Cognito Forms is one of the popular options among businesses and individuals who often create online forms. And why wouldn’t it be? This tool has an extensive feature set and versatile templates, so it’s natural to see it attracting a lot of users over the last few years.
But if you still feel like switching to a different tool, we’ll help you explore other form builders that meet your specific needs. In this post, we’ll breeze through the drawbacks of Cognito Forms and show you some of our favorite alternatives.
Let’s dive in!
Note: If you’re in a hurry, skip the drawbacks and jump straight to the list of Cognito Forms alternatives.
The basics of Cognito Forms
- Pricing plans: Free (limited), Pro ($15/month) Team ($35/month) Enterprise ($99/month)
- Built-in templates: 100+ templates across 15 industries
- Pros: Data collection and management, workflow automation, online payments
- Cons: Not user-friendly, you can’t insert multiple fields
Cognito Forms is a versatile online form builder that you can use to create surveys, online registrations, and many other form types. The platform offers advanced functions like conditional logic, payment processing, e-signatures, and integration with many third-party apps.
Although it’s a reliable form builder tool, Cognito Forms has some drawbacks that might convince you to search for an alternative.
For one, it’s not as user-friendly as you’d expect from a modern online tool. It feels like Cognito Forms is trying to display too many features at once, which makes its dashboard look a bit messy and hard to follow. Here’s one of many G2 user reviews addressing this issue:
Another downside is that you can’t copy/paste multiple form fields at the same time — you have to do it one by one instead.
In addition, Cognito Forms templates are designed primarily for customer-oriented businesses. That’s not a flaw per se, but client-focused businesses may struggle to create quality questionnaires from scratch.
Now, we’re pretty sure that you already know what bothers you when it comes to Cognito Forms, so enough with the drawbacks. In the coming section, we’ll present you with a list of our Cognito Forms alternatives that will make your life easier.
Some of the best Cognito Forms alternatives
1. Content Snare: Best for client-focused custom forms
- Pricing plans: Free (limited), Basic ($29/month), Plus ($59/month), Pro ($99/month), Custom ($179+/month)
- Built-in templates: 50+ templates
- Pros: Auto-saving, automated reminders, in-form conversations, approve/reject
- Cons: Not for bulk data collection
Yes, Content Snare is our very own software for creating forms, but it’s still one of the best alternatives to Cognito Forms. The platform helps you create powerful forms even if you aren’t a tech-savvy person thanks to its templates and drag-and-drop builder.
Content Snare is all about efficiency because it streamlines data and information gathering for all parties involved.
You can create forms in minutes, especially if you use AI-powered smart requests to upload and categorize multiple questions at once. You can also use pre-filling, so your clients don’t have to fill in the questions you already know the answers to. What’s best, respondents don’t have to manually save progress as Content Snare automatically saves their answers.
The platform sends automated reminders to give your clients a gentle nudge, but it can even send SMS reminders if you’re really in a hurry to get everything ASAP. This user review is Content Snare in a nutshell:
Content Snare online forms contain instructions by default to help your clients figure out exactly what you need. You can modify them to suit your brand style or requirements, but you also add instructions to individual questions if needed. All this will help you spend 70% less time gathering information.
So far so good, but are there any drawbacks?
There's one situation where Content Snare might not be the best fit for some users — it’s not made for bulk data collection. Our platform serves B2B companies working with individual clients, so you can’t just send an online survey to thousands of people at the same time.
But if you’re running a firm that frequently sends custom forms to clients, Content Snare is surely one of the best Cognito Forms alternatives you can find.
Improve data collection with Content Snare
Content Snare is not your average form builder. Unlike other tools, it actually helps respondents answer your questions quickly and provide accurate info on their first try.
2. Google Forms: Best for entry-level users
- Pricing plans: Free, Business Standard ($12 per user/month)
- Built-in templates: 10+ templates
- Pros: Simplicity, affordability
- Cons: Lacks many advanced functions
Google Forms is the go-to form builder for many individuals and small businesses. The reason is obvious — this tool is free and very simple. It offers all of the basic features that most online forms are made of, including multiple question types and file uploads.
