What are online form builders?

Online web form builders are a web-based piece of software that allows you to create web forms to serve your business purposes. Registration form, survey form, contact form, payment form, and other forms are easy to make with online form builders. Simply put, there's no need for your team to design and develop a form by themselves. Instead, you create a form in special ready-to-use software and place it on your website, landing page, or wherever you need it.

What are the benefits of using online web form builders?

In the past, it would take a team of developers to code a well-designed and highly functional web form to capture leads for the sales department. Today, things have changed. Online web form builders have made form creation significantly more accessible. Here is a list of the key advantages of using them:

  • Web forms are easy to create. Usually, the interface of good online web form builders is very intuitive and user-friendly. All the features are accessible within a couple of clicks, and you can edit your forms in various ways.  Moreover, modern online web form builders are so advanced they allow for pretty extensive customization of your forms.
  • Online web form builders are a real time saver. Considering the straightforward nature of online web form generators, you can quickly create beautiful and highly functional web forms.
  • Online web form builders make it possible to quickly implement changes without the involvement of the developer. Considering that most online web form builders are drag and drop tools, you don’t need to worry about having to code your web forms and making any code-related changes. This means that you can be way more efficient in doing your job and implement the necessary changes yourself and run various tests without delegating the task to a different person from the development team and waiting for the implementation.
  • They allow for cleaner data. Ready-to-use web forms can be connected to your CRM system, so your data is clean, complete and up-to-date. The CRM records are enriched with all the form data, so there’s no need to copy and paste it from the email or any other place. No manual work, fewer errors.
  • Online web form generators offer a library of ready-made templates for you to edit. If you have no idea where to start from and what web form fields to add, you can benefit from the broad selection of web form templates. You can pick one of the ready-to-use options and customise them to fit your needs and match your brand identity.

When can salespeople use online web forms?

We’ve already covered the question of why you’d want to employ online web form builders in your sales and marketing processes. Now it’s time to decide whether or not you need the forms in question in the first place.

Online web forms can be of use for the sales team in the following ways.

Collect contact information.

While some of you may simply add an email address for your website visitors to reach you out, we strongly recommend adding a separate contact us form. It’s another touchpoint that grows your audience, an opportunity to grow your email list, and let’s be honest, getting so many emails per day, an important one with a potential client may just get lost in your inbox.

Fields to include into the contact form. You don't need to add too many fields to your contact form. The main section you need is a box for the text message. Apart from that, add first and last names, contact information, and the business department they want this message to reach and process.

Survey your customers.

Whether you want to learn more about customer experience and get feedback about your product or event you hosted, you’ll need to set up a survey web form. It’s an excellent opportunity to find out how your product performs, whether it meets customers’ needs, and the functionality your users expect to get shortly. It helps to understand your audience better. These forms can also be used to run industry or market research or evaluate your service after the purchase is done.

Fields to include into the survey form. Multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank and long-form responses. These fields vary depending on your product and the things you are looking to evaluate.

Get product registrations.

These are lead generation web forms (sign up forms) that businesses use to convert website visitors into potential customers or buyers. Using proper web forms, you can automatically create new contacts in CRM already enriched with user data. And with the right CRM, you can set up automated triggered lead nurturing to increase the chances of a meaningful conversion.

Fields to include into the registration form. You definitely want to know who the prospect is and if they are suitable for your product or service. Also, the more information you have, the more personalisation you can apply to your nurturing process. Thus, you need to ask for basic details like name and last name, contact information like email or phone, their company, and job title. If the registration form implies access to the product, you most likely need to add the password field. Of course, the more data you have, the better it is for you. However, make sure you don’t include too many fields to have a fair web form completion rate.

Get attendants to your event.

Whether you are hosting an online webinar, Ask-Me-Anything Session or an Online Conference, you need a web form to collect attendants. This form allows you to track the expected number of attendees, who have paid, the type of content the attendees want to hear and collect the questions they want to be covered at your event.

Fields to include into the event registration form. Those will be the primary fields with the attendee’s first and last name, company, job title, type of ticket they want to buy, billing information, additional workshops they wish to visit.

Grow your email list.

Newsletters can be a great way to educate potential buyers, make sure you always pop up in the head of prospects, and build a relationship with your potential or existing customers. Share your stories, promote your business, and showcase your products in front of a targeted audience to turn subscribers into buyers.

Fields to include into the email subscription form. To make the process the easiest for everyone to subscribe to your newsletter is to add a single field into your form, which is an email address. In case if you want to send more personalised emails, you can add the recipient’s first and last name and category of the news they’d like to receive, for example, product updates, company news, sales topics, or marketing insights etc.

