SurveyMonkey is one of the most well-known products on the market for collecting feedback from customers and employees. It’s an appealing option for small businesses because its most basic tools are easy and free to use — but the free plan does have limits. If you’re not getting exactly what you need, it might be a good idea to invest in a paid plan or look for alternatives that better meet your needs.
Here’s what you need to know about SurveyMonkey pricing plans to help you decide whether this tool is right for you.
The free option has limitations
Proponents of SurveyMonkey are quick to point out that users can stick with the free system if they don’t have the budget to invest in a paid service. While this is true, there are limits to what you can do.
For example, you can include only 10 questions per survey, and the maximum number of responses you can view tops out at 100. Plus, you only have 15 question types to choose from.
Some SurveyMonkey advocates point out that 10 questions should be more than enough — especially if you’re collecting surveys from impatient audiences, like those attending an event.
“You want your survey to be as seamless as possible to take, so keep it short,” Jillesa Gebhardt, MBA candidate at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, writes. “Focus on the questions that are absolutely critical (we recommend no more than 10 questions), and choose question types that are easy to answer.”
If you just want to get a quick pulse on how people in a target group feel, the free option should be enough. But if you need more advanced features, you’ll need to look into paid levels.
For example, Megan Marrs, founder and CEO of Marrsipan Media, points out that you can’t export your data with the free version. That’s not essential if you just want to get a few key data points or upload charts to a presentation, but it can be frustrating if you want to compare this data to other information sets or export it for your own manipulation.
There are multiple business plans to choose from
Once you decide to invest in survey software, the next step is finding the SurveyMonkey pricing plan that works for you.
The Team Advantage plan is $25 per user, per month (starting at three users). It offers more customization, question types, and question creation options. This is a good option if you have a small team that needs to use the software to share surveys with different teams and departments.
The next level up is Team Premier, which is $75 per user, per month (again, starting at three users). This opens up features like sentiment analysis and advanced survey logic tools. The Premier option is meant for medium-sized to large companies.
“If you are using SurveyMonkey to run a survey that you will use to make professional business decisions, we strongly recommend paying for the Premier Plan,” writes Jonathan Pirc, cofounder of market research company Lab42. “The Premier and Advantage Plans are the only plans that include skip logic, piping, filtering, randomization.”
The Premier plan also includes phone support in addition to email support. This can be useful if you’re new to the world of fielding surveys and think you might need a customer service professional to help you.
You can also reach out to SurveyMonkey to request enterprise-level access, which includes add-ons like features that help with HIPAA compliance. This requires special pricing to accommodate large teams and specific needs.
Pro Tip
Before you invest in paid survey software, identify a few key features that are important to your team. You might find that SurveyMonkey alternatives like Jotform offer more flexibility and features for a better price.
Finally, if you’re self-employed or operate as a contractor, you can review the SurveyMonkey individual plans. Pricing for these plans starts at $39 per month for the Advantage Annual plan. The Standard Monthly plan is $99 per month, and the Premier Annual plan is $119 per month.
You can also pay for survey fielding
The plans covered on the SurveyMonkey pricing page focus on surveys that you design internally and share with your employees or existing customer mailing lists. But if you want to tap into SurveyMonkey’s audience to get objective data from around the world, you have the option to add that service.
“SurveyMonkey’s cost is competitive if you want to build a survey and handle distribution on your own,” the team at Pollfish explains. “But if you want access to their panel, SurveyMonkey Audience, be prepared to pay a separate fee for each response in addition to the survey price or subscription cost.”
This option is ideal if you really want to get your finger on the pulse of your industry (like evaluating how business owners feel about COVID-19 lockdowns), but you don’t have access to these professionals to ask them. SurveyMonkey typically charges a small fee per response, which changes depending on how niche your audience is.
Get the most out of your paid plan
Before you decide to pay for SurveyMonkey, make sure you set clear goals for what you hope to get out of the data. How frequently will you use surveys? How will you improve your business operations or customer experience with this information?
Understanding the value that your surveys will provide can help you choose the best pricing options for your business. That way, you can save money while still getting the features you need.
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