ProProfs Survey Maker vs. Submittable

If you have many hours to spend on the phone or chat with customer service and want to save $100, ProProfs is your platform. For those with limited time to invest, it's worth spending a bit more to get quality service and functionality without a hassle.

Submittable is great for grant management, grantmaking, and scholarship awards. It's a very useful tool also when there are multiple reviewers and committees involved in the assessment of the application. The table feature is helpful, but to download the information in a usable report is a pain. Overall a very useful tool for funding.

Incentivized

• ProProfs is cheaper than its competitors.

• Form-logic: Allows application forms to adjust based on answers to crucial questions (if-then-else) so that all applications don't have to see extended questions that may not apply to them or their situation.
• Messaging Platform: This platform allows interactions with applicants or internal review teams to be associated with the specific submission, allowing for an easier, complete view of an application being considered and as an audit trail.
• Good Voting/Polling Management: It makes it easier to record the latest vote/feedback from assigned team members and allows customization of the vote/feedback review as a form. It also summarizes the votes for easy review in a submissions dashboard view.

Incentivized

• [I feel] Customer service closes tickets without resolving the issues first....and there are a lot of issues.
• I paid for the upgraded version, but couldn't get the upgraded functionality without spending days on the phone, chat, and remote desktop with customer service.
• We paid for 500 responses/month, but the survey closed before we reached that number. We asked for a refund so we could pay for another month of advertising, but they ignored the request, instead giving us more days to use the platform (not sure how this was supposed to help).
• Every time you view the Welcome Page, the changes to font and formatting revert back to default and you must re-do them every time.
• The reports aren't what you expect. They are very limited. I expected Q1- 75% answered Yes, 25% No. Instead the reports are listed across columns in an Excel spreadsheet with every respondent's answer in the rows below. The stats are a bit better, but I don't think you can share them with others.
• Very limited functionality in the free or 1st upgrade. You need to go to premium and get on the phone with customer service to get basic functions that appear in Survey Monkey. {I think] their advertising is misleading.

• We are some of the earliest users of employee volunteerism, so there have been some things to work out. However, because of that, we've gotten a lot of one-on-one support to help make minor tweaks to the system in a way that works for us.

Incentivized

We use this software annually to help with our grant processes. Without it, I'd be so lost! Our team relies on the data from our past years to sift applications and we try to prioritize those who have applied and been a finalist but perhaps didn't win in years prior

Incentivized

They shouldn't have opened for public use before they figured out their tech glitches, functionality, how to report, billing issues, and customer service. [I feel] it's poorly run and creates hassle, negative ROI, and frustration for organizations using the platform. Unfortunately, needing to call or email ProProfs every week to get the platform to work is not a good service model.

A submittable requires a great deal of thought to set up. It would be best if you really did an outline and flowcharting. Once you have a detailed plan and set up the system, you have to think of the process that you would manually do step-by-step to deal with the what-ifs; it’s beautiful. The ability to Clone events is invaluable. The onboarding can be complex, but the ease of use afterward is worth it.

Incentivized

We have thankfully never experienced an outage nor been affected by a technology issue on Submittable's side that has delayed our grant process. We have instead been able to distribute over $6M in donated dollars to AAPI small business owners because Submittable is trustworthy and available

Incentivized

We've had a quick and efficient submittable experience that has always been easy to use. When we need a report it downloads within seconds, even the larger reports are 30 seconds or less to download. Pages are quick to load and reports complete in a more than reasonable time frame

Incentivized

The customer service is not well trained on the issues I've needed to call about. There doesn't seem to be good interaction cross-department at ProProfs and every time I talk to someone new, I have to re-explain the situation or they blame the situation on another department. They don't get quick results for the client.

I think that they are good at answering our questions and solving our problems. We occasionally get reports from applicants about problems the Submittable team has not solved, but I do not know what the applicant has done to get the problem solved.

Incentivized

We have been using this for many years but my memory is that we had a
human walk us through how to use basic features. We also used the
resource library to learn about specific topics or issues as they came
up.

Incentivized

10/10 because we were able to meet virtually and still get all of our questions answered! Online was effective too because we could easily record the sessions and review them later. Since we had to onboard our reviewers virtually, it was actually convenient that this was the same method we learned how to use the entire program virtually too.

Incentivized

I would say, provide Submittable as much detailed information on your planned use of the platform and your desires with the platform as possible, and the implementation will be tailored to accommodate your organization with minimal lag time and issues/problems.

Incentivized

ProProfs feel like a garage start-up that didn't really figure out the functionality or customer service before they launched, while Survey Monkey is reputable and reliable. ProProfs has very limited reporting, but Survey Monkey is exactly what you expect with the basic package- analyzing percentages of each response. Survey Monkey is more customizable, even if you have to pay a bit more.

Submittable isn't in the same league as these other platforms. It's trying to get there but it's been a rocky road. Neither customer support nor the account people we've dealt with at Submittable seem particularly knowledgeable about how the product actually works for foundations and can't provide detailed recommendations for how to use the product more effectively. The decision to use Submittable was made before I came on board. We are moving to another platform next year, probably SmartSimple.

Incentivized

I wish we could choose our own number of applications we want for the year and have the price be changed because we are in-between buyable numbers and always have to add more applications at the end of the year

Incentivized

We have been easily able to grow. Not only are we able to process different applications, but Submittable makes it easy to add applications onto our plan. Additionally, their eligibility form before the application does a good job of screening applicants so we do not pay for extra applications.

Incentivized

Very professional

Incentivized

• Negative ROI based on extra money spent on upgrading, losing days with the survey not being upgraded on time, losing money on external advertising when the survey closed early, and losing many work hours reaching out to customer service.

• Time is money! Submittable has eliminated many tasks I used to do manually, thus freeing my time for other work.
• Decreased support calls and emails from applicants- Our applicants are able to successfully access and apply for our grants.
• No internal IT support needed to use this platform. That team is able to focus on their larger business projects and needs.

Incentivized