However, to leverage the benefits of online web form builders and use them for the aforementioned sales tasks, you need to invest in the correct software for your particular business. At the moment, there are lots and lots of online form builder apps available on the market. Not all of them are equally good. Some online web form builders are better than others because they offer more extensive functionality, are cheaper (or free), have specific features to complement your business needs, etc.

Here is the list of criteria that differentiate an average online web form generator from a good one:

  • Flexible enough to make anything from a simple contact form to a detailed, multi-page survey
  • Simple and fast to use so you can build a form in under five minutes
  • Designed to work on any website - preferably, the tool you decide to invest in should offer you several share options and be compatible with whatever web page you insert the code into.
  • Affordable. Regardless of how wide the range of features the web form builder offers, it shouldn’t be too expensive. There are always comparable yet slightly cheaper options that won’t make a hole in your budget.

The 6 best online form builders for your business

Here at NetHunt, we’ve decided to make your search for the appropriate online web form creator for your business easier and quicker by compiling a list of the best tools.

#1 - Web Forms by NetHunt

Web Forms by NetHunt is a free online form builder that offers responsive web forms with no registration required. It lets you create multi-purpose online forms quickly with powerful drag and drop form builder. While creating a form, you get a unique link where you can see all the responses. Also, you can send the web form data to the webhook and pass it to any other software or CRM that you use.

What is unique about Web Forms by NetHunt?

  • No sign up required: your web form submissions are stored within the web form builder and you get access to them with a unique link. Remember to save the unique link for the form.
  • Ability to use webhook to pass data to third-party software you use.
  • Easy to modify and implement changes: you simply make the changes in the form builder, preview and save them, and you are all set. All the changes are reflected on the live web forms automatically.
  • Web Forms by NetHunt can boast with the stylish design of the forms: the look and feel of the forms can fit any even recently-designed website.
  • Smooth interface: this is probably the cleanest, the most intuitive and easy-to-understand interface.
  • Unlimited number of web forms created or responses received.
  • Ability to connect web forms to NetHunt CRM to store the entire communication history with the lead and set up automated triggered nurturing processes to increase the conversion rate.

💰Web Forms by NetHunt are free to use.

#2 - JotForm

JotForm is a perfect online form builder for individuals or companies who don’t know where to start from while creating their first form. JotForm offers tons of available templates to choose from for any purpose or niche. It is suitable for every industry as it provides personalisation and branding tools and templates to fit any niche and company size.

Whether you need to create a product or event registration form, online booking, or survey form, JotForm helps you with that.

What to like about JotForm?

  • JotForm offers the most extensive library of ready-to-use templates: choose among 10,000 pre-made templates for various purposes and industries.
  • Jotform is integrated with more than 1,000 other software like reporting and analytics tools, payment processors, CRMs, and social media platforms, extending functionality and convenience for capturing form submissions and processing.
  • No programming experience needed: the software offers advanced form elements, conditional logic, and options to create web forms depending on your use case.
  • Form creation collaboration: web forms can be created in a group with your colleagues or clients and make any changes simultaneously, making the whole process very quick without numerous back and forth messages.
  • Multiple layout options ( to place one question per page or all questions on one page ) make it easy to run A/B tests.
  • Multiple complementary tools: e-signature, PDF converter to transform online forms into fillable PDFs, and mobile app to create and edit forms on-the-go.

💰 JotForm offers a limited free plan for five online forms and 100 form submissions. Bronze Plan starts with $29 per month for 25 forms and 1,000 monthly form submissions.

#3 - Form Builder from Visme

Form builder from Visme is an ideal solution for users with no design experience. It is not just another form builder. Visme offers a form builder that can be helpful for everyone who needs to create their online forms.

Why does this form builder stand out of the crowd?

  • With Visme’s DIY no-code form builder, you can easily place a premade form template right inside of a presentation, document, infographic, or other piece of visual content, or place it on a landing page on its own.
  • Share online with a Visme-hosted link or embed to a page on your website to collect submissions.
  • Build your form from scratch by dragging and dropping your choice of form fields onto your form. Easily rearrange and customize the fields so you collect only the data you need.
  • Сreate simple, single-step forms with only a handful of fields, or you can create complex multi-step forms that span across several pages.
  • Easily access and export form results.
  • Take advantage of third-party integrations.
  • Customize your form’s colors, fonts, borders, background design and more. Plus, you can pull from all of Visme’s other design elements, like icons, photos and videos, to create a stunning, interactive form that grabs attention and increases submissions.

