Top 4 SurveyMonkey Alternatives in 2024

Figure 1. Popularity of the keyword “SurveyMonkey” on Google search engine between 2016-2023

SurveyMonkey Audience offers a platform for recruiting survey participants, used by over 300,000 organizations. This service allows users to design surveys, select a specific audience, and distribute their surveys to a well-matched group. Despite its widespread popularity among businesses, users encounter some challenges with the platform(See Figure 1).

Source: Capterra

Figure 1. SurveyMonkey Audience customer reviews on the software review platform Capterra

In this article, we review SurveyMonkey Audience list some alternatives that address customers’ challenges with SurveyMonkey.

Top 4 SurveyMonkey Audience alternatives

Note: The survey audience category only exists on Capterra review platform. We relied on Capterra, SurveyMonkey, and its alternatives’ websites to have a holistic picture of SurveyMonkey’s capabilities.

Note: With SurveyMonkey Audience and resonio by Clickworker (sponsored) at the top, we’ve alphabetically listed the vendors.

If interested, check out our articles on survey tools vendor deep dive such as Qualtrics and Pollfish.

How do online participant recruitment services work?

Online participant recruitment services help companies create and share surveys with multi-faceted questions, multimedia elements, and the option to skip some questions based on respondents’ characteristics (e.g., gender, age group, region, etc.).

Companies leverage services from online survey participant providers to conduct market research fast and with the right sample to understand the public’s opinions, preferences, or thoughts.

SurveyMonkey Audience evaluation

SurveyMonkey Audience is a service provider and helps companies find the right sample for their surveys with more than 175M respondents worldwide. They, as most of the survey participant recruitment services, use a panel that includes a global poll of respondents. By giving consent, participants can sign up and participate in different surveys.

Source: GetApp

Key features

SurveyMonkey Audience has many attributes, such as the capability to implement custom screening questions, compare the survey results with all platform data, and report. However, not all features are evaluated positively, such as its lack of Google integration. Based on customer reviews:

• Implement custom screening questions.
• Compare the survey results with all platform data.
• Reporting and analytics services receive the highest ratings.
• Multi-channel distribution, and panel management receive lower marks.

Source: Capterra

• API integration: SurveyMonkey does not offer Google integration.
• Survey builder: SurveyMonkey Audience got 3.5 out of 5 as it needs to improve its survey-building system, allowing for different question types.

• Multi-channel Distribution: SurveyMonkey offers only a web-based panel, and desktop or mobile (via Android or iOS) deployments are not offered. 
• Panel Management: Based on the customer reviews on Capterra (See figure 4), the panel management system is the least-liked feature of SurveyMonkey, with 2 stars out of 5.
• Benchmarking: In terms of its benchmarking capabilities, SurveyMonkey Audience got 3.5 out of 5.
• Reporting/Analytics: Among the other features, SurveyMonkey got the highest rankings for reporting, which shows that after you obtain the data from respondents, you can easily analyze the data to get the best out of it.
• Pricing: Starts from 1 USD per response. Free trial is not available.

4 alternatives to SurveyMonkey Audience: An extensive review

Here, we provide a list of alternatives to SurveyMonkey Audience and how they address the aforementioned weaknesses.

1. resonio by Clickworker

resonio is a brand of Clickworker, with a global network of over 5 million crowd size in more than 160 countries. resonio provides a survey tool, complementing Clickworker’s existing services with new capabilities. The platform aims to make it easier for businesses to acquire insights through surveys.

Key features

• Survey Builder: resonio allows you to allocate individual survey links for each survey participant, enabling tracking individual results. You don’t need to worry if there is any error in providing surveys to the respondents.
• Multi-channel Distribution: resonio has a mobile app for Android and iOS so that their crowdsource can easily use their mobile phones to complete the tasks.
• Panel Management: Instead of traditional web-based panels, resonio offers a Code of Conduct to their crowdsource that regulates cooperation between service crowd workers, providers, and customers. By doing this, resonio prevents the same participants from taking a survey repeatedly. They also offer exchange opportunities via a forum and social media platforms.
• Benchmarking: resonio offers managed crowds via their external partners so that you can compare your survey results with other data.
• Reporting/Analytics: resonio provides high and quick response rates without allowing multiple participation, making the data analysis much easier without missing data points.

• Pricing: Prices change when different features added, however you can calculate how much you need to pay using their website.

