Google Forms vs. SurveyMonkey

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Forms
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Google Forms is an app for creating forms and surveys, and is part of Google Apps for Work. The product focuses on ease of use; the interface is similar to a document editor, with drop down lists of options and drag and drop question re-ordering. Users can embed images and video into surveys. Users can also program the question flow with custom logic. Google sends users basic summaries of the survey results automatically, or users can export the raw survey results data and analyze it via…N/A
SurveyMonkey
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
SurveyMonkey provides free, customizable surveys, and a suite of paid, back-end programs that include data analysis, sample selection, bias elimination, and data representation tools. SurveyMonkey also offers large-scale, enterprise options for companies interested in data analysis, brand management, and consumer focused marketing.
$27
Per User Per Month (billed annually)
Pricing
Google FormsSurveyMonkey
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Business Plan - Team Advantage
$27
Per User Per Month (billed annually)
Personal Plan - Advantage Annual
$34
Per User Per Month (billed annually)
Business Plan - Team Premier
$89
Per User Per Month (billed annually)
Personal Plan - Standard Monthly
$99
Per User Per Month (billed monthly)
Personal Plan - Premier Annual
$119
Per User Per Month (billed annually)
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google FormsSurveyMonkey
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google FormsSurveyMonkey
Considered Both Products
Google Forms
Chose Google Forms
Using Google Forms was a no-brainer as the organization has adopted the use of Google Suite of products using Drive for storage and Docs/Sheets/Slides as the business software in the company. SurveyMonkey was used for a while but had limited questions for free. Microsoft …
Chose Google Forms
Google Forms looks a bit more professional and streamlined than SurveyMonkey, and it has a better way of analyzing and organizing the data you get from your participants.
Chose Google Forms
If you have a long or very complicated form/survey to use, I would use SurveyMonkey. We have a paid SurveyMonkey account alongside Google Forms. However, from a user experience perspective, I prefer to use Google Forms any day! Survey monkey is clunky and slow. Whenever I use …
Chose Google Forms
Google Forms is free and easy to use. You only need a google account, which most people have. Using SurveyMonkey or any other survey software or app requires registration and a new interface. Google Forms makes it really easy and friendly to use.
It probably has lots of …
Chose Google Forms
Google Forms has been much easier to use for our team since we already use Google for other services. The integration between their products works well for what we needed. SurveyMonkey is what we used in the past. They were easy to set up and send out to our team, however, …
Chose Google Forms
Previously I have used SurveyMonkey, a paid survey program, for similar tasks that we can perform with Google Forms for free. For the level of use we had, Google Forms made more sense.
Chose Google Forms
SurveyMonkey has a lot more features to customize your form, but using Google Forms is just the easiest method because it's already connected to our Gmail accounts.
Chose Google Forms
If I was basing the design element on a Google Forms vs their nearest competitor, SurveyMonkey, Hands down, SurveyMonkey has them beat. If I want something quick to load, I don't care about the design Google Forms is the way to go. The forms themselves aren't being sent outside …
Chose Google Forms
Google Forms is like SurveyMonkey, but with a fraction of the features. It does feel like an underpowered SurveyMonkey, but it is much more affordable. The free version of Google Forms is fine for smaller internal surveys, but if you needed to do usability testing or utilize …
Chose Google Forms
Google Forms is much more simple and straightforward than Qualtrics or SurveyMonkey. Google Forms also integrates with Google Drive where data can be stored alongside other important and related documents and materials.
Chose Google Forms
SurveyMonkey is great but it costs money to get its full power while Google Forms can do a lot of the same but for free. When it comes to simply surveys/data intake, Google Forms is far easier to use and much cheaper.
Chose Google Forms
Google Forms is easy to use and affordable. The biggest benefit, however, is that our organization already uses other Google products heavily. Because of this Google Forms was our top choice. Some smaller departments in our organization still use other solutions, such as SurveyM…
Chose Google Forms
Google Forms is more basic than Typeform in terms of design style options and flexibility, but it has an easier-to-use interface. It is slightly less robust in terms of logic and crowd-sourced responses than SurveyMonkey. In general, it's a good option for generating a quick, …
Chose Google Forms
I use both SurveyMonkey and Google Forms. Google Forms are nice for quick and simple everyday information collecting. SurveyMonkey is used for a more robust detailed information collecting where I can dive into analytics/results in a more detailed manner.
Chose Google Forms
For strictly forms with data driven insights Google forms is the most efficient and hands down easiest choice to go with. It offers a ton of vast and robust features that helps with integrations and many more.
Chose Google Forms
Google Forms is a much more basic tool for collecting feedback. It's better for small events or very basic responses. Survey Monkey is better for getting in-depth insights into data, including insights trends and a better presentation of the data in exportable graphs. But …
Chose Google Forms
I selected Google Forms because of its efficient and quick customer service. I had used other platforms earlier and had trouble connecting with their team for issues.
Chose Google Forms
Google Forms is great because it is free and easy to use. Formative has great features because it is able to give live feedback of responses and it has multiple question types but it is also expensive to subscribe to. Google Forms is very powerful because, in addition to the …
Chose Google Forms
Google Forms definitely isn't as robust as some of the more professional tools out there. However, in my experience, I usually don't need a robust survey tool. I just need to quickly set up a survey or screener. In addition, I love how simple it is to add collaborators to …
Chose Google Forms
I have used Survey Monkey in the past to conduct surveys. Google Forms has so much more capabilities than Survey Monkey and is much easier to use. Survey Monkey served mainly as a platform to conduct surveys, but Google Forms offers more than just surveys. It's an incredible …
Chose Google Forms
I like Google Forms more than Survey Monkey. Especially for a company that uses G-Suite, it's easy to have everything under the Google umbrella under one platform. I don't think there's another platform that is as simple and to the point as Google Forms. Again, it's not …
Chose Google Forms
For being free, Google Forms does a lot of the same things.
Chose Google Forms