Using the form builder with Visme is absolutely free. To access some of the more advanced features, you’ll need to upgrade to a business account, but you can easily create basic forms at no cost. A Starter plan costs $29.00 monthly (or $12.25 biled yearly where 6 months free)

#4 - 123FormBuilder

123FormBuilder, at its core, is an online form builder, which is as easy as 1-2-3 in any way. The entire tool is no-code, meaning you don’t need to write a line of code to utilise the tool fully. They claim it’s possible to create literally any type of web form you may need. With 123FormBuilder anyone can create complex surveys or forms to collect data in minutes.

  • The tool offers a complete white label solution that allows you to fully integrate it into your products for internal use or reselling.
  • 123FormBuilder has multi-language forms that you can show in different locations or browser.
  • More than 30 elements to choose from to use as a form field: text, drop-down, radio buttons, signatures, Captcha, scales, social buttons, rating stars and radio buttons.
  • Pixel-perfect web forms due to extensive customisation.
  • SMS and email notifications to know instantly once you receive a new form submission.
  • Safe data collection: 123FormBuilder is a GDPR- and HIPAA-compliant tool, also offering smartCAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA, SSL, password protection, country filters, and data encryption to keep your customer’s data safe.

💰 The free plan of 123FormBuilder allows you to create 1 form and get an unlimited number of submissions, while with Individual Plan you can create up to 5 online forms.

#5 - Google Forms

This is a well-known free web form builder for individuals and businesses who have a Google account. There are some features of Google Forms that make it to be one of the best online form builders: such as an unlimited number of forms created, unlimited number of responses, and collaboration functionality. Even though Google Forms offer some basic features, it’s a perfect tool for those who don’t want to pay for form builder software.

Why would you choose Google Forms as a form generator?

  • It has major question types to add into your online form: short and long text field, multiple-choice, checkbox and multiple choice grids, linear scale, etc.
  • Google Forms offer basic customisation options regarding branding: you can only check the background colour and the header picture. Thus, if branding is not your priority, you are good to go with Google Forms.
  • Straightforward user interface: there’s simply nothing extra that can take your attention off the questions you create.
  • Forms are responsive and accessible on any device.
  • You can evaluate both individual and summarised responses visualised in charts and graphical reports. All the submissions are chronologically organised and can be automatically added into Google Spreadsheet with email notifications on new submissions.

💰 Google Forms is free software to create forms online

#6 - Form Builder from Visme

Form builder from Visme is an ideal solution for users with no design experience. It is not just another form builder. Visme offers a form builder that can be helpful for everyone who needs to create their online forms.

Why does this form builder stand out of the crowd?

  • With Visme’s DIY no-code form builder, you can easily place a premade form template right inside of a presentation, document, infographic, or other piece of visual content, or place it on a landing page on its own.
  • Share online with a Visme-hosted link or embed to a page on your website to collect submissions.
  • Build your form from scratch by dragging and dropping your choice of form fields onto your form. Easily rearrange and customize the fields so you collect only the data you need.
  • Сreate simple, single-step forms with only a handful of fields, or you can create complex multi-step forms that span across several pages.
  • Easily access and export form results.
  • Take advantage of third-party integrations.
  • Customize your form’s colors, fonts, borders, background design and more. Plus, you can pull from all of Visme’s other design elements, like icons, photos and videos, to create interactive form that increases submissions.

Using the form builder with Visme is absolutely free. To access some of the more advanced features, you’ll need to upgrade to a business account, but you can easily create basic forms at no cost. A Starter plan costs $29.00 monthly (or $12.25 billed yearly where 6 months free)

#7 - Paperform

Paperform is an online form builder app with a simple user experience yet powerful features. It’s different from other form generators because instead of drag-and-drop functionality, you can add questions anywhere on the page, like in the text document. Having lots of business templates, in the Paperform’s library, you can also find just-for-fun templates, such as Personality Quiz templates.

Why Paperform is worth trying?

  • Interactive content. Not just questions and answers, you can insert pictures, videos and styled text on the page. In other words, you can create a landing page with an embedded web form.
  • Paperform is suitable for taking payments with Stripe, Paypal Business, Braintree and Square. It’s not just for one-time fixed payments; you can use it for donations with a flexible sum or monthly subscriptions.
  • Customisable success message that is tailored to the responses or redirect the submitter to another page.
  • Question Visibility Logic: dynamic customisation of the form experience based on respondents’ answers.
  • Perfect tool for ecommerce: Collect orders, manage inventory, process payments and automate emails within one platform.

💰 Paperform is not suitable for you if you are on a budget as it does not have a free plan. Pricing starts at $15 per month with an unlimited number of forms and 1,000 monthly form submissions.

Each online form builder has its strengths and weaknesses, and each of them has something to offer for your specific use case and particular business needs. It only means that you need to try a few tools, and with the help of trials and errors, choose the most suitable for you.

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