All five tools build forms, but each one counts usage differently: Jotform meters submissions, forms, storage and payments separately, Fillout and Typeform cap responses per month, SurveyMonkey caps them per year on annual plans, and Tally publishes no cap at all. That meter, not the sticker price, decides your real bill and when a form stops working for you.
This is the section that decides your bill. “Response,” “submission” and “record” are not the same unit across these tools, and the cap sits in a different place for each.
Jotform counts submissions per month, but also limits active forms, stored submissions and upload storage. Free allows 5 forms, 100 submissions a month, 500 stored submissions and 100 MB of uploads. Bronze moves that to 25 forms, 1,000 submissions and 1 GB, Silver to 50 forms, 2,500 submissions and 10 GB, and Gold to 100 forms, 10,000 submissions and 100 GB. Payments are capped too: 10 a month on Free, then 100, 250 and 1,000. Overage rules aren’t published, and reviewers say hitting the upload cap forces an upgrade.
Fillout counts responses per month and resets on the 1st: 1,000 on Free, 2,000 on Starter, 5,000 on Pro and unlimited on Business. It charges no overage. Forms keep collecting after you hit the cap, and you can upgrade or wait for the reset to see them. One reviewer calls that “misleading pricing” because viewing extra submissions needs a paid plan. Fillout’s help center doesn’t define what counts as a response, so we can’t say whether partial submissions use up your allowance.
Typeform counts completed responses per month: 100 on Basic, 1,000 on Plus, 10,000 on Business. No overage rate is listed, and the page points to response add-ons and upgrading.
SurveyMonkey counts completed responses, per year on annual plans. Its pages disagree. The EU page lists 15,000 a year on Advantage and 40,000 on Premier, while the US table lists unlimited with overage billed at $0.15 a response. The EU page says $0.10. We could not resolve that, so check your own account’s limit before you buy.
Tally publishes no per-submission cap. Its free plan lists unlimited submissions “within fair usage guidelines,” and we found no numbers behind that phrase.
| Tool | Lowest paid price listed | Response limit on that plan | Free plan | Branding removal | Payments | HIPAA |
|---|
| Jotform | Bronze, $39/mo ($34/mo annual) | 1,000 submissions/mo | 5 forms, 100 submissions/mo | Bronze and up | All plans (10/mo free) | Gold and Enterprise, with BAA |
| Fillout | Starter, $15/mo billed annually | 2,000 responses/mo | 1,000 responses/mo, Fillout badge | Pro ($40/mo annual); Starter has light branding | All plans, free included | Not listed |
| Tally | Pro, about $24/mo annual (unconfirmed) | Not published | Unlimited, fair use, 10 MB files | Pro | Via Stripe, free included (fees unverified) | Not found |
| Typeform | Basic, $28/mo annual on the plan card (unconfirmed; table shows $25) | 100 responses/mo | Yes, cap not stated (reviewers say 10) | Plus and up | Via Stripe, plans unclear | Enterprise only |
| SurveyMonkey | Advantage, $468/yr ($39/mo); a $300/yr Standard Annual shows on one page only (unconfirmed) | 15,000/yr (EU page) or unlimited with overage (US page) | 10 questions, 3 collectors, about 10 responses | Premier ($139/mo annual) | Advantage and up | BAA on HIPAA-enabled accounts, plan unconfirmed |
Fillout’s $15 and Jotform’s $34 are annual figures. Billed monthly, Jotform’s Bronze is $39 and Fillout’s Starter works out to about $19, an inference from a $228 yearly figure.
Free plans compared
Tally is the one free plan of the five without a published monthly cap. Fillout comes next with 1,000 responses a month, unlimited forms and unlimited seats, plus payments. Jotform’s free plan is more fenced: 5 forms, 100 submissions, 10 payments a month and Jotform branding. Typeform’s and SurveyMonkey’s free plans are the tightest, with reviewers putting each at about 10 responses, and SurveyMonkey’s also caps surveys at 10 questions and 3 collectors. Google Forms is also free, but it has no paid tiers to compare here, so we left it out.
Branding, payments and HIPAA
Branding removal starts at Jotform’s Bronze ($34 a month billed annually), Tally’s Pro, Typeform’s Plus ($56 to $79 a month) and Fillout’s Pro ($40 a month billed annually). SurveyMonkey locks it behind Premier at $139 a month billed annually. Payments come on every Jotform and Fillout plan, including free, and on SurveyMonkey from Advantage up.
HIPAA is where the field thins out. Jotform lists it at Gold, and Typeform at Enterprise. SurveyMonkey offers a BAA on HIPAA-enabled accounts without naming the plan we could verify. Fillout and Tally list nothing. If health data is involved, get a BAA in writing before you build.
How we picked
Prices, limits and plan details came mostly from each vendor’s own pricing page (figures from third-party sources are labeled unconfirmed), checked on 2026-11-07, and review scores for Trustpilot were read directly on the same date. G2 and Capterra pages blocked us, so any score from those sites in our individual reviews comes from secondary sources, and we did not use it to set a rating. Where a vendor’s pages contradicted each other, as Typeform’s and SurveyMonkey’s did, we say so and mark the figure unconfirmed.
Ratings are editorial. ToolsGavel has affiliate arrangements with some of the tools in this guide, including SurveyMonkey, and none of them changes the order. SurveyMonkey ranks last because its billing reputation and value lag the other four, whatever its survey depth.
Deals & price changes
Price changes and deals for online forms & surveys
One short email when a tool in this guide changes its price or gets a verified deal. At most once a week.
Frequently asked questions
Which form builder has the biggest free plan?
Tally's free plan lists unlimited forms and submissions within fair-usage guidelines, and publishes no cap, though it keeps Tally branding and a 10 MB file limit. Fillout is next with 1,000 responses a month, unlimited forms and unlimited seats, plus payments. Jotform's free plan gives 5 forms and 100 submissions a month, and Typeform's and SurveyMonkey's free plans are far smaller: reviewers put each at about 10 responses.
Which of these tools offers HIPAA?
Jotform publishes a self-serve option: HIPAA with a BAA on Gold, $129 a month billed monthly or $99 billed annually. Typeform lists HIPAA on Enterprise only. SurveyMonkey's help center offers a BAA on HIPAA-enabled accounts, but we could not confirm which plan includes it. We found no HIPAA information for Tally, and no BAA for Fillout, though a third party saying Fillout won't sign one is unverified. Ask any vendor for a signed BAA before you collect health data.
What happens when I hit my response limit?
It depends on the tool. Fillout keeps collecting responses and gates viewing them until the month resets or you upgrade. SurveyMonkey bills overage at $0.10 to $0.15 per response, depending on which of its pages you read. Jotform doesn't publish overage rules, and reviewers say hitting the upload cap forces an upgrade. Typeform lists no overage rate and points to add-ons and upgrading. Tally publishes no cap.
Is SurveyMonkey's auto-renewal a real risk?
Yes, based on the pattern in its reviews. Trustpilot gives SurveyMonkey 2.6 out of 5 from 1,077 reviews, and 62% are one-star. The recurring complaints are renewals with no warning, a surprise annual charge after one survey, and refund requests that were declined. Turning auto-renew off drops the account to the Basic plan, and responses older than 365 days over Basic's cap are deleted. If you subscribe, set a calendar reminder before the renewal date.
