Mobile survey solutions: how to create + 10 best apps [2025]

November 7, 2024 (Updated) | By Sam Pelton
Cartoon representation of a person holding a phone and filling out a survey on that phone

What Is a Mobile Survey Platform?

A mobile survey platform allows you to create survey questions that people can answer via their mobile device—whether they receive the survey via email, SMS, or on your website.

Because, let’s face it, everything is mobile these days. So you need to reach your audience where they’re actually looking.

That way, you can make the most of your efforts to collect the data you’re looking for! (Note that in this context, a mobile survey platform is not referring to a mobile tool that surveys networks, such as iBwave.)

You can create your survey from your mobile phone survey app, and from there you can view and analyze the responses.

Here’s an example.

Say you wanted to know about your customers’ recent interactions with your business. Via a combination of your mobile survey app and an SMS platform, you could text out a survey asking how satisfied they were with their experience.

Your customers could then easily click the link in the text message and fill out the form directly on their mobile phone.

Then you’ll be able to see the results of the survey from within your mobile survey platform.

Thus, for example, you could gauge how your customers’ felt about their recent interaction.

(And you may also be able to do some damage control if you can follow up with those who were “dissatisfied”!)

Or, as another example, you may simply want to get your employees’ preferences on the upcoming holiday staff party. You could ask whether they prefer a weekday evening, a Saturday evening or Sunday evening.

Whatever question you’d like to ask your employees, customers, or audience—you can do it via a mobile phone survey app.

​​Why Use a Mobile Survey Platform?

It’s almost become a cliche that people are glued to their phones these days.

Look around the waiting room at the dentist’s office, and what do you see? People on their phones.

On the bus or subway? People are on their phones.

Even at restaurants? People are on their phones.

That all may feel true, but does the data back it up?

You betcha!

As far back as 2015, Pew Research found that:

  • 64% of all Americans already owned a smartphone.

  • 85% of all young adults in America owned a smartphone.

  • 97% of all of the smartphone users studied (and 100% of users aged 18-29) used texting at least once in a weeklong period.

That same year, RealityMine did a study concluding that, for all age groups, texting had surpassed calling as the mobile function used most often.

More recently, the CTIA determined that a total of 2.2 TRILLION text messages were sent in 2020. (That’s approximately 2,200,000,000,000!)

So in order to reach people effectively and efficiently - to connect with your audience and hear their thoughts and opinions - you need to make sure you have surveys optimized for mobile. And even better if you can actually use texting to send out these mobile surveys!

Mobile surveys can help alleviate frustration from both you and your audience with less time wasted on ineffective communication efforts, and more time spent actually connecting.

10 Best Mobile Survey Apps

Finding new tools can always be difficult, because there’s so much to sort through. So what are the best mobile survey apps out there?

Here’s a sample of them…

Typeform

Typeform

One of the most popular form creation solutions on the market is Typeform.

This is the form creation tool that we personally use and affiliate with here at Mobile Text Alerts (hence if you use our link we may get an affiliate commission).

With Typeform we’ve found it to be super easy to create and customize a form with their online builder—you can create conditional logic for what questions should show up based on the respondent’s answers to the different questions within the survey.

And, perhaps best of all, you can easily embed the form into your website.

  • Review ratings: 4.5 out of 5 (G2)
  • Pros based on reviews:
    • Easy to use / intuitive
    • Simple
    • Features
  • Cons based on reviews:
    • Expensive
    • Missing features (though many reviews praised their features, others complained about missing features)
    • Limited customization

SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a survey form creator with 300,000 customers across the world.

  • Review ratings: 4.5 out of 5 (G2)
  • Pros based on reviews:
    • Easy to use
    • Features
    • Customization
  • Cons based on reviews:
    • Survey issues
    • Limitations
    • Expensive

Google Forms

Google forms

Google Forms is the form creator tool that’s offered as a part of Google’s toolbox of online apps.

