Microsoft Forms vs Zoho Forms

Microsoft Forms

• Organizations that already pay for Microsoft 365
• Classroom quizzes and quick polls in Teams or PowerPoint
• Internal surveys restricted to people inside one organization

Zoho Forms

• Businesses that already run Zoho CRM, Desk or other Zoho apps
• Field teams collecting data on phones without a connection
• Processes where each submission needs multilevel approval

Microsoft Forms

• Forms is not sold on its own; the paid versions come inside Microsoft 365 plans.
• Personal Microsoft accounts are limited to 200 responses per form or quiz when free and 1,000 when paid.
• Each user can create up to 400 forms, with up to 200 questions per form.
• Copilot features need a Copilot license, and Microsoft points to Dynamics 365 Customer Voice for more advanced branding and analysis.

Zoho Forms

• The Free plan is limited to 3 forms and 500 submissions a month, and its forms carry a Powered by Zoho footer.
• Basic covers a single user; 10 users start at Standard, and the user add-on is available only on Premium.
• HIPAA compliance and form encryption are listed under the Premium plan.
• Every plan has a monthly submission cap; extra submissions and storage are add-ons for paid plans.

Microsoft Forms

Surveys, quizzes and polls

Build surveys, quizzes and polls in a browser. Branching questions collect more detailed information by sending respondents to different follow-ups.

Real-time charts and Excel export

Responses appear in real-time charts and automatically generated reports, and can be exported to Excel for custom analysis.

Copilot in Forms

With a Microsoft 365 account and a Copilot license, Copilot drafts a form from a prompt, suggests refinements and summarizes results into key findings.

Quizzes for teaching

Quizzes assess student progress, can carry videos in their questions and export answers to Excel. Forms is available to Office 365 Education customers.

Polls inside Microsoft 365 apps

Polls can be created in Teams, Outlook and PowerPoint, with an allowance of 400 polls on top of the 400-form limit.

Sharing options and themes

Distribute a form by short URL, QR code, Outlook, Teams or an embedded link, limit it to specific people in an organization, and restyle it with editable themes.

Zoho Forms

Drag-and-drop builder

Build standard, card-style or spotlight forms without code, using more than 50 field types, subforms, formulas and multi-page layouts.

AI form creation with Zia

Generate a form from a prompt, or convert a PDF or a photo of a paper form into an editable form. A Smart Scan field fills in answers from an uploaded document image.

Approvals and workflows

Send submissions through multilevel approvals, assign entries to team members, and trigger emails based on responses. Approvals are listed from the Standard plan.

Payments

Collect payments through gateways including Stripe, PayPal, Square, Razorpay and Authorize.Net. The Free plan allows 10 payment submissions.

Mobile apps with offline mode

The iOS and Android apps build forms and collect entries without a connection, with kiosk mode, QR and barcode scanning, location capture and signatures.

Reports and PDF documents

Build reports with filters, a Kanban view and CSV or PDF export, and turn submissions into PDFs such as certificates and invoices.

Microsoft Forms

• Microsoft account$0

  Forms with a free personal Microsoft account: up to 400 forms, 200 questions per form and 200 responses per form or quiz.

• Business Basic (no Teams)$5.40

  per user / month, paid yearly

  Microsoft 365 with web and mobile Office apps, business email and 1 TB of storage per user. Forms is included, Microsoft Teams is not.

• Business Basic$7.00

  per user / month, paid yearly

  The same plan with Microsoft Teams, for up to 300 users. Work accounts can collect up to 5,000,000 responses per form.

• Business Standard with Copilot$23.50

  per user / month, paid yearly

  Adds desktop versions of the Office apps and Microsoft Copilot in apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams.

• Business Premium with Copilot$32.00

  per user / month, paid yearly

  Adds device security and management, threat protection and sensitive-data protection on top of Standard.

Zoho Forms

• Free$0

  1 user, 3 forms, 500 submissions a month, 200 MB of storage and up to 10 payment submissions.

• Basic$10

  per month, billed annually ($12 billed monthly)

  1 user, unlimited forms, 10,000 submissions a month and 500 MB of storage, with branding and custom form themes.

• Standard$25

  per month, billed annually ($30 billed monthly)

  10 users, 25,000 submissions a month and 2 GB of storage, plus approvals.

• Professional$50

  per month, billed annually ($60 billed monthly)

  25 users, 75,000 submissions a month and 5 GB of storage.

• Premium$90

  per month, billed annually ($110 billed monthly)

  100 users, 150,000 submissions a month and 10 GB of storage, plus HIPAA compliance, form encryption and SMTP.

Microsoft Forms

• Nonprofit

  Business Basic free for eligible nonprofits

  Microsoft's nonprofit page lists Microsoft 365 Business Basic, which includes Forms, as a grant that is free for up to 300 users, with staff pricing of $3.50 for Business Standard and $5.50 for Business Premium.

• Education

  Office 365 A1 free for eligible schools

  Educators and students with an eligible education email address can get Office 365 A1 for free. Microsoft says Forms is available to Office 365 Education customers.

Zoho Forms

• Annual discount

  Lower monthly rate with annual billing

  Billed annually, Basic is $10 per month instead of $12, Standard $25 instead of $30, Professional $50 instead of $60 and Premium $90 instead of $110.