11 Best Qualtrics Competitors & Alternatives in 2025

What factors should you look for when considering a Qualtrics alternative? Based on our experience helping companies of all sizes run market research surveys, we’ve identified several key elements:

• Specialized vs. broader focus: Specialized tools that focus solely on surveys tend to be more cost-effective, easier to manage, and simpler to use because they’re designed for a specific purpose. However, if you need various business functions beyond market research, you should choose a platform that provides features beyond surveys. For example, besides surveys, Qualtrics also offers Contact Center Analytics and Quality Management & Compliance tools.

• Data quality safeguards: Most survey platforms buy data from third-party panel providers, often leading to the problem of getting answers from “professional survey takers” — users who prioritize completing as many surveys as possible over providing quality responses. Instead, you should choose a software that leverages first-party data and engages respondents within the apps they already use, resulting in more authentic responses and reliable survey data.

• Turnaround time: Many survey tools have slow turnaround times, taking days to deliver results even for general audiences. The software you choose should have large, engaged respondent communities that can deliver hundreds of mainstream audience responses within hours. You should also receive accurate turnaround estimates for more niche audiences, helping you meet deadlines and get insights faster.

• Survey design flexibility: Many survey platforms have limited functionality, forcing you to compromise on your research goals. For instance, they may lack the targeting criteria needed for your specific audience, or offer only basic question types and logic that don’t fully address your unique requirements. Instead, the survey software you choose should provide the flexibility and features needed to execute your research exactly as intended, ensuring you never have to settle for “close enough.”

• Pricing structure & transparency: Subscription-based pricing models common among survey platforms often result in paying for unused capacity and unexpected costs for essential features or adding users. Instead, choose a software that offers a pay-as-you-go approach, allowing you to pay only for the responses you need, get unlimited user access, and show your total cost upfront as you build your survey, ensuring budget predictability.

• Market research support team: While most survey platforms offer basic technical support, their reps often lack advanced research methodology knowledge to provide guidance on more complex needs (e.g., questionnaire design, data analysis). The software you choose should have a support team staffed with seasoned market researchers available to offer expertise on these topics and more, ensuring you adhere to industry best practices.

Keep these factors in mind while we compare Qualtrics competitors, starting with an in-depth look at our survey-focused market research software, Pollfish.

11 Best Qualtrics Competitors

1. Pollfish
2. SurveyMonkey
3. Alchemer
4. Suzy
5. Medallia
6. Forsta
7. InMoment
8. Google Forms
9. QuestionPro
10. Microsoft Forms
11. AskNicely

1. Pollfish

In a nutshell, Pollfish lets you create market research surveys that reach a highly targeted audience using precise targeting filters.

You can choose from various question formats, add screening questions, and apply advanced logic pathways to customize your survey. Survey responses are automatically organized into clear, structured reports for effortless data analysis.

(You can skip to our detailed platform overview here.)

Why choose Pollfish over Qualtrics and other survey platforms?

We’ll highlight six key benefits that differentiate Pollfish as a compelling alternative for your market research needs:

• Ensure high data quality for every survey response by leveraging first-party data from our proprietary panel, along with comprehensive fraud prevention measures that include continuous respondent monitoring, a 30-day quarantine for new members, and sophisticated data cleaning techniques.

• Receive faster survey results by leveraging Pollfish’s large, highly engaged respondent communities, enabling you to gather responses within hours for general audience surveys.

• Pay only for the responses you need with our flexible pay-as-you-go model, eliminating the need for subscriptions, annual fees, and commitments that may result in unused capacity.

• See complete pricing upfront with our transparent cost structure that shows your total survey cost in real-time as you build your audience, preventing surprise fees and allowing for better budget planning.

• Work with a support team that’s staffed with knowledgeable market researchers, who can help with questions ranging from advanced questionnaire design, logic and routing in surveys, data analysis and interpretation, and anything related to market research best practices.

• Build surveys tailored to your exact specifications using our robust platform capabilities for audience targeting, questionnaire design, and data analysis, ensuring you never have to compromise on your research goals.

Ensure High Data Quality for Every Survey Response

The Problem with Relying on 3rd Party Panel Suppliers

Many survey platforms, including Qualtrics, rely on third-party panel providers to supply respondents rather than owning and managing their survey panels directly. This leads to several issues that can negatively impact data quality:

🚫 “Professional Survey Takers” Problem

Third-party panels typically operate on a direct payment model where individuals specifically sign up to take surveys in exchange for cash rewards. This incentivizes people to sign up for multiple platforms to maximize earnings as “professional survey takers.” As a result, they may:

• Provide rushed responses as they prioritize completing surveys quickly instead of giving thoughtful answers.