Survey Monkey works well for basic polls and standard surveys, but it does not have a quiz/assessment format and doesn't work well for things like activity/event registration and sign up. Survey Monkey also has a limit on how many responses you can gather with a free account …

Chose Google Forms
Google Forms is simple to use, free, and a powerful tool! It is my go-to!
SurveyMonkey
Chose SurveyMonkey
I especially like the advantage of Google Forms with collaborations on the survey. You can add as many questions as you want. SurveyMonkey's help features are although easier to use. SurveyMonkey itself is also easier to use. Google Forms is a little more cumbersome to work …
Chose SurveyMonkey
I have only really used SurveyMonkey (I used Google Forms for a day and I did not know how to use it correctly), so I cannot give an opinion about another platform, except that the process with Google Forms was a bit tangled so that's why I abandoned it. But the truth is that …
Chose SurveyMonkey
I once tried the survey feature of SharePoint (2010). It was far too complicated to build the survey, I didn't even get to the distribution options. So, even though we pay for SP, we still pay also for SurveyMonkey too. I know Google Forms is an easy to use and cheap (not to …
Chose SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is much easier to use, with more branding templates, form templates, and easy tracking of results, as well as results exports. In actual use, SurveyMonkey has had a heavy preference by our team, so much so that Google Forms are no longer used at all.
Chose SurveyMonkey
We use Google Forms for giving shout outs at the beginning of each work week- I can't do a true comparison of Google Forms and SurveyMonkey because we use the products for two different purposes, but in general, I feel that SurveyMonkey is a better platform and also has more …
Chose SurveyMonkey
We actually use Google Forms more often than SurveyMonkey because it's free; however, for our bigger annual projects we usually switch to SurveyMonkey. We select SurveyMonkey when we're not needing to collaborate as much and when we need to be able to ask our questions in more …
Chose SurveyMonkey
While Google Forms is free, the ability to design and customize forms/surveys would prove to be beneficial to the end user. Google Forms is very limited to multiple editors while SurveyMonkey provides viewing, editing, and commenting to editors. Additionally, the access to 200 …
Chose SurveyMonkey
In my opinion, SurveyMonkey is the gold standard. Google Forms and Google Surveys, while being able to connect easily to other Google tools, are not as adept or intuitive as SurveyMonkey is. Google is trying to be all things for all people, and while it does a lot of those …
Chose SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey has more analytic data options than what I found using Google Forms. Otherwise, if you use the Google Suite of products you may find it easier to just use Google Forms. When it comes to our website forms we have switched to JotForm as it has a better display on our …
Chose SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is the least used between Wufoo, Titan Forms, and Google Forms. It is a solid program, however, for our uses the other programs provide additional features such as syncing to our CRM database, accepting Stripe payments, or automatically syncing with my already …
Chose SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey has the most options in terms of available question formats, analysis and participant tracking, and customizability. Google Forms is a more basic interface with fewer options for tracking and analysis, and Typeform is better in terms of design and branding options …
Chose SurveyMonkey
The tool is free, but we selected SurveyMonkey because we were able to easily pull the data and do the analysis.
Chose SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is easier to customize and provides much more in depth analytics. SurveyMonkey also provides better templates providing us with a better presentation to our employees. SurveyMonkey also comes with a more trustworthy platform that ensures confidentiality, which is …
Chose SurveyMonkey
Honestly, SurveyMonkey was on our radar before most of these other options, and as it has met basically all our needs, we've felt no need to switch. For the record, Typeform's interfaces for their surveys are much more beautiful and enjoyable to use.
Chose SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey stands with the best in terms of its ease of use, features, and strength in getting the job done.
Chose SurveyMonkey
I like both tools. I think they do their job well, but Survey Monkeys has much better templates and they make you look like a professional. The facility that offers you to send surveys by mail, is what I liked the most. It is a program that is easy to use and you do not need to …
Chose SurveyMonkey
Opportunity to gather much more specific information with different ways to ask questions and break them down.
Top Pros
Top Cons
TrustRadius Insights
Google FormsSurveyMonkey
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

