According to the company website, Outside Software's eSurveysPro (which begins at $40 per month for the Premium plan, billed monthly) has achieved an uptime of 99.973 percent in the last seven years.
Not surprisingly for a product that has been around the block, it capably handles many of the basics.
However, its user interface (UI) could use a refresh.
For this reason and more, it doesn't beat our Editors' Choice Qualtrics in our online survey tools review roundup.
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Survey Design
In eSurveysPro you can create both surveys and polls, the latter of which are embedded in webpages and designed for ad hoc interaction.
Starting up eSurveysPro's question editor presents a drop-down list of its 19 different question types, without any clue of their function or format.
While the friendly SurveyPlanet (180.00 Per Year for the Pro Plan, Billed Annually at SurveyPlanet) relies on a simple listing as well, the presentation here is more complex due not only to the greater number of question types (many of which are mere aesthetic variations), but because of how similar many of them sound.
For example, "Matrix Single Choice" versus "Matrix Multiple Choice."
Outside Software addresses the issue by providing a link that brings up a separate page that provides examples of what the question types are, but I far prefer the thumbnails of SoGoSurvey ($12.00 at SoGoSurvey) or the extensive tool tips of Qualtrics.
Indeed, the UI could free up a lot of room by consolidating the long and largely contextually irrelevant menu of buttons down its left side.
When you're deep into designing a survey, you don't need to see buttons linking to the the company's FAQ or three-post blog a click away.
Another omnipresent button takes you to a "Latest Features and Fixes" for which the most recent entry is March 1, 2016.
Also like SurveyPlanet, questions exist in their isolated screen areas; this enables more focus but at the expense of the context of other questions.
To compensate, eSurveysPro offers two buttons to save a question, one that immediately brings up the question editor for a new question and another that sends you back to the question list.
It provides full formatting for questions, including hyperlinks, and allows bulk editing of answers.
However, there is no support for piping (bringing forward text used in previous questions into future questions) or masking (carrying forward answers that were chosen or not chosen).
Question layout duties are split between the type of question selected (horizontal versus vertical layout) and options in the question editor.
The question editor also does a nice job of integrating display logic, the ability to show and hide questions based on previous questions, including choices in matrix question.
However, there's no concept of setting variables like in more advanced packages.
There is also no way to take a "forest" versus "tree" view of the survey using tools that allow bulk editing or show survey flow.
When it comes to handling page breaks in surveys, eSurveysPro also has its quirks.
Unlike SurveyMonkey ($25.00 at SurveyMonkey) or SurveyGizmo, questions don't visually appear within pages.
Pages, though, are key to eSurveysPro's skip logic capabilities.
Survey designers can specify conditions that dictate how respondents answer certain questions.
When trying to branch off a matrix question, eSurveysPro could only test whether the question was answered, not on particular answer choices.
And while multiple conditions can be specified, eSurveysPro will only allow jumping if all of them are met.
The site's skip logic editor also introduces the confusing concept of groups, which seem to be a way of prioritizing rules.
Alas, apart from a basic FAQ, eSurveysPro has no online help.
All in all, it's a more limited and confusing implementation than in most other packages.
Outside Software eSurveysPro also isn't much of a tool for prettying up your surveys.
The product offers only a handful of themes.
However, it does enable full customization using CSS, so a competent web developer can have a lot of control over the content.
The product also has its own integrated mailing list editor.
However, it can generate only one collector link per survey, making tracking different kinds of campaigns a bit more difficult.
Once a survey is opened for fielding, it can't be edited or even viewed; that requires closing the survey to outside access.
On one hand, it's not a good practice to edit surveys after they've been fielded.
But while other tools place restrictions on what you can edit once a survey is fielded, there should at least be a way to review survey and page logic even as results pour in.
Reporting
You'll see that eSurveysPro offers a bit of flexibility in its reporting, going beyond the practically static displays of Checkbox Survey and SurveyPlanet.
As with its survey design, it offers even less in terms of aesthetic flexibility than its survey designer, but, also like its survey designer, it enables custom names for many options.
That said, you can view data in a number of different chart types.
The software supports multiple reports, and can create crosstabs and multiple filters based on factors such as certain answer choices or when the survey was taken.
However, only one filter can be applied at a time.
It has a basic report sharing function via a web link.
Pricing
Outside Software's application may lack many niceties of more sophisticated applications, but it's not gunning for the highest-end customers.
As with SurveyPlanet, eSurveysPro has a free tier that includes unlimited surveys with limitless questions to unlimited respondents, and its Basic tier, which includes data exporting, email support, and sending surveys to 1,000 emails per month.
Stepping up to the $200-per-year tier adds crosstabs and a customizable look and feel.
Higher pricing tiers bring phone support, multi-language help, and phone tech support.
There are no application programming interfaces (APIs) or integrations to tap into.
Final Thoughts
A capable if quirky package, eSurveysPro's UI isn't horrible, but it's certainly not slick and feels dated.
It even appears a bit neglected.
In terms of capabilities, it ranks above SurveyPlanet and has a few advantages over Toluna QuickSurveys (85.00 Per Month for the Premium Plan at QuickSurveys) on the design front, but lags the latter in reporting.
On the other hand, it ranks below tools such as Checkbox Survey and SoGoSurvey in terms of features.
Its aggressive pricing makes it one of the strongest value offerings.
Outside Software eSurveysPro
The Bottom Line
Online survey tool Outside Software eSurveysPro simply has not kept up with competitive offerings, and has significant feature gaps for which its low price doesn't compensate.