• Use strategic answering techniques to qualify for more survey opportunities rather than responding honestly.

• Generally contribute lower-quality data that fails to capture genuine consumer opinions accurately.

🚫 Lack of Transparency Regarding Data Sources

Third-party panels rarely disclose their verification methods or respondent sources. This lack of transparency creates uncertainty about data quality, a significant concern given the rise of survey fraud in recent years.

🚫 Multiple Middlemen Add Costs

Each intermediary between you and your respondents adds their markup. You pay more without improving data quality.

The Advantages of Pollfish’s First-Party Data Approach

Following Pollfish’s acquisition by Prodege (a market research and consumer insights giant renowned for being the largest single panel owner in the world), we leverage first-party data through a fundamentally different approach:

✅ Natural Environment Engagement

We embed surveys within apps people already use for other purposes, such as gaming or utilities. This allows us to reach respondents in their natural environment rather than relying on people who self-select into survey panels. The result is more authentic responses from real consumers, not just “professional survey takers.”

✅ Comprehensive Fraud Prevention

Owning our panel gives us full control to implement comprehensive quality safeguards:

• Continuous monitoring of respondent behavior to confirm they are genuine.

• 30-day “quarantine” for new members to complete internal profiling surveys before participating in client surveys.

• Sophisticated data cleaning techniques to identify and remove low-quality responses (e.g., trap questions, speeding prevention, anti-VPN measures, etc.).

✅ Precise Behavioral Targeting

Direct panel ownership lets us gather valuable behavioral data, like purchase receipts, enabling laser-focused targeting based on verified consumer actions rather than self-reported preferences or demographic assumptions.

For example, if a consumer recently purchased premium coffee beans from specialty retailers, you can precisely target them for your high-end coffee machine campaign using verified purchase receipts rather than assumed preferences or demographic generalizations.

✅ Lower Costs with Better Quality

Building and managing our own respondent network in-house eliminates extra fees and markups from third-party panel providers. This direct approach simultaneously reduces costs while significantly increasing data quality for our clients.

Receive Faster Survey Results with Pollfish’s Large, Engaged Respondent Communities

A common issue raised by users of other survey platforms is the lengthy wait time for responses. You often have to wait multiple days to get results back, even for general audience surveys.

For a general US audience survey on a broad topic with high incidence (like opinions on streaming service preferences), Pollfish can often gather 500+ responses within hours. This is extremely fast compared to other platforms, made possible due to the large, engaged respondent communities we’ve cultivated.

More niche, targeted audiences (e.g., pediatric oncologists with over 10 years of clinical experience) will have a longer turnaround time than broad, general population surveys. But Pollfish is still typically faster than competitors even for these niche surveys, and you can reach out to us for exact time estimates.

Pay Only for the Responses You Need Without Subscriptions or Commitments

The Problem with Qualtrics’ Subscription Pricing Model

Qualtrics offers a subscription-based pricing structure that may present challenges for some businesses:

🚫 Paying for Unused Capacity

With Qualtrics, you commit to an annual subscription fee regardless of your actual platform usage. For companies with fluctuating research needs, this could result in paying for unused capacity during slower periods.

🚫 Costly Per-User Licenses

Qualtrics charges additional license fees for each team member needing platform access. This gets expensive fast, especially if you have a large team or want to provide organization-wide access.

Pollfish’s Usage-Based Pricing Model

Pollfish offers a different pricing approach that’s more flexible to your fluctuating research needs:

✅ Pay Only for What You Use

With Pollfish, you only pay for the survey responses you collect. No annual fees, no subscriptions, no sunk costs. Just a simple pay-as-you-go model for the research you actually conduct.

✅ Unlimited User Access

Pollfish doesn’t charge per-user license fees. You can loop in your whole team, or even allow organization-wide access, without worrying about added costs.

See Complete Pricing Upfront with No Surprise Fees

🚫The Problem: Hidden Pricing and Surprise Fees

Many market research platforms use pricing models that can be confusing and lead to unexpected expenses. Here’s a common scenario:

• You sign up at what appears to be a fair monthly or yearly price.

• As you begin using the platform, you discover that certain essential features require additional payment.

• You encounter unexpected charges for things like targeting specific demographic segments, adding more users to your account, etc.

• What started as a reasonable budget item ends up being a much larger and unplanned cost.

✅ The Pollfish Advantage: Complete Pricing Transparency

With Pollfish, you always see your total cost updating in real-time as you build your target audience:

For example, let’s say you’re setting up a survey on consumer preferences:

1. You start by choosing a base audience (starting at $0.95 per response)
2. You add targeting criteria like “Female respondents only” (+$0.55)
3. Include “Married” in the marital status criteria (+$0.55)

You’ll immediately see the cost per completed response is $2.05. If you need 600 responses, your total is clearly displayed as $1,230. That’s the final price – no unexpected fees later.

