articles that have come out within the last two years regarding their CEO, CFO, and official auditor.If you are still reading, that means you’re still considering it, so let me tell you about my experience.I started this process by meeting with the sales team at the Silicon Slopes Conference in late 2022. I told them about what I wanted to build and they said that would be very easy and doable. We spent the rest of 2022 meeting with developers who reconfirmed how simple this would be and that even with a relaxed timeframe, we could expect a product in about six months. January 2, 2023, I signed the contract.We had a number of problems from the very beginning, including them giving me the wrong documents to sign and mixing my product up with another. We kept meeting, moving forward, struggled constantly with getting the money flow correct. Weeks turned into months and eventually all of the deadlines were past due with no communication on when they would get updated. Near the end of 2023, we escalated and very clearly said that if they cannot develop this, it’s OK to just say as much and give us our money back. They repeated that they could, added additional developers to the team, and said they would be pushing forward with an MVP shortly.When they released the MVP, the flow of money still didn’t work. Whenever I would bring that up or that I wanted to do end to end testing, they would say that they will be able to do that when it’s ready for full release. Again, months passed of this and I stayed patient. I have to say my patience has been the biggest mistake of this entire process.In November 2024, 23 months in on a six month project, they marked it complete. It wasn’t. The money was still wrong, features I had previously approved had vanished, and when I asked why features I paid for weren’t on there, they said they had questions but decided not to ask them and just mark it complete instead. I was furious, but once again I was trying to make it work. I worked with my project manager, and we spent December creating an entire list of every acceptance criteria. I required photo or video evidence for each piece that it was complete or I wasn’t going to mark it done. I also told them they had until the end of March.As we moved through January and February 2025, they started slipping in comments about how they didn’t think we would make the deadline. I continued escalating, people tried to work with me on it, and I decided to once again, find my patience. It did me no good.On March 26, my project manager told me that they were no longer working on developing my project. They had fired everyone who would’ve been part of developing it and had no plans on what to do going forward. They were supposed to tell me the week before when it happened and he expected that I should get an email about it that week. When I tried reaching out to the legal team that same week about canceling any sort of ongoing contract and getting my money back, they told me they were going to refer me to another group. It is April 18, 2025 and still I have received no communication. My patience now means that I have signed myself up for a painful legal battle. I’m leaving this review to let others know that if they already have a contract, chances are no development work has happened for the last month and they need to demand answers. This is also here for people considering this company. Do not fall for it.

I think it is very important to go through their training videos and user guides. Devote the time to learning it correctly from the beginning. In the long run you will enjoy it much more than plowing right into it and then trying to find out if you did it right. Also, while you are not required to buy the annual maintenance contract, I think if you are going to use the program, don't skimp, buy the annual maintenance contract. The free technical support is necessary, especially when you are up against deadlines.

• The training helped me to customize surveys for the different departments that the office of IR served.
• Surveys were easy to create and gathering information was made easy because SnapsSurveys worked well with SPSS.
• Once surveys were created I could scan them and have the results to my boss in less than an hour depending on the size of the survey group.
• Snaps customer service reps were always willing to help.

Incentivized

Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info

• Though the user interface is easy to navigate, it would be nice to see is design updated to something more aesthetically pleasing.

The main reason we will renew is that it does the job, it supports our system, and we have budgeted for it so why change?

See previous review

I think as an organization there is always room to grow, however, this application has really helped us with our dilemma with offline, online, and paper surveys. We are able to make our surveys fun and engaging and the interface for the person creating the survey is user-friendly. Customer service is very helpful if you need additional support.

Incentivized

Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info

It is an in between option. The options we evaluated were Qualtrics and SurveyGizmo. It's cheaper than Qualtrics and easier to design surveys than SurveyGizmo. Nonetheless it's not the worst option out there like SurveyMonkey.

Incentivized

Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info

• Using a professional survey package enhances my reputation as a research professional.
• I have been able to use the software's functionality to exceed my clients expectations.