Surveys
Free survey makers for businesses: where the free plans stop
Looking for a free survey maker for your business? We compare the free plans of 10 survey tools: responses, questions, export, privacy and the first paid plan.
Almost every survey tool has a free plan, but the limits vary widely: from 10 responses a month to unlimited. We line up ten tools and show where free stops for a customer or employee survey, and where the responses are stored.
Free survey makers: the short answer
You can make a free survey with almost any survey tool, but the free plans vary widely. On 15 October 2026 we went through the pricing and help pages of ten survey tools from our comparison. This article is written for businesses in the Netherlands and Belgium that want to survey customers or employees, not for a school assignment.
Tally lets you collect unlimited forms and responses, within fair use. Microsoft Forms is free with a personal Microsoft account, with a limit of 200 responses per form. The other free plans stop somewhere between 10 responses a month and 350 responses per survey, or limit the number of questions. The first paid plan costs roughly €5 to €45 per month. All amounts exclude VAT unless we say otherwise.
What the free plans allow
We only list limits and prices that the supplier publishes itself. Note the difference between responses per month, per survey and in total: it decides whether a free plan suits an ongoing customer survey or only a single study.
| Tool | Free plan | First paid plan | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tally | Unlimited forms and responses within the fair use rules, with logic and file uploads of up to 10 MB per file; forms show the Tally logo | Pro: €25 per month, or €20 per month billed yearly, with unlimited team members | pricing page |
| Microsoft Forms | With a personal Microsoft account: 200 forms and 200 responses per form | Microsoft 365 Business Basic without Teams: €5,60 per user per month, or €4,67 on a yearly subscription; 50.000 responses per form | limits, pricing page |
| Google Forms | With an ordinary Google account you create forms at forms.google.com; Google states no price and no limit for this | Google Workspace Business Starter: €6,80 per user per month with a one-year contract, €8,10 with monthly cancellation | pricing page |
| Typeform | 10 responses per month across all your forms together, with logic and export | Basic: €25 per month billed yearly, 1 user and 100 responses per month | free plan, pricing page |
| SurveyMonkey | 1 user, 10 questions per survey and a limited number of responses per survey; no export | Standaard: €39 per month, 1.000 responses per month; Advantage: €432 per year (€36 per month) | pricing page |
| Jotform | 5 forms, 100 submissions per month and 500 stored submissions; with the Jotform logo | Bronze: €39 per month, or €34 per month billed yearly; 1.000 submissions per month | pricing page |
| Zoho Survey | 3 active surveys, 10 questions and 100 responses per survey; export as PDF only | Basic: €7,42 per month, billed yearly only; 12.000 responses per year | pricing page |
| Survio | Unlimited surveys and questions, 100 responses per month, 1 user | Mini: €16 per month, or €13 per month billed yearly; 1.000 responses per month | pricing page |
| Enquêtes Maken | One survey that runs for a month, with unlimited questions and up to 350 responses | Personal: €35 per survey per month, 5.000 responses per month | pricing page |
| Onderzoekdoen.nl Enquêtetool | Free licence for up to 10 respondents | €545 per year for 1 user | pricing page |
Zoho and Survio state that their prices exclude VAT, as does Onderzoekdoen.nl. Tally, Typeform, SurveyMonkey, Jotform and Enquêtes Maken do not say; for business software, assume prices exclude VAT, but check before you budget. Typeform says on its help pages that it experiments with prices. We saw different amounts for Basic with monthly billing, so check which price you get. SurveyMonkey shows the exact number of free responses only after you sign up.
Enquêtes Maken (from the Swiss company enuvo) and the Enquêtetool from Onderzoekdoen.nl are aimed at Dutch-speaking users. The other eight tools are international and can also be used in English, German and French.
Where free stops for a business
A free plan is enough as long as your survey stays small and nobody else needs to work on it. For business use, you usually run into one of these five limits.
- Ongoing customer satisfaction or NPS: if you send a short questionnaire after every order or project, the responses per month count. Ten responses a month at Typeform are soon used up; Survio and Jotform give you a hundred a month. NPS (Net Promoter Score) is the question of how likely a customer is to recommend you, on a scale of 0 to 10.