This transparent model allows you to plan more reliably and adhere to your research budget without the frustration of surprise costs popping up.

Work with Support Specialists Who Understand Advanced Research Methodology, Not Just Basic Platform Features

The Customer Service Shortcomings of Most Survey Platforms

Customer service is not a priority for most survey platforms in the market. Once customers sign their contracts, they often feel abandoned, with several specific issues that stand out:

🚫 Lack of Advanced Research Expertise

Support reps at most survey companies can only handle basic technical inquiries. They lack deep knowledge about research methodology to help with more advanced needs.

🚫 Slow Response Times

Many survey platforms have frustratingly slow response times. Customers may wait days to hear back about urgent issues, causing critical delays in research projects and missed deadlines.

🚫 Limited Support Hours

Most competitors don’t offer support outside standard business hours. If you’re working on a survey late at night or on a weekend, you’ll likely be unable to receive assistance until regular business hours resume.

How Pollfish Solves These Problems

At Pollfish, we’ve made customer service a central part of our value proposition instead of treating it like an afterthought, unlike most survey platforms. Here’s how:

✅ Support from Knowledgeable Market Researchers

Our support team is staffed with knowledgeable market researchers, not just tech support. We can help you with questions ranging from advanced questionnaire design, logic and routing in surveys, data analysis and interpretation, and anything related to market research best practices.

✅ Rapid Response Time

Connect with our team via live chat in minutes, not days, which can help you maintain research momentum and meet tight deadlines.

✅ 24/7 Availability

Pollfish offers genuine 24/7 customer support, unlike most competitors. This round-the-clock availability ensures you can get help whenever you need it, regardless of time zone or day of the week.

Build Research Projects Exactly to Your Specifications Without Compromise

With surveys, oftentimes there will be very specific, unique requirements for your particular use case. It’s crucial to ensure that your chosen software has robust functionality to fully address your precise research needs. You shouldn’t have to compromise on your research goals due to limitations of the survey platform.

Let’s consider the following examples of common limitations:

• You need to target a particular audience segment, but the platform doesn’t offer the necessary targeting criteria. You’re forced to settle for a broader audience that doesn’t fully match your ideal respondent profile.

• You want to include certain question types and logic in your survey design, but the platform’s options are too basic.

• You have to export the raw data and utilize external tools to truly make sense of the results because the platform only provides rudimentary reporting and analytics.

To illustrate how Pollfish provides the flexibility and functionality to avoid these types of limitations, we’ll briefly cover its capabilities in 3 key areas:

1. Setting your survey audience
2. Designing your questionnaire
3. Analyzing results via user-friendly reports

For a more comprehensive look at these areas and an overview of the entire Pollfish platform, refer to this in-depth article on getting started with Pollfish surveys. It walks through each step of the process, from survey creation to data analysis, and more.

Note: While most customers use Pollfish as a DIY (do-it-yourself) tool to build their own surveys, we also offer a full-service option where market research professionals manage your entire project from start to finish.

Set Your Survey Audience

Choose from over 50 targeting criteria across six categories:

• Demographics
• Geographic Criteria
• Consumer Lifestyle
• Employment & Occupation
• Behavioral Data
• Media.

You can keep your targeting broad by focusing on just a few key criteria, such as age and gender. However, our platform also allows you to be incredibly specific in your targeting. For example, you could target women who meet all of the following criteria:

• Aged 25–34
• Living in the Pacific Northwest
• With a bachelor’s degree or higher
• Owns dogs
• Enjoys hiking and camping
• Subscribes to Netflix and Disney+
• Have visited travel websites in the past month
• Earns between $75,000 and $100,000 per year
• Works in healthcare
• Frequently shops at Target and Amazon

Most users won’t need to be this precise in their targeting criteria. Our goal is simply to illustrate the depth of customization available to you if your survey requires it.

This is just a brief overview. For more information on setting your survey audience, view this video.

Design Your Questionnaire

Design surveys using Pollfish’s 14 diverse question types, from simple multiple selection to complex matrix formats and more. Then, enhance your survey quality through advanced features like skip logic for personalized respondent pathways, screening questions, answer randomization, multimedia integration, AI survey creation, and pre-built survey templates for common market research use cases.

This is just a brief overview. See this page for more information on designing your questionnaire.

Analyze Results via User-Friendly Reports

Pollfish lets you visualize each survey answer with appropriate chart formats (simple tables, color-coded column charts, or intuitive pie charts) in an easy-to-navigate dashboard.

