If you're relatively new to the world of surveys and are willing to sacrifice capabilities for ease of use, then online survey tool SurveyPlanet (which begins at $180 per year for the Pro plan, billed annually) may be worth checking out.
SurveyPlanet's essentialist user interface (UI) has such a clean, well-spaced layout that it could be mistaken for a mobile application.
And while its question choices are limited, it has enough power under the hood to meet the needs of many users.
However, it still doesn't garner the Editors' Choice in our online survey tools review roundup, a designation that instead goes to competitor Qualtrics.
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Survey Design
After starting a new survey in SurveyPlanet, all of the action happens in a purple sidebar on the left-hand side that lists the standard steps of creating questions, applying themes, sharing a survey, and looking at results.
Page breaks between questions are assumed, unlike with SurveyGizmo or Toluna QuickSurveys (85.00 Per Month for the Premium Plan at QuickSurveys) .
SurveyPlanet's page break style is very consistent with the product's lack of visual clutter, although there are often situations where a survey designer may want multiple questions on a page.
Creating a question turns the whole screen into a large Question Editor that sacrifices context for focus.
SurveyPlanet supports only nine question types (more if you count multiselect "check box" and drop-down questions separately as most packages do).
One way the product keeps things simple is by gradually exposing more options as needed.
For example, the option to specify a minimum or maximum number of answer choices pops up only when you specify that a multiple choice question enables multiple selections.
That said, there is some flexibility.
For example, SurveyPlanet lets you add questions by picking individual questions out of templates.
A notable omission is matrix questions.
While matrices can entail some complexity, they are a popular option for having respondents provide similar questions for a range of options.
For example, if you were to ask respondents if they would prefer to buy, lease, or finance a range of car brands, then each brand would need to be its own question in SurveyPlanet.
It also lacks support for a "None of the above" type option in multiple-select questions.
Still, as you build a survey, a dynamic time estimator updates at the bottom of the purple editing sidebar.
This is an improvement over SurveyGizmo's approach, which requires navigating to a testing page to get an estimated time.
There are limitations within the types of questions it supports as well.
SurveyPlanet doesn't support display logic, the ability to hide or show questions based on actions that preceded them.
It also lacks support for piping or masking, carrying forward information from questions or answers into future questions in a survey.
However, it does support skip logic, which it calls "Question Branches." And unlike other tools, it offers the ability to skip all future questions of a certain type if a certain condition is met, as well as set up multiple actions based on a condition.
SurveyPlanet also has a unique UI to keep track of its question branches.
As with QuickSurveys, logic isn't tracked from the questions that affect them, a system that can prove a bit disorienting.
However, unlike Toluna QuickSurveys, SurveyPlanet's UI includes helpful visual flow diagrams.
The lines linking questions can be clicked on to review rules.
This visual UI was the best one I saw outside of Qualtrics' "Survey Flow" feature for tracking the logic in a survey, but still seems as if it could be relatively intimidating compared with SurveyPlanet's other watered-down options.
I would like to see more tools include both SurveyPlanet's overview-based flow of rules and the question-specific window into logic you'll find in SurveyMonkey and SurveyGizmo ($25.00 at SurveyGizmo) .
SurveyPlanet can share surveys to a wide range of social media, and its developers are beta testing the ability to send surveys to an integrated mailing list.
Its SurveyPlanet Audiences facility walks survey designers through a simple five-step process to get a cost quote on relatively simple panel demands.
Options include specifying the size of the sample, its language, and country, and whether the survey is asking for personally identifiable information.
But unlike with SurveyMonkey, the wizard isn't integrated into the rest of the offering, and quotes are not delivered in real time.
Like Checkbox Survey , SurveyPlanet lacks the ability to generate multiple collector links for easily filtering out responses from different sources.
And as with Checkbox Survey, it provides no ability to filter or crosstab results in its Reporting page.
However, it at least provides the ability to visualize results with a variety of chart types as a complement to exporting data.
Pricing
SurveyPlanet's feature set may not approach that of other packages, but neither does its pricing.
Its free plan is particularly generous, offering unlimited surveys of unlimited length to unlimited respondents over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connections.
That alone should encourage many people with simple survey needs to sign up for an account.
It also supports creating surveys in up to 20 languages and a choice of a few themes.
The one big caveat is an inability to export survey data; that's a particularly tough limitation given the product's lack of reporting analysis features.
However, upgrading to the Pro version costs only $180 per year, about half the price of the paid tier of SurveyMonkey ($25.00 at SurveyMonkey) .
Paying up opens the door to exporting data as well as such features as exporting and printing surveys, the well-executed question branching, kiosk mode, and white-label surveys.
Final Thoughts
SurveyPlanet has the most welcoming UI of all the packages I tested, and is ideal for those looking to step up from Google Forms.
Even its Pro version is affordable.
The product does a good job of simplifying what can be a journey through screens of options into a few concise, easy-to-understand choices.
That said, those who have more complex questionnaire development needs or would like the flexibility to do some analysis in reports will find that SurveyPlanet is limited in how well it can grow with their needs.
Pros
The Bottom Line
Online survey tool SurveyPlanet is an easy, affordable step up from Google Forms that won't scale to more complex questionnaires.