Google Forms and SurveyMonkey are both entry level survey tools. They offer a mix of free functionality and paid capabilities, and are used across company sizes.

Google Forms is applicable to a broader range of uses, while SurveyMonkey is more specialized. Google Forms can be used for building registration forms, quizzes, and assessments in addition to surveys. In contrast, SurveyMonkey is tailored to more in-depth survey design, distribution, and analysis. 

Features

Google Forms and SurveyMonkey both have strong features tailored for their use cases. 

Google Forms’s free version is very accessible for casual or entry-level users at small volumes. For instance, it is well suited for educational or student-driven academic uses. For businesses, Forms is bundled with the rest of the G Suite. This packaging makes Forms an easy default tool for organizations that have adopted the Google environment. It also includes prebuilt templates for common use cases, which makes the tool more accessible for casual users. 

In contrast, SurveyMonkey stands out for its more in-depth survey capabilities. In particular, users point to its excellent branding and personalization options. These features enable a more professional survey experience. It also offers a wide range of prebuilt question options and the ability to deeply customize questions and logic flows. The greater level of customization allows more intensive users to tailor each survey to their exact needs.

Limitations

While each product have certain strengths, Google Forms and SurveyMonkey also have some tradeoffs.

Google Form’s focus on accessibility across user backgrounds places a ceiling on the depth of functionality and complexity. In particular, reviewers have been limited by Google Forms’s question branching simplicity, and basic dynamic capabilities. The user interface and graphic design is also relatively basic and simplistic. The tool lacks the visual and branding customization found in more complex tools. 

In contrast, SurveyMonkey provides a more intensive survey administration experience, which can be more difficult for less experienced users. For instance, the survey design process is a much more complex process, with less in-process guidance for unfamiliar designers. The UI is also not as user-friendly or intuitive as some other survey tools. 

Pricing

Google Forms is free to use for personal use. It is also included in all Google Suite packages, which are priced at $6/user/month for the Basic plan, $12/user/month for additional cross-suite functionality and security features, and $25/user/month for the Enterpise package that includes additional management and security features. 

SurveyMonkey has two pricing systems, one for personal plans and one for business plans. Personal plans are either $32/month or $99/month for additional functions like A/B testing, custom variables, and payments. The Business Plans system has three tiers. The Team Advantage, at $25/user/month, includes all of the Personal Plans features for 3+ users. Team Premier, at $79.95/user/month, includes additional analysis, white labelling, and logic functions. The Enterprise tier, which is priced by quote from the vendor, includes more customization, security features, and management capabilities. 

