If you have read any of my other articles here on this website, you will know that I am a big fan of doing paid surveys and making a bit of extra money this way.
But it can in some cases also be very useful to know how make one yourself. In this article, I will therefore go over how to make your own survey for free.
Why make your own online survey?
If you are reading this article, there is a good chance that you already have an idea that it could be useful to make a survey. It can for example be because you have a school project that you need some statistics for, a company where you need feedback about your products, an organization that needs info about its services, or anything else where you need statistics or feedback.
There are of course many ways to make surveys, and it is a whole science in itself to make good surveys. I do not want to go into all that in this article, as there are places where you can find a lot of information about this, and it is not something that I am an expert of. And for some purposes, it is also very fine to just use common sense and not make it a bigger deal than necessary to make a survey, if you need some answers.
The great thing about making a survey that is available online is that it is very easy to share it with people you would like answers from, and it can easily spread and therefore it can be a great and free way to get answers. But using free survey tools might not be right for everyone.
Who can use free survey tools?
In theory, everyone can use free survey tools. But it might not be the right solution for everyone depending on your needs. In general, the free tools are mostly for people that are using surveys in smaller scales. There are companies that are specialized in making surveys and collecting data, and these might be the best option, if you have big projects (and a fairly big budget as well).
But the free tools are great for many occasions, and will be enough for many people. There are many available and most of them are fairly easy to use. Below, I will go over a few of the options that are great, if you want to use the free tools. This is not a complete list, but an example of the sites I have found to work very well.
What tools can you use?
Before deciding which of the below tools you might want to use to make a survey, I would suggest you read through all the options, as the opportunities with each for them are different, and which one is best depends on your needs.
SurveyMonkey:
SurveyMonkey is one of the best known sites used to make surveys. It is easy to use and I myself remember using this as a student to collect data for assignments, and know many other students prefer this tool as well.
It is free to sign up and use, but the free version of course has some limitations. You can for example only ask up to 10 questions per survey, and get maximum 100 replies. But you can make as many surveys as you want with the free version.
If you need to make surveys that does not need a huge amount of replies, and that is fairly simple with less than 10 questions, the free SurveyMonkey version can definitely be a good and easy solution. If you want more options, you can buy access to upgraded memberships, but as this article is about how you can make surveys for free, I will not go into details about the paid versions here.
Google forms:
Google also has a tool that you can use to create surveys that is called Google forms.
The great thing about Google's tools in general is that they are mostly free and are of good quality. That is also the case for Google forms.
You can easily create a survey and there is many kinds of questions and looks you can choose from. Compared to SurveyMonkey, Google forms does not have a limitation in the amount of questions you can ask in each survey, and it is not possible to upgrade to a paid version. So if you need to do surveys with more than 10 questions, Google forms might be a better solution.
As with SurveyMonkey, you have to share a link to the survey yourself, and know where you want to share it to get replies. There are other sites where it is possible to get a bit of help with the distribution, if you do not know how to spread your surveys yourself, or just wish to get answers from a broader audience. The sites below are sites like this.
Toluna:
Toluna is a site where you can do paid surveys. But you can actually also create some kinds of surveys on the site yourself.
The options you have to create surveys are to create a simple poll, a duel between two topics, pictures, videos or similar, or you can create a thumbs up where people simple indicate whether they like a picture you uploaded or not.
Toluna does not offer so many advanced options in creating a survey as the two sites mentioned above, but then it has some other advantages. The biggest advantage of using Toluna is that you can get answers from other members for free.
This is a great option to reach further out and get feedback from people that you would not usually get answers from. So if you just need to make a simple poll or similar and want to reach people outside your normal network, Toluna can be a great way to do this. And it is free to sign up for and use, and you can actually make a bit of money, if you create some of the most interesting and popular content during a month. You can click here to read a full review of Toluna.
TimeBucks:
TimeBucks is a paid survey site and online reward portal, where you can earn money by doing a number of online tasks. But it also gives you the option to create a poll. This is the only kind of survey you can create on TimeBucks.
You can select up to 10 possible answers. TimeBucks is in general free to sign up for and use, but there is a fee to create a poll. The reason I am still mentioning it here is that it is a very cheap way to get a very broad reach for a poll. It costs 2 cents per answer, but you have to buy a minimum of 100 answers to create a poll. There is no maximum.
The great thing about using this option is that it will be other members that will answer. And they will answer for sure, as a part of what you pay for creating the poll will be given to the people answering. You can select what age, gender, and countries you want for the respondents.
So even though TmeBucks is not completely free, it can be worth considering, if you are interested in making a poll. It will make it reach the exact target group you want and for a cheap price compared to what you would usually have to pay for having targeted answers like this. You can click here to read a full review of TimeBucks.
How do you get people to answer surveys?
If you are using free tools to create surveys, the way to get answers is usually by sharing a link with people you would like to take the survey on social media, email etc. It can be a great way to get some data, but it can also be difficult to get answers. Your friends will probably happily participate, which is great. But sometimes you might need answers from other groups of people as well. If this is what you need, it can be great to consider using either Toluna, TimeBucks or similar sites, as you will reach new people, and people are usually very willing to give answers on these platforms.
Conclusion
As you can see above, there are plenty of ways to make free surveys. First, look at what your needs are. How many questions do you need to ask, to how many people, and who would you like answers from? Once you know the answers to these questions, it will be easy for you to select the right option above.
If you have any comments, questions or have used any great survey making tools yourself, feel free to leave a comment below.