- Employee survey: a one-off survey among 60 employees fits within 100 responses per survey at Zoho. But ten questions per survey, as in the free plans of Zoho and SurveyMonkey, is often too few for a satisfaction survey.
- Branding: free forms usually show the supplier's logo. At Tally it disappears with Pro; at Typeform only with Plus, the plan above Basic.
- Export and analysis: if you want to edit the responses in Excel or compare them with your customer data, check the export. SurveyMonkey has no export on the free plan and Zoho only a PDF.
- Collaboration: most free plans have one user. With Tally Pro you can invite unlimited colleagues; with Microsoft Forms and Google Forms you work together within your business account.
Privacy: where are the responses stored?
If you ask for names, email addresses or employees' opinions, you are processing personal data and the GDPR applies (the Dutch call it the AVG). The supplier of the survey tool processes that data on your behalf. For this you sign a data processing agreement with the supplier (in Dutch, a verwerkersovereenkomst). In the Netherlands, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, the Dutch data protection authority, supervises this.
Where the responses are stored differs per tool and sometimes per plan:
- Tally says the product is made and hosted in the EU and that all form data is stored in Europe.
- Microsoft Forms stores data of European business tenants that started using Forms after May 2017 in Europe, according to Microsoft's administrator documentation.
- Typeform offers the choice between a data centre in the US or the EU only on the Enterprise plan.
- SurveyMonkey has a data centre in Ireland, but according to its help centre only for Enterprise customers; other accounts are usually stored in the US.
- Jotform has European servers in Germany. Check when you sign up whether your account will be stored there.
- Onderzoekdoen.nl says the data is stored in the Netherlands.
Do not use an employee's personal account for a business survey. At Google and Microsoft, a personal account falls under consumer terms; the data processing arrangements that businesses need come with a business subscription. Also, do not ask for more than you need. If you ask about department and age in a team of five people, an anonymous survey is rarely still truly anonymous.
Which survey tool suits which survey?
- You already use Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace: start with Microsoft Forms or Google Forms. They are included in your subscription, the responses stay in your own environment and colleagues can see them too.
- Lots of responses without paying: Tally, as long as you accept the Tally logo on your form.
- A customer survey that looks polished: Typeform shows one question per screen, but expect to need a paid plan and check which plan removes the logo.
- Classic survey research with reports: SurveyMonkey, Zoho Survey or Survio. Compare the number of responses per month or per year with the response you expect.
- Dutch-language support and storage in the Netherlands: the Enquêtetool from Onderzoekdoen.nl.
If you want to collect reviews that appear on Google or your own website, a survey is not the right tool. Look at review software instead.
How to test a survey tool in half an hour
- Recreate your real questionnaire, with all the questions and branching you need. That shows you straight away whether a question limit affects you.
- Fill in the survey yourself on your phone and on a laptop.
- Export the test responses to Excel or CSV and check whether you can use them.
- Work out how many responses you expect per month or per year and find the first plan that can handle that.
- Look up the data processing agreement and where the data is stored before you invite real customers or employees.
You can compare all the tools in the survey tool category, with prices, free plans and features side by side.
Frequently asked questions about free survey makers
What is the best free survey tool for businesses?
That depends on how many responses you need. Of the ten tools we checked on 15 October 2026, Tally has the most generous free plan: unlimited forms and responses within fair use. If you use Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, Forms is already included in your subscription.
How many responses do you get for free?
It varies widely: 10 per month at Typeform, 100 per month at Survio and Jotform, 100 per survey at Zoho Survey, 200 per form at Microsoft Forms with a personal account and 350 per survey at Enquêtes Maken.
What does a paid survey tool cost?
The first paid plan of these tools costs roughly €5 to €45 per month, excluding VAT; the most expensive is the Enquêtetool from Onderzoekdoen.nl at €545 per year. Paying yearly usually makes a plan 13 to 30 percent cheaper.
Can you use a free survey tool under the GDPR?
Yes, if you handle personal data properly: sign a data processing agreement with the supplier, know where the responses are stored and do not ask for more than you need. With an employee's personal account, that is usually not possible.