  • Review ratings: 4.7 out of 5 (Capterra)
  • Pros based on reviews:
    • Simple
    • Flexible
    • Easy
  • Cons based on reviews:
    • Missing features
    • Limitations

Jotform

Jotform

Jotform is an online form creator tool that brands itself as the “easiest online form builder.”

  • Review ratings: 4.7 out of 5 (G2)
  • Pros based on reviews:
    • Easy to use / intuitive
    • Simple
    • Customization
  • Cons based on reviews:
    • Form issues
    • Form design
    • Limited customization (ironically customization is listed as both a pro and a con)

QuestionPro

QuestionPro

QuestionPro is a survey creator tool that’s designed for enterprise-level businesses.

  • Review ratings: 4.5 out of 5 (G2)
  • Pros based on reviews:
    • Easy to use / intuitive
    • Customer support
  • Cons based on reviews:
    • Survey issues
    • Learning curve
    • Expensive

Voxco

Voxco

Voxco is a survey creation tool that calls itself an “insight platform.”

  • Review ratings: 4.3 out of 5 (G2)
  • Pros based on reviews:
    • Easy to use / intuitive
    • Customer support
    • Integrations
  • Cons based on reviews:
    • Survey issues
    • Learning curve
    • Poor customer support (ironically customer support is listed as both a pro and a con)

SurveyPlanet

Surveyplanet

SurveyPlanet is a survey tool that emphasizes having a free option.

  • Review ratings: 4.1 out of 5 (G2)
  • Pros based on reviews:
    • Easy to use
  • Cons based on reviews:
    • Limited features

SuperSurvey

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Supersurvey

SuperSurvey is self-dubbed as “the fastest free survey maker.”

There aren’t enough online reviews available to make an assessment on the pros or cons of the product.

SurveySparrow

SurveySparrow

SurveySparrow is intended to be a VOC (“voice of customer”) platform to help you get insight into your customer feedback.

  • Review ratings: 4.4 out of 5 (G2)
  • Pros based on reviews:
    • Easy to use / intuitive
    • Good user experience
    • Features
  • Cons based on reviews:
    • Expensive
    • Limitations / missing features
    • Survey issues

Qualtrics

Qualtrics

Qualtrics emphasizes the use of AI to help you analyze the data you collect.

  • Review ratings: 4.4 out of 5 (G2)
  • Pros based on reviews:
    • Easy to use / intuitive
    • Features
  • Cons based on reviews:
    • Survey issues / survey limitations
    • Learning curve
    • Limited customizations

Alchemer Survey

Alchemer

Alchemer Survey brands itself as a survey platform for “customer-obsessed” teams.

  • Review ratings: 4.4 out of 5 (G2)
  • Pros based on reviews:
    • Easy to use
    • Customer support
    • Customizability
  • Cons based on reviews:
    • Survey issues
    • Expensive
    • Learning curve

How Does a Mobile Survey Platform Work?

Think a mobile survey platform would be difficult to set up and use?

Think again!

Setting up mobile surveys via a mobile survey app can be pretty painless.

The survey tool we use at Mobile Text Alerts is Typeform, so I’ll use that as an example…

Step 1: Choose a Plan

Screenshot of Typeform plans

Review the plans in your mobile survey platform of choice and evaluate which one will work best for your needs—and for your budget!

Some major plan differentiators may include how many responses you expect to get and users.

Step 2: Create a Form

Once you’ve selected a plan in your mobile phone survey app, you can start creating survey forms.

With Typeform, you can build a form from scratch, import questions from another, or use AI to help you create the form.

The online form builder will walk you step by step through the creation of the form.

Step 3: Pay Attention to Mobile

As you’re building your form, you’re able to build specifically for a web browser and/or for mobile.

Make sure you pay attention to the mobile view so that you can make sure to optimize your survey for mobile.

Screenshot of Typeform builder
Screenshot of Typeform builder

Step 4: Share or Embed Your Form

Once your form is complete, you can share the link with your audience.

