The online form building niche is saturated with standout tools, but Typeform and Paperform are some of the more popular options. Users often compare these two due to their obvious similarities, but we think they are more different that you might think at first.
After testing both platforms, we decided to compare Typeform vs Paperform so you can decide which one better suits your demands.
Let’s see what we came up with!
Key takeaways
- Typeform is all about creating interactive forms with a conversational style. It only displays one question at a time to make for a more user-friendly and less overwhelming experience for respondents.
- Paperform gives you more flexibility customization-wise. This tool lets you design forms that look more like landing pages thanks to the combination of textual and visual content, which makes it a powerful tool for sales-oriented organizations.
Typeform vs Paperform: Comparison table
A quick look at the comparison table will show you that Paperform and Typeform have a lot in common, so you might want to check out the coming sections for extra details.
Key features tested and compared
Now it’s time to see what sets these two form builders apart. As their basic functions are similar, we’ll focus more on nuances that make them different.
Ease of use
It’s hard to make a form builder simpler than Typeform. Its dashboard is neat and clean, making it easy to navigate through the content and create your first questionnaire. Typeform allows you to build forms from scratch, pick a template, import questions, or use an AI assistant to make forms or qualify leads.
For the sake of this article, we played with the client onboarding form template:
The template is simple as it displays questions one by one, so you can quickly rearrange elements or make edits as needed. This kind of interface makes it nearly impossible to get lost or miss something, so it’s fair to conclude that Typeform is a beginner-friendly system.
On the other hand, Paperform only lets you create a brand new form or pick a template — no other options to be found when you click the ‘Create a form’ button. We again chose the client onboarding template, but this one turned out to be more content heavy:
The template is packed with multiple headings and question boxes for different use cases, so you can’t just send it as-is. Paperform encourages you to play with form design, but that’s exactly what makes it more challenging for new users.
Templates
Typeform and Paperform both feature massive template libraries with over 500 ready-made solutions. Typeform divided these into different categories based on form types, industries, and organizational goals:
It’s also possible to use the search box to quickly find a template you need. Though fairly simple, Typeform templates are a good starting point that you can expand and improve in a matter of minutes.
Paperform has a long list of built-in templates divided into different types of forms. Once again, a quick search will help you find an appropriate solution:
Generally speaking, Paperform templates feature more questions, visuals, and field boxes compared to Typeform. This can be an advantage in some cases, but you’ll have to do a lot of editing to adjust the form branding-wise.
Design and customization
Typeform offers a wide range of customization options to tailor the appearance of your forms. It lets you choose from different themes, fonts, and colors. It also lets you add images and videos to create a visually appealing experience.
You can add a brand kit that the entire team can use consistently throughout the forms, while branching logic streamlines the overall experience for respondents.
However, it’s not possible to change the one-question-at-a-time format. Typeform insists on this because it helps respondents stay focused.
| Note: No pre-filling in Typeform Unlike Paperform, Typeform doesn’t let you prefill form fields. This means your clients will have to fill out everything on their own even if you know the answers upfront. |
On the other hand, Paperform excels in its extensive customization and design flexibility. This tool provides a comprehensive editor where you can integrate various elements such as text, images, videos, HTMLs, and rich media alongside your form fields. Another option is to import media directly from online repositories like Giphy or Unsplash.
With so many design features available, it’s possible to build highly customized forms that serve all kinds of purposes — product showcases, event registrations, payment processing, opinion polls, and so on.
Another thing worth mentioning is that Paperform strongly focuses on payment features such as eCommerce, price and donation fields, coupons, discounts, and other functionalities that support product sales and management.
Data analysis
Typeform has excellent data analytics capabilities for in-depth insights into your form responses. For instance, you can use built-in reporting features to get real-time data visualizations, including summary statistics and detailed response breakdowns.
The system tracks metrics like completion rates, average completion time, and drop-off points to help you better understand user behavior and optimize forms accordingly. In addition, Typeform developed a machine learning system that gives you suggestions on how to improve your data collection process.
Paperform doesn’t offer as many analytics features, but it still does a fine job displaying the most important insights. For example, it shows you response summaries, submission trends, and individual response analysis. It also supports custom calculations and logic, allowing you to derive specific conclusions and automate actions based on responses.
For further analysis, you are free to export data or integrate with external tools like Google Sheets and various business intelligence systems.
Pricing plans
The benefit of Typeform is that it offers a free plan. Though it’s insufficient for any kind of serious work, it’s enough to get hands-on experience with most features before committing to a paid option. As for the paid plans, Typeform gives you these options:
- Basic: $25 per month (1 user)
- Plus: $50 per month (3 users)
- Business: $83 per month (5 users)
- Enterprise: Available upon request
Paperform, on the other hand, doesn’t have a free plan — it only offers paid plans that seem fairly similar to Typeform:
- Essentials: $24 per month (1 user)
- Pro: $49 per month (3 users)
- Business: $99 per month (5 users)
- Enterprise: Available upon request
In this case, we give a slight advantage to Typeform because it allows you to get the feel for the form-building process without any financial risk whatsoever.
Content Snare: The best alternative with important add-ons
Paperform and Typeform are obviously excellent form builders, but they aren’t perfect. For instance, both tools have limited autosave features, and they stick to emails as the primary means of communication with clients. Many users also complain about slow-loading long forms.
This is why lots of businesses often pick Content Snare as a more efficient alternative that quickly streamlines client relationships.
For one, Content Snare goes beyond the standard instructions — it allows your clients to ask questions so you can provide additional instructions on how to fill out a given field:
Typeform and Paperform lack this feature, although it proved to be a genuine time-saver.
Related: How Total Education Solutions shaved weeks off its document collection process
Unlike Paperform and Typeform, our platform saves progress automatically. You don’t need to set it up — the system is designed to support your clients from start to finish, so they don’t have to do everything in one sitting or manually save progress.
More importantly, this type of data collection efficiency doesn’t come at the expense of design or customization. Though the basic structure of Content Snare forms is fixed, you are free to add elements such as logos and brand colors to personalize the user experience.
Related: How this digital marketing agency saves 50 hours each month using Content Snare
The bottom line is that Content Snare helps clients gather information and documents in record time thanks to a portfolio of advanced features. The best part is that you can test all of them by signing up for a free 14-day trial.