The platform also enables powerful data filtering by specific demographics or responses, such as only viewing results from female millennials in urban areas, or isolating feedback from respondents who indicated they “strongly disagree” with your product pricing.

The Insights Builder tool (available on the Elite plan) takes analysis further by enabling sophisticated data manipulation without Excel. You can create complex graphs comparing multiple variables at once, apply statistical testing to identify significant findings (like which features truly drive customer satisfaction), and customize visualizations with your brand’s specific color palette.

When you’re ready to share results, export options include PDF, Excel, Crosstabs, and SPSS formats, with the ability to seamlessly transfer graphs to PowerPoint presentations using your company’s templates and branding elements.

This is just a brief overview. Click here for an interactive demo of our Survey Results Dashboard.

Learn More About Pollfish

For more information on Pollfish, we invite you to:

• Create a free account (no payment information required).
• Book a personalized demo to see how Pollfish works for your specific needs.

2. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a market research platform that can help you:

• Create surveys (e.g., drag and drop survey builder, customizable templates, advanced survey design features)
• Create and customize online forms for events, applications, payments, etc.
• Analyze results via custom dashboards, charts, word clouds, and other analysis tools
• Export your data to 200+ popular apps like Mailchimp, Google Sheets, Microsoft Teams, and more

3. Alchemer

Alchemer is a survey and data collection platform that boasts several features and capabilities, which include:

• A plethora of different survey question types and advanced survey design features like logic and branching
• Real-time feedback and actionable insights from customers as they use your app or website
• Customer text sentiment analysis
• Integrations with platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Asana, Zapier, Microsoft Teams, etc.

4. Suzy

Suzy is a Qualtrics alternative and consumer insights platform that can help you:

• Conduct surveys with real-time feedback from targeted audiences
• Utilize templates, AI, and more for survey creation
• Connect with audiences through email, CRM, and social media integration
• Analyze consumer feedback with dynamic AI-powered analytics and customizable reporting

5. Medallia

Medallia is an all-around experience management software that can help you:

• Conduct agile research via surveys, online focus groups, and panel studies
• Increase contact center efficiency via conversation intelligence, agent coaching, quality management, and assurance optimization
• Improve employee experience via employee listening and activation solutions
• Implement comprehensive customer experience management programs across multiple touchpoints

6. Forsta

Forsta is another one of the best Qualtrics alternatives that can help:

• Conduct research via online surveys and focus groups
• Analyze what people say about your brand on Google, Facebook, Yelp, and more
• Receive input from customers via activity-based diary entries
• Measure and improve user experience through comprehensive journey mapping
• Centralize and analyze data from multiple sources in a single hub that connects feedback with behavioral and observed data

7. InMoment

InMoment is another Qualtrics competitor that lets you:

• Capture customer feedback across multiple channels
• Monitor, analyze, and respond to online reviews across popular platforms
• Automate the analysis of contact center conversations, chat logs, and emails to uncover customer sentiment
• Place microsurveys and interaction tracking to help you optimize customer journeys
• Analyze structured and unstructured data to detect customer intentions automatically, predict behavior, etc.

8. Google Forms

Google Forms is a free tool that can help you:

• Easily create forms via drag and drop functionality with a minimal learning curve
• Share forms via email and social media, or embed them on your site
• Customize forms using templates, flows, and quizzes, with colors that align with your company’s branding
• Easily visualize responses and optionally export to Google Sheets

9. QuestionPro

QuestionPro is a Qualtrics alternative that can help you:

• Easily create surveys via drag and drop functionality, with various question types and templates
• Utilize sophisticated methodologies like conjoint analysis, MaxDiff, A/B testing, etc.
• Map the entire customer journey and collect feedback at various touchpoints
• Gather feedback throughout the employee lifecycle

10. Microsoft Forms

Microsoft Forms offers a free plan and lets you:

• Easily create simple surveys, quizzes, and polls on customizable forms without extensive technical knowledge
• Visualize response data via automatically generated reports
• Export to Excel for more customized, in-depth analysis
• Integrate with other Microsoft 365 apps

11. AskNicely

AskNicely is a customer experience software that lets you:

• Gather customer feedback through email, SMS, and embedded surveys at key touchpoints
• Run NPS and CSAT measurement programs with intuitive dashboards
• Turn happy customers into brand advocates by streamlining the review request process to generate more 5-star ratings and referrals
• Connect seamlessly with platforms like Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Zendesk, etc. to embed feedback collection into existing workflows

Get Started with Pollfish Today

Create a free account (no payment info required) or book a personalized demo to discover how Pollfish can meet your needs.