Alternatively, you can embed the form onto your website using the embed code provided by the mobile survey platform.

What Are Some Use Cases for a Mobile Survey Platform?

You may be like a lot of people who want specific, concrete examples of something in action.

So, here we go!

Check out some different ways you could use a mobile survey app for your business or organization.

Internal Communication

Is your internal workplace (or volunteer-place) communication haphazard?

Even if it’s not, there are surely ways it can improve!

People miss phone calls, forget about emails, and ignore memos.

Mobile surveys can help ease the frustration.

The below real-life examples demonstrate some ways you could use a mobile survey to improve communication with the employees in your business or organization.

(Note: some information has been edited for privacy and clarity purposes.)

RSVP for Events

Please join us for dinner and drinks at [event name] on [date], [time] at [location]. Employees are invited to bring a guest. Please RSVP by [date]. - Select 1 for Attending Alone, 2 for Attending with Guest, 3 for Not Attending

Employee of the Month

Who would you like to be next month’s Employee of the Month? - Select A for Alyson, B for Terri, C for Greg, or D for Aaron

Scheduling

When works best for you to attend our Safety Team makeup activity? - Select M for Monday, W for Wednesday, or F for Friday

Employee Interests

The CDC has approved COVID-19 vaccine boosters and our employees meet criteria for eligibility. We are currently determining interest so that we can make plans to provide booster vaccines for those interested. Please select a response: - Select 1 for Interested, 2 for Not Interested

Staff Opinions

How do you like the new setup in the break room? - Select 1 for Love It, 2 for It’s Good, 3 for It’s OK, 4 for for I’m Not a Fan, 5 for Hate It

Customer Interests and Preferences

If you’re a businessperson, you know how important it is to connect with your customers and give them what they actually want.

Why waste time pursuing things your customers don’t care about?

Use mobile phone survey apps to help put uncertainties to rest as you’re making decisions about how to move forward with your business.

Here are some examples of how!

We will be adding short videos that will offer fashion tips and more! Would you be so kind as to let us know what types of videos you'd like to see? - Select 1 for How-To’s, 2 for Future Product Sneak Peeks, 3 for Tips and Tricks


We’re going live at 8:30 PM tonight! What inventory do you want to see us present? - Select 1 for “One and Done” Accessories, 2 for Statement Pieces


What are your preferred days and times for watching our videos on Facebook? - Select 1 for Weekday Evenings, 2 for Weekend Afternoons, 3 for Weekend Evenings


[Company Name] is going to be giving one of these concert tickets away soon! Pick your favorite and stay tuned on how to win! - Select A for Chris Stapleton, B for Luke Combs, C for Reba McEntire


Here's a list of growth stocks on-deck for [company name]. Which one would you like to see added? - Select A for [stock option 1], B for [stock option 2], C for [stock option 3]

How Much Does a Mobile Survey Platform Cost?

No one needs to be convinced that pricing is an important factor to consider when thinking about implementing any new solution.

So how much does a mobile survey app actually cost?

The good news is that depending on your needs, some mobile survey platforms (such as Google Forms) are actually free.

But if you need more robust features that free options don’t offer, you can expect to pay a minimum of about $25–$40/month. Most standard mobile phone survey app prices don’t go beyond $100/month, so the plans tend to be generally affordable.

What Mobile Survey Option Is Right for You?

You probably know that surveys are a good thing for businesses.

And you probably know that it’s good to make sure they’re optimized for mobile.

So which mobile survey app is right for you? If you haven’t already chosen one, your best option is to select a couple and compare. And then just go for it.

The expense isn’t robust so there’s minimal risk

Just get out there and go for it!

While you’re at it, consider what avenue you’ll use to communicate these mobile surveys to your customers. SMS is one of the most effective ways because it is specifically on your phone.

Try it for yourself for free via an SMS platform and see how it works.

And happy surveying!

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