Features
Google FormsSurveyMonkey
Survey Format & Appearance
Comparison of Survey Format & Appearance features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
7.6
106 Ratings
3% below category average
SurveyMonkey
7.9
72 Ratings
1% above category average
Survey templates7.799 Ratings8.971 Ratings
Themes7.599 Ratings5.764 Ratings
Custom logo/branding7.785 Ratings9.063 Ratings
Survey Content
Comparison of Survey Content features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
8.1
104 Ratings
6% below category average
SurveyMonkey
8.7
74 Ratings
1% above category average
Changes to live survey8.099 Ratings8.158 Ratings
Question design help7.886 Ratings8.968 Ratings
Multiple question types8.5103 Ratings9.074 Ratings
Survey Logic
Comparison of Survey Logic features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
7.8
94 Ratings
7% below category average
SurveyMonkey
6.9
68 Ratings
19% below category average
Survey logic flexibility7.894 Ratings6.968 Ratings
Survey Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Survey Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
8.0
105 Ratings
3% below category average
SurveyMonkey
9.1
74 Ratings
10% above category average
Response tracking8.2103 Ratings9.373 Ratings
Data export8.599 Ratings9.370 Ratings
Standard reports8.198 Ratings9.273 Ratings
Custom reports7.777 Ratings9.360 Ratings
Analytics7.781 Ratings8.661 Ratings
Survey Administration & Security
Comparison of Survey Administration & Security features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
8.2
99 Ratings
2% below category average
SurveyMonkey
9.3
63 Ratings
10% above category average
Access controls8.397 Ratings9.263 Ratings
Compliance8.176 Ratings9.354 Ratings
Survey Distribution
Comparison of Survey Distribution features of Product A and Product B
Google Forms
7.6
73 Ratings
6% below category average
SurveyMonkey
9.2
44 Ratings
13% above category average
Vendor-offered crowdsourcing7.534 Ratings9.129 Ratings
Respondent restrictions7.771 Ratings9.442 Ratings
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User Ratings
Google FormsSurveyMonkey
Likelihood to Recommend
7.8
(109 ratings)
8.1
(103 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(3 ratings)
9.0
(26 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(49 ratings)
8.6
(38 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(1 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(48 ratings)
7.5
(35 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
3.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google FormsSurveyMonkey
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Google Forms works really well when you need to quickly gather information and store it in a standardized format. It also works well if your organization is already using other Google products.
If you don't use other Google products, another service may be a better fit for you. Additionally, if you need your forms to be highly customized for marketing purposes, for example, you might have an easier time with other tools.
That being said, Google Forms is well supported and is highly flexible and would likely work well for many companies.
Read full review
Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
SurveyMonkey is best suited for you if you find that you are creating multiple survey regularly. It offers a variety of questions and options and is a well-rounded surveying tool. It is not best if you do not create surveys often, typically use the same survey, or looking for software to create quizzes or assessments. Also, if you are easily overwhelmed by too many options, this may not be the tool for you.
Read full review
Pros
Google
  • Live results: When a user completes the form the results are added instantly.
  • Easy to create: Google Forms has a simple interface that allows for a wide range of question types. Google will even try to guess the question type based on the question (but this can be overridden).
  • Answers export to Google Sheets: It is easy to have each response to your form add a row to a Google Sheet, allowing for further analysis or processing.
  • Ability to automatically collect email addresses within a domain: If you have a form that has been shared with users in your domain, you can set it to automatically collect the users' email addresses without them needing to type it in. Makes checking whether all students have completed the form easy.
Read full review
Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
  • SurveyMonkey templates have made it very user-friendly. It is very efficient to create a survey.
  • I love that they have multiple ways to answer questions. For example, short answer, paragraph, and radio buttons to name a few.
  • The surveys are very easy to share. You can import a large list of email addresses or free type just a few.
  • I like that you can test the survey before sending it out live. I send it to myself to verify how it will look and feel to the end-user.
Read full review
Cons
Google
  • Sometimes finding the output -- a Google Sheet with all responses-- is a little difficult. It's also sometimes confusing to figure out how to get back into the Google Form Survey itself.
  • As always, sharing among an institutional Google account and your personal Google account can be frustrating. You have to make a copy and can't share across the two different accounts very easily.
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Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
  • Recognizing that there are more limitations when it comes to a mobile interface vs. a desktop interface, I would love to see more profound levels of programming functionality on the mobile side.
  • It would be helpful to have better access to greater levels of third-party results analysis, particularly as it relates to open-ended questions and answers.
  • As an admin, it would be very cool if SurveyMonkey were able to use AI to match the survey we're building (questions, topics, target respondents, etc.) to existing results that might negate the need to ask certain questions in our surveys.
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