If you don’t need a comprehensive platform to create attractive forms, Google Forms is probably worth a shot. But its simplicity is also what makes it much worse than alternative tools with advanced features. Take a look at this user review:
Apart from design and customization, Google Forms has limited integration abilities. You also can’t count on advanced conditional logic options. All things considered, this platform is perfect for users who want to make simple forms.
But if you need more than that, there are better Cognito Forms alternatives.
3. WPForms: Best for WordPress users
- Pricing plans: Basic ($49.5/year), Plus ($99.5/year), Pro ($199.5/year), Elite ($299.5/year)
- Built-in templates: 100+ templates
- Pros: Smart conditional logic, user segmentation
- Cons: No free trial
WPForms is a user-friendly plugin for creating and managing forms on WordPress websites. This tool enables you to quickly generate contact forms, surveys, payment forms, and many other types of questionnaires.
WPForms features responsive design, smart conditional logic, and advanced user segmentation options. These and many other functions make it a great solution for collecting data and engaging with site visitors.
WPForms integrates with popular email marketing and payment platforms, so you can greatly expand its functionality. Here’s a quick recap of this WordPress plugin:
The only thing we’d like to add is that WPForms doesn’t offer a free trial, which is a deal breaker for clients who’d like to test the platform before spending money on it. But if you run a WordPress website, this might be the best fit for your needs.
4. SurveyMonkey: Best for large-scale surveys
- Pricing plans: Individual (starting at $40/month), Team ($30/month for 3 users minimum), Enterprise (available upon request)
- Built-in templates: 100+ templates
- Pros: Text analysis, data visualizations, multilingual surveys
- Cons: Complex surveys, no auto-saving, price
SurveyMonkey is a widely used information gathering tool with features that go beyond basic survey creation. It offers advanced skip logic and branching options, so you can create highly customized and dynamic surveys.
The platform supports a wide range of question types, including matrix questions and ranking input fields. This is followed by sophisticated data analysis tools such as data filters, cross-tabulations, and trend analysis. Here’s a brief but solid overview of SurveyMonkey:
We’ve seen many users complaining about forms that end up being painstakingly long. This is a pretty big issue given that SurveyMonkey doesn’t automatically save answers. We’ll also add that the price of using this tool is definitely on the higher end.
But if you need reliable software that successfully manages all types of online surveys, rest assured SurveyMonkey will do the trick.
5. LeadGenApp: Best for customer conversions
- Pricing plans: Pro ($49/month), Scale ($99/month), Enterprise ($250/month), Exclusive (available upon request)
- Built-in templates: 400+ templates
- Pros: A/B testing, custom design, geo-fencing for limited form visibility
- Cons: A low form limit for a pretty high price
LeadGen App is one of the newer tools on our list, but it’s a great alternative form builder if you’re interested in lead generation. The purpose of this software is to optimize your forms and increase the conversion rate.
The thing we like about LeadGen App is that it offers a template for all kinds of stuff, from voting and subscriptions to product evaluation and lead qualification forms. That’s also why you don’t need any coding knowledge whatsoever:
The pricing can be an issue for some businesses, though. LeadGen App is relatively expensive, especially if you know that you can create a fairly modest number of forms. For instance, the Pro plan lets you build only 20 forms for $49 a month, which isn’t enough for most companies.
The bottom line: Create professional forms with Content Snare
If the limitations of Cognito Forms are slowing you down, then it only makes sense to replace it with a more powerful form builder.
Though it’s not the only option at your disposal, Content Snare proved to be one of the best solutions for accounting practices, digital agencies, law firms, and many other businesses that frequently ask for content, files, and information from their clients.
The best thing about Content Snare is that it lets you add instructions to the forms and individual fields. That way, your clients can hardly make a mistake when answering questions, uploading website content, or submitting financial records.
