9 Online Form Builder to Engage, Entertain and Convert Your Audience

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Forms. They’ve been around since paper was invented, well, probably before. You fill them in when you go to the hospital, apply for a job, and do your tax returns. Yet, despite the offline headaches, online forms can help you build a business.

Online forms are a great way to get feedback from your audience, sell products to your customers when there’s no clear price point, get signups for your events, and a lot more besides. To help you create forms, we’ve shortlisted the best online form builders.

What Should You Look for From an Online Form Builder

An online form builder is a tool that allows you to create forms without the need for programming. You can use the forms to collect information from users, such as names, addresses, phone numbers, or it can be used to gather business leads or customer feedback. Here are a few of the things you should look for from your online form builder.

A good online form builder should have an easy-to-use interface. It should be easy for you to create online forms. Most form builders provide plenty of templates and use a drag and drop editor for creating the forms. You want to track form submissions and other relevant data as well. Finally, you’ll want a shortcode system, so you can embed the forms on the posts and pages you want at the click of a button.

That covers some of the most essential points. Now onto the list! A short review of each of the online form builders is below.

SoftwareStarting FromBest Thing About ItBiggest Problem
TypeForm$24 a monthFavorite multi-page form builder.None.
JotForm$19 a monthEasy to use with lots of templates.None.
CognitoForms$10 a monthBest freemium plan.Only corporate designs.
Formlets$18 a monthGood all-round form builder.No templates.
Formsite$15 a monthEasy to use with lots of templates.None.
EngageBay $14.99 Easy to use plugin with nice forms.Just for WordPress.
Zoho Forms$8 a monthCheapest premium plan.Designs look like Google Forms.
Formcraft$39 lifetimeGreat product for forms on your website.Just for WordPress.
WP Forms$49 a yearCheap form builder for WordPress.Can’t customise the appearance.
Basin$5 a monthJust for submission forms.Need to be a developer.

The table provides an overview of the different online form software in this post. Now you’ve checked out the summary, let’s dive in with a review of the best online form builders.

TypeForm

TypeForm has created one of the best online form builders. They specialize in multi-page forms. Multi-page forms are useful when you want to gain insights into your audience. You’ll see multi-page forms used on insurance sites, for example. The templates are stylish and really nicely designed.

TypeForm is not just a form creator. It also an online quiz maker. With a bit of lateral thinking, you can use TypeForm to segment your email list, grow your email list, or sell products online.

There’s a learning curve to using TypeForm the user interface is well designed and simple to use. Like pretty much every other online form creator the software uses a drag and drop interface. The different menus are all accessible through the tabs.

TypeForm has a tiered pricing plan. The free plan sounds great. You can create forms with up to 10 fields and receive 100 responses a month. I have the feeling that 10 fields really aren’t enough though given the kind of forms you probably want to create. The premium plan starts from $24 a month.

JotForm

JotForm was one of the first online form software solutions. You can use the software to create pretty much any type of form. For example, you can create registration forms, product order forms, donation forms, newsletter subscription forms, questionnaires, and more besides.

It is integrated with plenty of third-party apps. There are integrations with payment processors like Stripe and Paypal as well as email marketing providers, Dropbox, etc. It all comes together to make JetForm a powerful online form creator.

The user flow is also intuitive. To create your first form you select the type of form you want to create. Once you’ve selected your template you can create your online form using the drag and drop interface. It’s all very easy to do and the finished forms look good as well.

JotForm has a tiered pricing structure. It starts with the freemium version. With this option, you can create up to five forms with 100 responses a month. The premium plan starts at $19 a month and for this, you get up to 25 forms and 1,000 monthly submissions, which will be more than enough for most businesses.

Cognito Forms

The Cognito Forms is another online form software. The interface has that 1960’s tower block feeling. Everything works just as it should, but it’s not really attractive. I’m making it sound like a bad product, which just to be clear, it isn’t.

The user flow is logical. You choose your niche, select your template, preview the design, and edit. Everything is accessible in just a click without you feeling overwhelmed by choice, which is what you get with the number of JotForm templates. The drag and drop form builder is also easy to use.

I get the feeling that everything about the product was created by a programmer rather than a designer. It’s not really an issue, but a few changes to the appearance of the interface and the design of the forms would go a long way towards attracting a broader customer base.

Cognito Forms has a great entry plan. It is free to use for an unlimited number of forms with up to 500 entries per month. This is so good most users are unlikely to need the premium plan, which starts at just $10 a month by the way. If you need functional rather than friendly forms this is a great platform.

Formlets

Formlets is a good all-round online form creator. The platform has an intuitive interface though lacks any templates. To get started, you name your template and are immediately directed to the editing screen to create your online form.

The editing screen uses a drag and drop interface. The layout is intuitive and everything is accessible within a click of the mouse. It’s functional rather than attractive. Still, the finished online forms look attractive and work, which is what matters in the end.

The freemium plan for Formlets is actually pretty good. You can create one form with 500 submissions. The initial premium plan costs $18 a month. For this, you can create up to 10 online forms with unlimited submissions, which compares really well with some of the competitors.

FormSite

FormSite is another great online form creator. It’s slightly cheaper, or more expensive, than JetForm. It also has much the same functionality with the ability to create payment forms, surveys, contact forms, and registration forms. FormSite has most of the same integrations as well.