2. Qualtrics CoreXM

Key features

• Survey Builder: Qualtrics Core XM allows you to randomize questions, insert skip, display, or brand logic options, and offers a survey flow editor. It received 4.7 out of 5. 
• Multi-channel Distribution: In terms of distribution, Qualtrics Core XM offers Web, e-mail, social media, QR code, SMS, vanity URL, or offline distribution possibilities, and it got 4.5 out of 5 by its broad range of opportunities to reach the respondents.
• Panel Management: Qualtrics Core XM allows you to track respondents’ participation over time via the panel, and you can also communicate with your panel members to get personal feedback. The service got 5 out of 5.
• Benchmarking: They help you compare the results from all platform data and your results to grasp the market better.
• Reporting/Analytics: Based on customer reviews on Capterra, Qualtrics Core XM got 4.5 out of 5. Regarding analytics, they offer text iQ, stats iQ, and crosstabs, allowing you to exclude low-quality responses by filtering the data. They also consolidate research and centralize insights with one platform, so you do not need to jump between different software. 
• Pricing: They offer custom pricing. Free trial is available for basic elements. You can also request a demo.

Note: Ratings are based on customer reviews on Capterra.

You can also check out our article on Qualtrics vendor deep dive and its alternatives.

3. Pollfish

• Survey Builder: Pollfish has 10 different question types ranging from open-ended to rating questions. They also allow you to add media files. Based on customer reviews on Capterra, it gets 4.5 stars out of 5.
• Multi-channel Distribution: It offers a web-based panel and a mobile app for Android and iOS users, and its multi-channel distribution feature got 4.6 out of 5.
• Panel Management: It differs in how they manage their respondents in the way that they prefer organic sampling, which means they target groups that can be a great fit for a survey and send them the surveys. Thus, instead of a traditional web-based panel, they work with an opt-in mechanism.
• Benchmarking: It allows you to compare your survey results with all platform demographics and data to have broader insights into the quality of your data and how representative they are. Based on customer reviews on Capterra, it got 4.4 stars out of 5.
• Reporting/Analytics: Its reporting tool helps you to conduct real-time analysis, such as sorting and filtering the data. Customers gave its reporting capabilities 4.5 stars out of 5.
• Pricing: Pricing starts from 0.95 USD for each response. Free trial is not available.

Note: Ratings are based on customer reviews on Capterra.

Check out our article on Pollfish evaluation and its alternatives if interested.

4. Appinio

Key features

• Survey Builder: You can ask various types of questions to the respondents and get insights regarding your ads, analysis of your target group, or pricing analysis. 
• Multi-channel Distribution: It is a mobile-only platform, so there is no panel that participants can log in to on the desktop. Thus, Appinio respondents should have the app on their mobile phones, and they receive push notifications when a new survey is available.
• Panel Management: Appinio allows the respondents to compare their answers with the opinions of other respondents and add gamification to their questions to make them more appealing. So, they have an interactive approach when it comes to panel management.
• Benchmarking: Although we could not find data on that feature, respondents from more than 90 countries help compare data from multiple markets.
• Reporting/Analytics: You can export and analyze the data in real-time to analyze the behavior of the respondents. Appinio also helps their clients in conducting significance tests or any other analysis. However, customer reviews indicate that data visualization can be improved.
• Pricing: The pricing starts from 1 USD per response. Free trial is available.

6 essential features of online survey recruitment services

1- Survey builder

Building a successful online survey requires attention to detail. If you want to ask different questions to different groups or skip questions for a specific age group, you need to ensure that survey does not contain any errors. 

2- Multi-channel distribution

Multi-channel distribution refers to the number of channels for the deployment of participants. Companies usually offer a web-based panel where participants can log in and complete the tasks. Companies also offer desktop or mobile (via Android or iOS) deployments. 

3- Panel management

Creating and managing the panel discussions in which respondents answer questions and give their opinion on a specific issue is a critical part of the research process.

4- Benchmarking

Comparing the results you got from participants with those from other customers using the same recruitment service helps businesses understand and evaluate their findings from a broader perspective and consider the whole market.

5- Reporting/Analytics

Reporting survey results is as crucial as preparing the survey and determining the scope of the research. If you do not use the proper analysis methods, you may have misleading results and wrong strategies. 

6- Pricing

The prices of the services change based on the respondent size, the length of the survey, the question types, etc. While some services offer a free trial with basic tools, others want you to pay first.

If interested, here is our data-driven list of survey participant recruitment services and survey tools.

For those interested, here is also our data-driven list of market research tools.

Reach us if you have any questions on survey participant recruitment: