Tally Alternatives in 2026: Which Free Form Builders Actually Still Exist
Form Builders · Updated 8/30/2026
Disclosure first
We have tested Tally end to end (full evidence-linked review). For the alternatives below we verified pricing against official pages only — Typeform pricing and platform overview, Jotform pricing, Google Forms about page — captured August 30, 2026 (Typeform free-plan limit re-checked August 31) — we have not built forms in them. Read competitor rows as “what the vendor claims,” not as our hands-on findings.
Correction (2026-08-31)
An earlier version of this page claimed Typeform “no longer has a free tier at all.” That was wrong, and we are keeping the correction visible. What our 2026-08-30 screenshot actually shows is that no Free card appears among the pricing tiers — but the same page’s FAQ confirms a free plan still exists (“The free plan is a great way to explore Typeform… with a limited number of responses per month”), and Typeform’s official platform overview (checked 2026-08-31) states it directly: unlimited forms, 3,000+ templates, up to 10 responses per month. The lowest paid self-serve tier is Basic at 28 USD/mo on the captured page.
So the real story is not “Typeform killed free” — it is how small the surviving free plans are: 10 responses/month caps Typeform’s free tier before a single real survey finishes; Jotform’s caps at 5 forms; Tally’s free plan, the only one we exercised end to end, claims no caps (subject to a fair-use policy that does publish soft trigger thresholds — see our pricing breakdown).
Tally vs the alternatives on paper
| Tool | Free plan (official-page verified) | Key difference vs Tally | Tested by us? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tally | Unlimited forms & submissions; payments, webhooks, integrations included | — | ✅ hands-on, evidence-linked |
| Google Forms | $0 with a Google account | No native webhooks or payments; Sheets-native analysis is its moat | ❌ docs only |
| Typeform | Free plan exists: unlimited forms, 10 responses/mo (official overview, checked 2026-08-31); no Free card shown among pricing-page tiers | Paid entry 28 USD/mo (Basic card, captured 2026-08-30); brand-name converter UX | ❌ official pages only |
| Jotform | Starter plan marked FREE: 5 forms, 100 monthly submissions, 1 user, 100 MB storage (official page captured 2026-08-30) | Hard numeric caps vs Tally’s unlimited claim | ❌ pricing page only |
Note the shape of the market: every major player still waves a “free” flag, but the ceilings differ by orders of magnitude — 10 responses/month on Typeform, 5 forms on Jotform, none stated on Tally. That is a pricing-page-level statement (the Typeform and Jotform rows are quoted, not tested) — and a reminder that third-party “X free plan limits” tables go stale fast; every row above points to an official source and a capture date.
When Tally is the wrong pick anyway
- You need auto-graded quizzes → Google Forms has it, Tally doesn’t.
- Your org is Workspace-bound and IT won’t approve new vendors → Forms’ gravity beats features.
- You need enterprise compliance out of the box (SSO, DPA at scale) → Tally’s Business tier is newer than Forms’ enterprise machinery.
Bottom line
If “usable free plan” is the requirement, Tally is the strongest default among what we can actually stand behind: it is the only row in the table above where we exercised the free plan in a real browser end to end. The Typeform and Jotform numbers are vendor-quoted, not tested — read the table with that asymmetry in mind, and re-verify against live pages before paying for anything. “Free” in form-builder comparisons has a short shelf life.
Competitor pricing captured from official pages 2026-08-30; Tally claims linked to tested evidence in our hands-on review. Prices change — check the vendor page before deciding.
Evidence index
Every claim above links here. Screenshots captured with Playwright, unedited.
- tally-11-01-typeform-pricing.png — Typeform's live pricing page, 2026-08-30: lowest self-serve pricing card is Basic at 28 USD/mo — no Free card shown among the paid tiers (the free plan itself still exists, per the page's own FAQ)
- tally-11-02-jotform-pricing.png — Jotform's live pricing page, 2026-08-30: Starter plan 'FREE *' with 5 forms / 100 monthly submissions / 1 user / 100 MB
- tally-05-01-pricing-top.png — Tally free-plan feature list (tested in our hands-on run, 2026-08-30)
- tally-04-04-submissions.csv — Tally's tested CSV export — the capability bar alternatives are judged against
