Among the multipurpose tools available for your business and other undertakings, forms undoubtedly deserve particular attention. They can make you collect essential data regarding your customers, followers, etc., in no time and with minimum effort. Their succinct nature renders them easy to process and analyze. Not to mention they can be adapted to numerous topics of investigation and goals. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about gathering core information such as contact details or customer demographics. They can also help you get feedback, requests, subscriptions, etc.
Sounds fine so far, don’t you think? But wouldn’t it be even better if you could do all these for free? We are here today to help you find the perfect free-form builder. While saving time and effort, you should also be saving money, right? Lucky you, there’s a whole specialized market nowadays when it comes to finding online form creators. Many companies offer their services in that regard. We may consider it both an advantage and a catch. Indeed, it may not be easy to choose the one(s) most likely to suit your needs. Lucky you, our guide is here to help you see more clearly and make comparisons. So let’s get started.
Why Do You Need Free Form Builders?
This is quite a logical question before looking for a free forms creator. What benefits can such online platforms bring to you? In what ways are they likely to enhance your business? We already mentioned some of them in our introduction, but here’s a broader overview:
- They can save you considerable time and money and thus increase your productivity.
- They deal with simple and easily readable/analyzable data.
- They can be used for various kinds of data.
- They allow you to stay focused by, for example, helping you define your exact target audience.
- They make your website more attractive and interactive through the engagement they can initiate.
- They nurture lead generation thanks to their capacity to quickly produce and distribute accurate information.
- They can increase your conversion rates provided you make them responsive (by keeping them up-to-date and processing them immediately).
Let’s not forget the ecological aspect. Online free forms not only make you save money but also paper. So it’s a win-win for both your business and the environment. If you are still asking what is branding exactly, even this aspect will affect your branding strategies.
We’ve sketched the essential benefits. We’ll most likely have the occasion to elaborate on some of them when introducing free-form builder sites and apps in the next sections. We prepared a customized catalog to help you choose the most adapted tools for your business and projects. Just keep scrolling.
Top 7 Online Free Form Builders in 2023
There is no misunderstanding here: hundreds of free-form builders are available on the related market. We have nonetheless decided to narrow it down to the lucky number 7. In effect, our goal is to assist you in your search for the best form maker. So it seemed important to us to select only the most skillful ones. User-friendliness and ease of use are the other main factors we considered.
Jotform
Best overall for building forms from a template
Compatible with: Web, Android, iOS
Free plans and paid plans start at $34/per month.
Let’s start with simplicity. For those of you who want to create a form free of charge but also of technical complications, Jotform is the ultimate saver. Indeed, dealing with a blank page and having to start everything from scratch might not be everyone’s cup of tea. This application solves such problems by proposing thousands of templates to choose from. No less. This means that regardless of your niche and style, you will likely find the model you were looking for.
You got it: Jotform is full of good surprises regarding customization possibilities. Visually and aesthetically speaking, the app won’t disappoint you thanks to its numerous color and animation options, far from being a boring free-form builder, unlike some others. So you can be sure to enhance your website’s attractiveness and thus offer your visitors a nice interface to navigate.
With that said, those rich customization options don’t seem to create any extra load or downside regarding speed. The app is actually quite fast and reactive. Furthermore, it’s extremely well-organized, especially for those of us who tend to be a little obsessive. One doesn’t need to spend much time looking for templates. The dedicated editors are indeed designed in a clean and easily accessible way.
Speaking of editors, you may opt for:
- The basic visual editor
- The advanced editor
- The CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) editor if you wish to deal with code by yourself
With Jotform, you can add widgets to your forms (e.g., for social media). You even can create a separate app from the created forms and allow your audience to save them on their devices. Let’s not forget that Jotform is also a PDF forms creator, which is a valuable feature when it comes to easily reading written material.
What about your usage? Jotform offers several options: visualizing the gathered data as lists, PowerPoint-type presentations with charts, and additional feedback, among others. Handy for both you and your colleagues (e.g., at meetings).
As for the interconnectivity aspect, you may integrate Jotform into online automation tools such as Zapier. Doing so will make it a part of your other favorite tools and allow them all to function synergistically.
Sendinblue
Best overall as a marketing assistance tool
Compatible with: Web, Android, iOS
Free plans and paid plans start at $25/per month.
Within the vast universe of form builders, some are more marketing-centered than others. Sendinblue is one of them. To be more exact, it’s an exhaustive platform that includes many marketing tools for advertising, email marketing, social media campaigns, etc. At the same time, it’s a surprisingly efficient online form builder. So it’s a kind of all-in-one solution for marketers.