I will definitely renew my use of Google Forms because I really like the ease of use and the number of tools that Google forms provide. I also love that I can administer a test in real-time and get results in a timely manner
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Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
Compared to other competitors in the market (including a few I've used internally), if you're looking for a survey application, this one does the job and it's quite inexpensive too. Considering the fact that it comes with a handy mobile application too (on iOS and Android), you also get flexibility thrown in the deal too.
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Usability
Google
Google Forms is a very intuitive and easy to use tool, it is not necessary to have a complex knowledge to create advanced forms, it is enough with the functions and aids that the tool offers for the creation of these, even children and students can do it, also the way to export the data is really simple, simply an incredible tool.
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Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
It does everything a survey software should do, and it does it very well. I can't speak for how well it would work for a business that was surveying tens of thousands of people - but for a small business of 50 employees with a couple of thousand clients, it does everything it needs to do.
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Reliability and Availability
Google
In the years I've used GoogleForms I've never ran into any issues with the reliability or availability. Google is a gigantic company with essentially limitless resources which makes it very easy to trust that I will continue to be able to enjoy the same reliability I've come to know and expect from GoogleForms
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Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
No answers on this topic
Performance
Google
One of the things that comes as a benefit of the lack to create complex logic branching and truly custom design is that there isn't lot of room to bog down the software. GoogleForms has always loaded just as fast as my internet service and device would allow it. I'm not sure about front end integrations or integrations into the form itself, as I've never explored it, but on the backend, I've never had any issues with integrations channeling from GoogleForms from the GoogleForms's end of things.
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Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
still to many limitations for more complex surveys --skips, filtered questions, etc.
Read full review
Support Rating
Google
Google has a support team but it isn't the most helpful with Forms. I find most of my answers by searching online and watching tutorial videos. I would recommend utilizing online resources before contacting their live support team for help. Just make sure that they are recent videos or directions. Google is constantly updating their interfaces so it is easy for things to get out of date
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Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
I've never had to contact the SurveyMonkey customer care team directly, but they have a pretty good library of help articles on their website. Everything from designing and executing your survey to account and billing questions. I never had a need for further support from Survey Monkey.
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Implementation Rating
Google
No answers on this topic
Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
Implementation not required.
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Alternatives Considered
Google
We have also used FormAssembly, which is far more advanced with security, analytics, and functionality, but is also more expensive and takes a greater resource investment to train others to use. While FormAssembly can provide a lot more features, and is definitely the better choice for more complex surveys, forms, and applications, Google Forms is a very approachable and easy to use platform. We would recommend Google Forms for smaller businesses with simpler processes, and everyday use for any organization.
Read full review
Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
SurveyMonkey is easier to customize and provides much more in depth analytics. SurveyMonkey also provides better templates providing us with a better presentation to our employees. SurveyMonkey also comes with a more trustworthy platform that ensures confidentiality, which is incredibly important to our employees and means we're getting more reliable results from the surveys.
Read full review
Scalability
Google
GoogleForms lacks the ability for complex logic branching and the ability to truly design it in a custom manner. It's pretty obvious when you land on a GoogleForm that it is in fact a GoogleForm. This rating solely reflects the lack of flexibility which in turn makes it something that wouldn't usually be scaled. That being said, if needing to scale a simple solution, GoogleForms would be up for the job.
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Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Google
  • It's difficult to track ROI since Google Forms is used less formally
  • [The] positive impact is the actionable results we receive from surveys
  • [The] impact is highly dependent on how well the questions are asked, and how seriously the survey is taken by employees
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Momentive (SurveyMonkey, Inc)
  • We use this to survey vendors after a trade show and their comments to me have helped improve other shows. I don't have hard numbers but I know our vendors, some of whom are associate members, are very happy to give this feedback because it helps their ROI too.
  • I know it has saved us employee time as we aren't sifting through email responses and entering them into a spreadsheet. SurveyMonkey does that for us.
  • We often need to do quick polls to our members to make decisions. This makes them feel like they are getting value for their membership dues that they pay our association.
Read full review
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