A Qualtrics alternative that's free, with no sales call and no response ceiling
Qualtrics is enterprise research software; its cheapest self-serve plan is $420 a month for 1,000 responses, and its free tier is a 100-response lifetime demo with 1 active survey at a time. PuckSurveys is free with unlimited responses, no cap, and it shows you how sure people were, not just what they picked.
Qualtrics is the enterprise standard for experience management, and it is priced like it: its cheapest self-serve plan is $420 a month ($5,040 a year, billed annually) for 1,000 responses, and its enterprise tiers are quote-based. Its free account exists to demo the platform, not to run on: 100 responses total for the life of the account (retaken and deleted responses count), 1 active survey at a time, and 15 questions per survey. PuckSurveys takes the opposite approach. It is free with no response cap, unlimited surveys, the full results dashboard included, no sales call, and an answering experience that captures how sure people were. If it earns its keep you can chip in for the servers, but nothing is ever locked.
| PuckSurveys | Qualtrics (free account) | |
|---|---|---|
| Free responses | Unlimited | 100 total, for the life of the account |
| Active surveys on free | Unlimited | 1 at a time |
| Starts free, no card | Yes, free | Paid only; $420/mo self-serve and up |
| Email the survey out on free | Yes, share it anywhere | Capped at 10,000 sent emails, total |
| Results dashboard | Full, free (conviction, replay, signals) | Powerful, on paid tiers |
| Confidence on each answer | Yes, the puck | No |
| Replay of how people answered | Yes | No |
| Question types | Puck questions, multiple choice, and select-multiple, mixed in one survey | Full research suite |
| Sells your data / ads | Never | No (enterprise terms; check theirs) |
| Cost | Free; optional tip | Self-serve from $420/mo ($5,040/yr, 1,000 responses); enterprise quote-based |
Why people switch
- Free, not $420 a month. You can build a survey and send it today at no cost; Qualtrics' cheapest self-serve plan is $420 a month ($5,040 a year) for 1,000 responses, and its enterprise tiers are quote-based.
- No 100-response ceiling. Responses are unlimited and free here, versus a free account that stops at 100 for its entire life, with one active survey at a time.
- You see hesitation, not just choices. Sliding a puck between No and Yes captures conviction on every answer, a signal a click-based answer doesn't record.
- The insights aren't gated behind a plan. Conviction, the answer replay, and the full dashboard are free for everyone, with nothing to unlock.
When Qualtrics is the better choice (we'll say it, and mean it):
Qualtrics is the enterprise standard for experience management for a reason. If you are running a large-scale customer, employee, brand, or academic research program and need advanced statistics like conjoint, MaxDiff, TURF and driver analysis, managed respondent panels, deep integrations, and enterprise compliance and governance, Qualtrics has depth we do not. We are for the everyday survey where you want a better answering experience, and the conviction behind each answer, free and without a sales call. If your work needs a full XM platform, that is them. If it needs richer answers people actually enjoy giving, that's us.
Competitor details as of September 2026, taken from their public support and pricing pages. Check theirs for the latest.