You can use Sendinblue to build profile information forms and subscription/unsubscription forms. Let’s also add that it’s a pretty generous platform: an unlimited number of contacts and forms allowed. Isn’t that just great?
The most apparent weakness of Sendinblue is the absence of templates. This is one of the downsides to expect when working with a free-form builder. Nevertheless, you can adjust the background, fonts, and form size and add images conveniently.
The platform cares about user experience. It proposes practical solutions through, for example, a multi-list subscription field. You don’t need to use several signup forms. Instead, all you have to do is add a dedicated field from which your visitors can select the lists they are interested in. This will allow them to subscribe simultaneously to different options from the same page—a nice time-saving detail.
Sendinblue is a good form builder also in terms of attribute management. Attributes are the fields you want to include in your forms as information elements (e.g., about your subscribers). Among basic default attributes, we have, for example, FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, SMS, and EMAIL. With Sendinblue, you can use the attributes tag to create new ones if you wish. For example, if you want to build a contact form, you can create an attribute such as MESSAGE or FEEDBACK.
Paperform
Best overall for order form creation
Compatible with: Web
Free trial and paid plans starting at $20/month
Paperform might be our favorite one of the almost-free form builders. Almost? Well, the platform offers ‘only’ a free trial, but rest assured, it promises ‘pricing that makes sense’ (to quote its slogan). It proposes, indeed, pretty affordable packages payable either on a monthly or annual basis. But is it worth it? Definitely.
First, you can be sure you’ll deal with an aesthetically appealing builder. And this is far from being a minor detail. We believe you deserve to work with a pleasant interface. Pleasant, but at the same time, easy to manipulate. Paperform’s design is extremely neat and user-friendly, to say the least.
As a form builder, the platform offers 400 templates to choose from. Well, we have to admit that this feature is still a little shaky or random, to be more exact. You have to click on an ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button, which chooses a form type and color scheme on your behalf. This automatic pick may not always match what you had in mind initially. Don’t worry, though, since you have the possibility to edit and customize it.
More importantly, Paperform offers valuable assistance for your e-commerce activities. It allows you to create specific forms to take orders and better organize your sales. For example, you can add a Products section to your form. You may then complete it with relevant product information such as the name, price, image, stock-keeping units (SKU), minimum/maximum quantities available, updates about your stocks, etc. You may also turn your product list into a CSV file to make it more manageable.
The financial and payment aspects are also very well-thought. You have coupon support and custom pricing options to keep your sales profitable. Your transactions are secured thanks to the integration with solid “values”: PayPal Business, Braintree, Stripe, and Square.
With Paperform, you can easily share your forms via links, QR codes, social media platforms, or embedding them on your website. You also have several options to offer to your respondents. Once they complete a form, you may email them, redirect them to another specific page, or follow up via a webhook.
Last, integrating with Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel lets you monitor your sales performance.
Microsoft Forms
Best overall for Excel integration
Compatible with: Web
Free plan
Writing an online free-form builders-comparative without mentioning big shots like Microsoft would be nonsense. Plus, if you regularly use other Microsoft products, you’ll feel in charted territory.
Regarding design, it’s better not to expect anything too fancy. Branding customization possibilities are limited but at least straightforward. The platform lets you choose from six templates, including a background image and a color scheme. If none suits you, you can click the Refresh button and get six new template propositions. If this doesn’t work or if you still don’t like any of the templates, just go for a color scheme and a static image.
This Microsoft survey tool may not be a design champ, but it will help you create precise forms. Add your questions in no time and make any necessary adjustments via the WYSIWYG editor. And if, for example, your form is targeted at a very specific age group, you can narrow down the input validation settings for each question.
You can share your material in HTML forms (if you’re using HTML on your website), via email (within the system mail app), or a QR code. And as you may have guessed, any Microsoft survey you create is easily readable and analyzable in Excel. A good old method that never fails, keeping things simple.
Google Forms
Best overall for getting the job done in a jiffy
Compatible with: Web
Free plan
Speaking of big shots, here’s undoubtedly another one. So if you’re looking for an online free form builder without diving into the unknown, the Google form maker is at your disposal.
The working interface is clean and minimalistic. So no, there isn’t a plethora of templates to choose from. However, this is an advantage for those who don’t have much time. You can customize the color scheme, pick the fonts, and add a header image. More than enough in case you’re not worried about reflecting an elaborate brand image through your forms.