Instead of covering the similarities, I’ll focus on the main differences between the platforms. The user flow is slightly different and initially more confusing. You choose the type of form you want to create, which you can’t edit, and then you’re brought to the editing screen.

That said FormSite has a huge range of templates, which are well organized. The editing screen is also user friendly with the same drag and drop, point and click interface. It’s a good platform.

The pricing plan starts at $14.95 for five forms with up to 500 results per form. If you don’t need to create many forms, but need a lot of submissions then FormSite is better than JotForm.

EngageBay

EngageBay is a simple yet powerful software for WordPress. You can choose among the ready-made templates it has available, or create your own forms from scratch with its intuitive form builder. The good thing is, all the forms are 100% mobile responsive, which means they will look great on all devices, whether these be on a mobile, tablet, laptop, or desktop.

You can use EngageBay to capture leads, grow email lists, and engage web visitors. All of these you can do without resorting to coding. The form builder software is simple and easy-to-use. You’d only need to choose a ready-made form template, select the fields you want and then change the styles and text and complete the form. You can do all these in less than 2 minutes

EngageBay offers a free trial. There are three monthly plans – the basic plan at $14.99, the growth plan at $49.99, and the Pro plan at $79.99. It’s an affordable solution for anyone using WordPress searching for a form builder.

Zoho Forms

Zoho Forms has got a great pricing plan. The user interface, integrations, and functionality are comparable to the best online form creators. The user interface is nicely laid out and the drag and drop builder works just as you’d expect.

It all sounds too good to be true. It kind of is, but I’ve got a few issues with the platform. My main problem is the forms look very similar to Google Forms, which happens to be free. It’s kind of Google Forms without the branding and with slightly better integration onto your site pages. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Focusing on the positive for a moment… The Zoho Forms premium plan starts at $8 a month. For this, you can create an unlimited number of forms and receive up to 10,000 submissions a month. It’s a great offer, but I just can’t get away from the fact that it looks like a free product.

FormCraft

FormCraft is a WordPress plugin and one of my favorite online form builders (I’ve been using it for the last four years on my travel site). The plugin is nicely designed with an interface that is easy to use and works with the WordPress interface.

On the first tab, you are shown the form analytics. This includes the number of form views, submissions, and the conversion rate. It’s easy at a glance analytics screen. Creating the online forms is just as easy with the drag and drop builder. You can insert the forms on any post or page using the auto-generated shortcode.

The plugin has fewer integrations and functionality than the online software platforms listed earlier. You can use FormCraft to create a regular submission and contact forms and integrate this with your email marketing provider. It has integrations with Gmail, enabling you to create a single automated response when someone submits a form.

FormCraft is a premium WordPress plugin. It costs $39 for the regular license. You can purchase addons to the plugin to give it extra functionality. This includes things like Paypal or user registration forms that each cost $29. It’s expensive for that extra functionality, but it is a one-time price.

WP Forms

WP Forms is the second WordPress only form builder on this list. The plugin is created by Syed Belkhi, who is the founder of OptinMonster. So maybe I should say that at the moment WP Forms is a WordPress only plugin, there’s a good chance this will change.

In terms of functionality WP Forms is a great product. It can do all of the things the other online form creators do, but at a greatly reduced price as the plugin is hosted on your servers. So you can use WP Forms to create payment forms, optin forms, and regular submission forms.

The plugin uses a simple drag and drop interface. As you’d expect it’s nicely designed and has the kind of integrations that you’d expect with email marketing services and the like as standard. It’s a bit cheaper than FormCraft, but it’s an annual subscription.

If I had to choose between WP Forms and Formcraft I’d personally choose Formcraft. I prefer the interface and you have more options over the design of the form. That said, I have a feeling that WP Forms will be a better product in the long run.

Basin

Basin is a simple online submission form creator. The user flow is simple and the interface has just as much information as you need. Unfortunately, the form creator was created for programmers, so if you don’t know how to code you probably won’t be able to use the software.

That said, if you know how to code then Basin is a simple to use and cheap online form creator. You can create auto-responses and custom redirects after a person submits the form. It’s also cheap with a good freemium plan while the premium plan starts at just $5 a month. If you’re a programmer and you just need to create a submission form then this platform is enough.

Google Forms

Instead of listing all of the free online form creators on the market, I thought I’d focus on the best; Google Forms. As the name suggests Google Forms is created by Google. If you want to create a submission or, questionnaire or application form for your site for free it’s a great platform.

The software is easy to use and you can have your form set up in a few minutes. Unfortunately, Google Forms lacks the integrations and some of the functionality that you get with other online form creators. Plus, you can’t use heatmap software to analyze if people have problems inputting date. However, I mentioned that it was free though right?

A Few Thoughts

It might seem like a small thing, but I just wanted to let you know that each of the tools on this list was tested by us. It means that the post took a fair bit of time to write, but the insights are hopefully more valuable for you. Hopefully, it will help you choose a good online form creator.

For more useful tools for online business owners, check out our guide to the best headline generators, and Pinterest schedulers. You might also want to check out our roundup of the best Mac cleaning software.

I hope you like our content. Shoot us an email if there’s a tool you feel we missed. We want to make our articles comprehensive.

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About the author

Nicholas Prins

I'm the founder of Launch Space. We work with global companies helping them scale lead generation through SEO and content marketing. Head over to the homepage to find out more.

By Nicholas Prins