Microsoft Forms comes up short when feedback starts to get serious
Why teams switch from Microsoft Forms to SmartSurvey
Look like your brand, not Microsoft
Forms brands every survey on forms.office.com. Brand yours with your own logo, colours, themes and domain.
Build the logic Forms won’t allow
Forms branches on single-choice questions and stops there. Get display logic, piping and validation as standard.
See the answer without the export
Forms sends you to Excel for any real analysis. Get filtering, cross-tabs, dashboards and AI analysis in the platform.
Power up your feedback collection
Reach people on email, SMS, QR, web and offline, chase the non-responders, and act on what comes back.
Microsoft Forms isn’t built for feedback programmes
| Feature | SmartSurvey | Microsoft Forms |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-translate surveys and responses with AI |  |
 |
| SMS and offline / kiosk collection | |
|
| Custom domain | |
|
| Dashboards | |
|
| Reputation Management | |
|
| API and webhooks | |
|
| Email reminders to non-respondents | |
|
| In-platform analysis (filtering, cross-tabs) | |
Export to Excel for anything beyond auto charts |
| Survey logic (display logic, piping, branching) | All question types, all plans |
Branches on single-choice questions only |
| Question types | 24+ including sliders, matrix and ranking | 8 core types |
| Export formats | Excel, CSV, TSV, SPSS, PDF, Word | Excel only |
| UK phone and chat support | |
|
| Best fit | Surveys and always-on feedback programmes | Quick polls and quizzes |
For when you’ve outgrown basic forms
You started with a quick form. Now the survey matters, and Forms keeps hitting a ceiling. Here is where SmartSurvey picks up.
Brand every survey as your own
Apply your logo, colours, fonts and themes, then host on your own domain. Respondents see your organisation, not forms.office.com.
Personalise the path with real logic
Use display logic, piping, carry-forward and validation, where Forms stops at single-choice branching.
Reach for the question types research needs
Use sliders, matrix grids, ranking and scored assessments, not just Forms' eight types and quiz mode.
Get to the answers and insights without living in Excel
Forms gives you auto charts, then hands you a spreadsheet. SmartSurvey turns responses into insight inside the platform.
Uncover insights without needing to read every comment
AI sorts open text into themes and sentiment across 54+ languages. Forms' sentiment analysis works only on English responses.
Slice the data without exporting it
Filter, cross-tabulate and build live dashboards inside SmartSurvey. Forms needs an Excel export, or a separate Power BI licence, for anything real.
Hand every stakeholder the right format
Export to Excel, CSV, TSV, SPSS, PDF and Word, or share a live link. Forms exports to Excel and nothing else.
For when feedback is becoming a managed programme
Once feedback drives decisions, collecting it is barely half the job. SmartSurvey is built to help uncover insights and drive change.
Run feedback as a programme, not a one-off form
Where Forms shares a link, SmartSurvey helps you reach a defined audience, chases the silent ones, and proves what delivered.
Collect across every channel, online and off
Add SMS and offline collection to your distribution alongside email, QR and web embeds, where Forms stops at web links, email and QR.
Collect in any language, analyse in one
Auto-translate surveys into 54+ languages and translate responses back into yours, where Forms caps you at 11 all by hand.
Chase non-responders and prove what worked
Send branded invitations with reminders and tracking links to see what delivered, where Forms tracks signed-in users only.
Turn critical responses into action you can prove were dealt with
A detractor in Forms becomes just another row in a spreadsheet. In SmartSurvey, it can become a case someone owns.
Alert the right person the moment it matters
Trigger an email when a score drops or a critical answer lands, where Forms needs middleware for any alert.
Assign, track and close the loop
Create a case from any response, set an owner and a due date, and track it through to resolution. Forms has no case management.
Show the journey from feedback to fix
Report on resolution rates and response times with a full audit trail. Forms collects the feedback, then leaves the acting to you.
Don’t just take our word for it
“SmartSurvey is a great platform for research surveys. It’s easy to choose the question formats and editing and the resulting generated graphs and diagrams and super useful for reports. Highly recommend!”
(Trustpilot review)
“Smartsurvey helps collect and summarise data in ways which would take ages using spreadsheets or other types of product. It is an invaluable tool!”
(Verified G2 Review)
“There is no better tool I have used than SmartSurvey for business surveys. It offers what business needs and more and has been very instrumental to our business.”
(Verified G2 Review)
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Frequently asked questions
Choose SmartSurvey when feedback is more than a quick internal poll. You get advanced survey logic, your own branding, multi-channel distribution, analysis without exporting to Excel, and a way to act on responses, all in one platform. Microsoft Forms is fine for simple polls and quizzes. SmartSurvey is built for feedback you collect, analyse and act on.
Forms is free the way a calculator is free: ideal for simple sums, limited beyond that. The moment you need branded surveys, real logic, dashboards or multi-channel reach, Forms can't do it, and the AI it markets through its Surveys Agent needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence at extra cost per user. You can get started with SmartSurvey with a Growth trial or with our Basic plan which is free forever. Our paid plans start at £70/month (annual discount) and includes capabilities Forms doesn't offer on any tier.
Yes. SmartSurvey posts response alerts into Teams, exports to Excel, connects to Power BI, and works with Power Automate and Microsoft Dynamics, so it sits alongside the Microsoft tools you already use. The difference is what you can do once the data arrives: deeper logic, branded surveys on your own domain, in-platform analysis, and action management Forms doesn't offer.
Yes. Embed surveys into your website and apps, sync contacts with Salesforce or HubSpot, push data into Power BI for reporting, and connect to Teams, Slack, Monday.com, Zapier and more. For anything custom, SmartSurvey offers a full REST API and webhooks.
Yes. SmartSurvey is ISO27001 certified and Cyber Essentials Plus accredited, with NHS DSPT compliance and GDPR built in. Data is encrypted in transit with TLS and at rest with AES, and stored in UK data centres as standard on every plan.
Yes. You can get started for free, with no contract and no card required, and build your first survey in minutes. When you're ready, explore the paid plans or book a demo to see SmartSurvey against your own use case.
You can start for free. Our Basic plan is free forever and perfect for collecting responses quickly. It includes 100 responses a month and the survey essentials, but it is limited on volume and the more advanced features. When you need more, paid self-serve plans start at £70/month (annual discount) for Advanced and £100/month (annual discount)for Growth. You can pay annually or month by month and cancel anytime, with annual billing saving up to 22%. Response allowances and features are published so you can compare before you commit. Larger Scale and programme plans are tailored to what you need. See full details on our pricing page.
Start collecting feedback you can act on