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The focus here is rather on the essentials. When you start typing your questions, Google is usually intuitive enough to guess and complete them. This can make you save a tremendous amount of time. The result won’t disappoint you thanks to its professional looks.
Once you finish your questions, click ‘Send’ and choose how you want to share your form. Email, copied link, HTML embed… It’s up to you.
Don’t forget that here, we’re in the Google universe… which means top-notch analysis possibilities. In an aggregated form, you can investigate the responses individually through charts matching the question type… In short, as usual, Google provides you with the most relevant tools. Looking for even more advanced options? Go to Google Sheets. This can make you gain further insights regarding the results.
More generally speaking, integrating other Google features is very much appreciable. For instance, this means more collaboration possibilities with other Google users about the forms. Or, say, the opportunity to discover new add-ons on Google Workspace Marketplace. So if you’re not just looking for a free-form builder but rather a full-fledged working environment, this is one of your best bets.
Formsite
Best overall for data security and confidentiality
Compatible with: Web
Free trial and paid plans starting at $24.95/month
Among many other possible examples, let’s suppose that some of you are mental health professionals (psychologists, psychiatrists, etc.). Your code of ethics requires you to keep safe and confidential the highly sensitive data you collect from your clients and study participants. Yes, such is the level of intransigence Formsite does believe in. So if you choose to work on this platform, you can be sure that the information you collect through online forms won’t end up wandering around. You can judge for yourself by checking out the company’s FAQ section dedicated to secure form submissions.
How does it work? All you have to do is encrypt the input fields of your choice, that is, those you want to keep confidential. So anyone else than you will need special permission to access and read them. Simple but extremely effective.
That being said, don’t picture Formsite as a cryptic and complicated platform. On the contrary, it’s quite ergonomic. The menus offer copious spaces between the different elements, thus remaining pleasant to read and use.
What about customization options? You get no less than 297 templates, 10 input field styles, and 15 color schemes. Pretty generous, right? You can easily work with the visual editor or even use CSS if you’re familiar.
Sharing with Formsite is easy as well. The platform lets you choose the way that suits you the most. All links (regular and/or pre-populated), HTML embeds, QR codes, or WordPress shortcodes work fine.
Once you are in the reporting and analyzing phases, you won’t encounter any issues either. You may decide to filter the list of submissions and obtain reports such as cross-tab reports. With Formsite, you can investigate several types of analytics: browser, device, IP, results per day, average duration per day, etc. Bonus? Additional functionalities include reCAPTCHA, integration with several payment platforms, and support for order forms, to name a few.
Zoho Forms
Best overall for teamwork
Compatible with: Web, Android, iOS
Free plan and paid plans starting at $12/month
What about free forms for teams? A free-form builder is certainly a valuable service, but it’s even better if the platform allows professional collaboration. There are many scenarios in which you might need to share your forms with associates, colleagues, stakeholders, etc. Furthermore, you might even need their approval before officially launching some projects related to your forms. Zoho allows you to add the people involved in the app and regulate requests and approval processes. This is done hierarchically when needed. For instance, a request can be sent to the general manager, then to the deputy general manager, and so on.
Professionalism doesn’t necessarily have to be boring. Zoho Forms proposes 65 templates and 41 themes to choose from. A pretty decent range to create and customize brand images. The visual editor is also solid enough and lets you bring modifications to your convenience.
The choice is even broader when it comes to sharing. Almost needless to say, the most common options, such as links, QR codes, and social media, are, of course, available. But Zoho Forms also allows you to share via website embed (inline or as a pop-up), WordPress embed, Mailchimp, and Zoho Campaign. Speaking of the latter, Zoho Forms belongs to the Zoho software suite. What this means is that you get a very integrative working environment without needing to look somewhere else.
The same professionalism applies to reports. You can build your own, set filters, and show/hide elements as you wish. As for tracking specific parameters, you can get information about IP, geolocation, URL parameters, and source traffic through UTM (Urchin Tracking Module), and Google Analytics.
Free Form Builders In a Nutshell
Using an online free-form builder comes with several advantages. First of all, it’s cost-free or at least less expensive than using printed material. This budget-friendliness aspect was our first criterion when selecting the Top 7 of our article. Besides, this kind of platform is easy to use and requires no advanced knowledge regarding, for example, coding. It allows you to customize your data collection tools and make them a part of your brand image. Free-form builders also create an additional bridge between you/your company, and your audience. Communication through online forms is much faster since you can receive answers and feedback within minutes. All in all, you have many legitimate reasons to integrate them into your general business strategy.
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